CNYScouter

Our council currently has 3 camps. 1 is Dining Hall style for Troops/Crews. 1 has patrol cooking for Troops/Crews. 1 is used exclusivley for Cub Scout Resident Camp. Each Distict has a Day Camp Program that runs Mon-Fri from 8 to 4 held at a park in the district. Facilities and activities vary at each day camp. 1 to 1 ratio is not needed but each Den needs to supply at least one parent to attend each day. Tigers through Bears can go to Resident camp. This runs from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. There are 3 or 4 weekends. We have 2 Webelos weekends that run Friday morning through Sunday Afternoon. both of these require a parent/guardian to attend all weekend and are held at the council cub camp. There is also a Webelos Adventure weekend that runs Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon. This also require a parent/guardian to attend all weekend and is held at one of the scout camps (dining hall). At one time we used to offer Firefly camp. This was for the whole family and ran Mon-Thurs from 4pm to 10pm at the councils cub camp. I think our cub camos are all volunteer run.

Thanks for letting me know where to get the answers for my questions. I had looked at the OA site but didn't know what publication it would be in. After seeing the OA in action and talking with some of the lodge advisors over the weekend I can see nothing but good being involved with the OA and was trying to find a way to get these scouts involved as their Troops can't seem to get around to have OA elections.

emb021- Thanks. I knew someone on this forum would have the answer. In just finding out I am one of the few people in the council qualified to run Venturing Leaders training I wanted to be sure I was doing the current training. I would like to run VLSC training in the Fall. I have never seen this offered by our council. I didn't know there was a patch for this.

I feel your pain I've have just spent 9 months looking for a organization willing to charter a Sea Scout Ship. However, I didn't want a CO that was on paper only but wanted some interest in the Ship. My DE or I contacted almost every marina/sailing club in the area before finding one that was interested in being a CO. Now a CO has come forward the Navel Reserve Center has said they will help and if I can geta ship going a nd runiing they would supply the uniforms. Why a Navel Explorer Post over a Sea Scout Ship(uder the Venturing Program)? Explorer Posts are not run by the BSA but by Learning for Life. See if your council/district has Venturing Crews you may find more support from council that way. However your council should have access to the survay done each year in the local high schools by Learning for Life that can identify youth with intersts As far as finding a CO see if their are any flying clubs in your area. We have one club in our area that has a Scout day. Through the Young Eagles program they have a day in which club members take scouts for a short ride in airplanes. Talk with the Air Force recruiter in your area. He may have contacts for a CO or can offer assitance to get something started. The American Legion can be a good CO. Most have a meeting room you can use and most will take an interest in a Scouting program.

I was talking with out councils NYLT course director over the weekend. He said that NYLT was open to Venturing Crews. Our council has yet to run NYLT as it was canceled last year due to not enough scouts signing up. I asked him what would be required for a Crew member to attend. I know that the Troop JLT is recommended to attend NYLT but he wasn't sure if there was something like this for Venturing. He also wasn't sure about how to handle female Venturers at this. Is this training suited to Venturing Crews? Is there recommended training for a Crew to take before attending?

Update: Nothing new. All the training chairs had heard new training was coming out but none knew when or much about the changes. I'll post again if I hear anything more about this

This weekend I was at SM/Outdoor Leader Training. I was talking with one of the other staffers who was his districts OA chapter advisor and the talk turned to OA and Venturing Crews. I've found the answer on these forums for one of my questions about female Crew members joining OA. They can not because one of the requirements is to be 1st Class. Is there any thoughts being given to changing this to allow female OA memebers under 21? I think that the youth-led concept in OA could do nothing to help a Venturing Crew and female Crew members could benefit from this. The other question I had he couldn't answer was: If a Venturing Crew has eligable members for OA can it hold elections? I know I have some Scouts interested in joining the Sea Scout Ship but thier troops haven't done OA elections in years. Again I think being involved with the OA can do nothing but help the Ship in the long run.

emb021- I went up to the US Scouting Service Project website and did a search for "Venture Patrol". I got 148 pages of results most of them having to do with Venturing. I even saw a Powerpoint presentation from 1999 about "Why a troop should start a Venturing Crew". Can you let me know the name of the Presentation(s) I should be looking for. Thanks

It seems that many adult Troop Leaders wont use a Venture Patrol and Im constantly hearing how a Troop wants to start a Venturing Crew as an extension of a Scout Troop. Many of these adult Troop Leaders are worried that a Venture Patrol will become an "elite group" or do not want to have older scouts split into a separate patrol as it takes leadership away from the Troop. So they want to form a separate group (a Venturing Crew) to give the older scouts a place to go. I also see there is very little in the way of training from the BSA on how to successfully use a Venture Patrol within a Troop setting. Is a venture patrol used on a full-time, part-time or a one-time basis? Or is a Venturing Crew the way to go? Any words of wisdom on using a Venture Patrol in a Scout Troop? How do you keep it from becoming an elitist group and still keep the older scouts involved with the Troop program?

I guess the issue I have with the DE is that I have never said that I wanted to start a Venturing Crew that does sailing but have stated that I wanted to organize a Sea Scout Ship. I just think its easier from the start to adopt the Sea Scout uniform than to try and get the Ship to agree to it in a few months. I really like to see the BSA put out some training on how to use a Venture patrol in a troop. Many of these adult Troop Leaders see a Venture Patrol as becoming an "elite group" or do not want to have older scouts seperated as it takes leadership away from the Troop. So they want to form a seperate group (a Venturing Crew) to give the older scouts a place to go. (Hey EagleDad, how about a paper on using the Venture Patrol in a Troop!) I'll check out the Ships Store. One thing I have been told is if I can keep this going is that a retired Rear Admiral and the Naval Reserve Center are interested in being involved. I am hoping the Navy will do the same as the Army does with the JROTC Crew and give them their uniform (the JROTC Crew uses standard army fatigues and dress uniforms). Just hoping I guess.

This didn't sound right to me either but this is what my District Training Chair told me. What brought this up is that at this meeting I found out I am one of the few people in my Council that is qualified to do Venturing Leaders Training. In starting a new Sea Scout Ship the Adults will need to have this and I can't see doing old training if something new is coming along and is something I haven't done. Over the weekend our council is having both WLOT and SM/Outdoor Skills training. I know at least 4 of our councils 6 Districts training chairs will be there so I ask around and post anything I find out.

Eamonn I was subscribed to the forums. A few months ago I stopped receiving e-mails. Now when I try to get to the forums I get a page not found error. I couldnt agree more with the statement about "Educating the Public on Venturing". The Terms Venture/Venturing do become confusing at times and are often swapped. When I took Venturing Leaders Basic one of the other people taking the training was there because his troop wanted to start a Venture Patrol. I have lost count the number of times I have heard from Scoutmasters/Troop Leaders My/Our troop wants to start a Venturing Crew. Most adults in Scouting see Venturing as Advanced Boy Scouts and not as a stand-alone program. One of the first things I remember the trainerssaying was that the most successful crews stand on their own and most do not have strong ties to a Scout Troop. I see that the 2 most active and successful Venturing Crews in our council have no ties with Troops. The Army JROTC charters one and the other is a Civil War Reenactment Crew. Some of the things that I liked about the Sea Scouts were that in the requirements, getting a uniform, what active means, and pulling your weight financially are outlined and not left up to interpretation. The DE I have been working with has been very helpful. I did have a problem about the uniform with him. When we presented the idea for a Ship to the Yacht Club someone asked about the uniform. I said that it was suggested we adopt the Standard Sea Scout uniforms (Blue Work/Dress White) as we will need these if we want to attend any Regional/National Sea Scout events, which is one thing I want to encourage. At that time the DE stepped in and said, No, the Ship could design its own uniform and did not have to use the standard uniform. When I spoke with him afterwards and he just brushed it aside saying that we could adopt the standard uniform later. I think having an Activily uniform designed by the Ship to use when the members are sailing and other activities is a good idea, but my feeling is that if we are going to be a Sea Scout Ship we should use the Sea Scout Uniform.

At a District Training Committee meeting I heard that a revised version of this is out or due to be coming out shortly. From what I was told it can be run in conjunction with SM skills with breakout sessions for Venturing. I heard that Basic Outdoor Leaders Skills would be run in a similar fashion and be required for Venturing Leaders to be considered trained. After being on staff for SM/Outdoor Skills training I am not sure really how much overlap there is. This weekend we are trying to mix the OWL and Basic Outdoor Skills by having the "Webelos Dens" work with the "Scout Patrols" on things such as knots, map and compass and few other areas. After taking both, I can see these programs working together but I just dont see it working the same for the Venturing program. Has anyone heard about this or know when it will be coming out?

I had anohter question for the forum along these lines: Any suggestions on a comfortable number for youth to start out with? I was worried about not having enough kids but it looks like we may start with a dozen or so youth between the club members and few people my son and I have talked with. We had talked about doing a mailing of the scouting families in the district but the DE thinks that we may be overwhelmed with kids right at the start in doing so.

The thing that really discourages me that the people in Scouting that have no idea what boy-lead means. The Scout that asked me for the schedule didn't really suprize me that much. He's in the Troop we left where the SM and CC make up the yearly schedule and pass it out at the beginning of the year. Yes, having the club will help us get on the water. I was thinking about starting with one ship meeting a month. Every Thursday night the club has "open sailing" where new club members (and the ship) can learn how to sail. I didn't want to push much more than that until the weather turned cold. I do have one girl who is into target shooting and was hoping that this was something I could use to keep the kids interested through the winter months. I know we have a Venture Crew chartered by the Army Reserve center and another that does Civel War reinactments so I though we could get a shooting competition going. The one problem I do see is many people see Scouting as only being a shootime activity and shutting down during the summer when thats pretty much the only time we can go boating. I was wondering how long to wait to start thinking about electing officers. I would like to try and do VLSC in the Fall. Another thing will be training. I just found out that are only 3 or 4 people that have taken both the Venture Leaders Training and TDC and I'm one of them. We've offered Venture Leaders training in the past but no one has signed up (I went out of council) I have been trying to find Sea Scout events. The closest one I have found is the NE Regional Sailing Championships in Sept. which is about 4 hours from here. I am hoping that some of the kids will be interested in going to this this. Some of the club members have said their kids are interested in joining and all of these have sailing experiance. I have of the Winter Training weekend and want to put that on the schedule. I would like to check out the Regatta on Memorial Day Weekend. That's about a 9 hour drive from here though. It looks like I've got my work cut out for me, but I think it will be fun getting there

Eamonn- You are 100% right. I just had this conversation with my wife last night asking how I was going to do both. I had agreed to be on The Training Committee months ago when the Ship was still just a dream of mine, its just taken this long for them to get around to have a meeting. I also didn't know how big a mess the district was in. I had spent months trying to get the ship started. Now that I have a CO things have started to takeoff. I already have had boats offered to the ship and I don't even have a committee yet!

I've heard that in a few months it will be required that every unit will be responsable to record its advancement records online similar to the online rechartering. Anyone else heard about this? The complants I have heard so far is that you will still need to do a paper copy and the online version to record the scouts advancement. Another problem is that only 1 person (the council office manager) can give this training as they need to supply a password for each unit to access the records. The last thing is that a DE can cancel a units password, at anytime, for any reason, thus barring the unit from advancing any scouts.

AH, the old insurance debate has resurfaced. As being in the same council as nldscout and just setting through a presentation about our councils insurance by one of our DE to an organization concidering being a CO he explained it like this. Our councils insurance will cover any person's, organizations or business property when being used with permission by the scouts and following the G2SS. The insurance covered liability and any damaged cuased by the scouts. There was no extra costs involved. He went on to say that at a Scout show, put on by one of our districts at a local mall this winter, a woman tripped over one of the Troops displays and sued. She tried to sue the mall, the troop and the council. Becuase this happen at a council event, the council was the only one she could sue and its insurance company was handling the case. I don't know how it works in other states or councils but this is how the DE explained how our insurance worked. And our spring camp-o-ree fee is $6, including a patch. Two districts are teaming up and holding it at one of our council camps.

Ive been asked to be on the District Training Committee. As I have already been on Staff for SM/Outdoor training and Scouting University I thought I would attend last nights meeting. I found out that this is the first time the Committee has met in over a year. At this meeting were myself, the new District Training Chair, the old District Training Chair (he stepped down due to having a stoke) and another SM (I think he was only there as he keys to where we were meeting). I was told that 1 other person couldnt make it but would be on the Committee. One thing I had noticed that even though my District is the biggest in size, in numbers of Scouts and Leaders, number of Packs and Troops and in size of the general population, except for the district that is 3-4 hours away, there were few people from my district on these training staffs and in attendance. I was kind of suprized at how small thedistrict staff was as the last 2 council training chairs have come from my district. One of the biggest laughs came when I asked why the districts UC's couldm't help out with getting our units trained. I was told that one of the reasons was that no one knew exactly who the UCs are and most of the UCs they did know about were ineffective. I was told at the last commissioners meeting, one UC said their units were doing good, but didnt know the names of any of the unit leaders they were working with. So, my question is how do you start changing attitudes about getting people to training? One thing the committee wants to do is to start offering training at Roundtables again. The Roundtable commissioners are against this but the committee feels that we need to start somewhere and this seemed to be the most likely choice. I know things wont change overnight but I would like to have some ideas on where to start.

In putting a Sea Scout Ship together I was anticipating questions about what was the ship going to do, what nights do they meet and so on. I have just had the second person ask me when I was going to have the yearly schedule for the ship done. I was expecting this from the people who did not have a Scouting background but one of these came from the parent of a scout and the other came from one of my sons friends that is in a Troop. I looks like I will be spending a good deal of time trying to explain and educating people on how the Venturing program is youth-run and youth-led.

I'm starting a new unit (a Sea Scout Ship) I have been following the New-Unit Organization Process, No. 34196 DE and I have met with an organization and they have agreed to charter a Ship. The next step in the process is to meet with the Unit organizing committee, the UC and someone from the District Training staff to select leaders and put together a committee I asked the DE who do I contact about having a UC assigned to the Ship. He responded that none were available and if the ship wanted one I had to go out a recuit one myself. I though the UC was a District position and not someone the unit had to recruit. I have tried to contact the DC about a UC but have not received a reply from him yet. (This message has been edited by CNYScouter)

I am kind of disappointed in reading this as I was just going to PM you on how to deal with this type of situation. The new ship we will be starting will be in this situation. It will be kids with no Scouting background and the Scouts I know that have expressed interested are coming from "adult run eagle mills" where everything has been done for them. I know Venturing (Sea Scouts) is youth-run with adults being in a Shadow leadership role only, but I think myself and the other adult leaders will be spending a good deal of time working with the youth and helping them learn to become leaders. I'm not suggesting that you step in and do everything but perhaps the adults taking a bigger role in helping some of Ship members with their roles is something to consider. I am thinking about starting the first few meeting with teamwork and leadership exercises to try and get things moving.

Check out www.boyscouttrail.com Look under both games and activites Most of the ideas (and there are 100's) here could easily be used for intertroop competitions. Also do a google search for "night camporee". There a a couple of web sites out there that have the activites that were done at these and some of these could easily be done during the day also.

I did read somewhere that the SE of a council could approve a special Square Knot to give out for that council but I do not know about other patches.

After meeting with the organization that is considering becoming the CO for a Sea Scout Ship I was talking with the DE for this District. This is the District borders mine and I hadnt had much dealings with him. I told him one of the reasons I wanted to start a Sea Scout Ship was that I didnt think my son was having a very good Scouting experience. I went to tell him the problem I trying to find a Troop that was doing a good job running the program as suggested by the BSA. He said that in his District they are on the lookout for signs that a unit maybe in trouble or is not running a quality Scouting program. When I asked him about the Leader from a Troop in his district that had called me about getting involved with the Sea Scout Ship. His son was 13 and almost Eagle and he was looking for something to keep him in Scouting. The DE knew exactly which Troop this person came from and he went to say they had brought in the SM for counseling when this Troop had produced its 19th Eagle in 2 years. They quietly looked at the program and saw it was the classic Eagle Mill and did nothing but move kids through advancement as quickly as possible and did little else. They had stopped using the patrols method and did very little in the way of camping. These kids were making Eagle and then dropping out of Scouting at the age of 14. The DE, SE, UC were in this meeting and this SM was offered help to turn this program into a good scouting program. A year later after this Troop has just produced its 28th Eagle in 3 years they brought the SM in again asking him to start running the Troop more along the guidelines of the BSA, and again offering help to make this happen or he would be asked to step down as SM. The DE went on to say that they were taking a look at the program again to see if this Troop had made any progress in moving more into line with the BSA guidelines and if not, they were ready to replace the SM if necessary. (and yes, the CO is aware of what is happening) I do like that the DE is taking an active role in making sure that the units are trying to run a good quality program and this district has a good enough commissioner service to recognize a unit like this. But I am not sure if this way is a good idea or not.