dhendron

I am not sure I would be consulting with District or Council (nice to let them know it happened, but the decision is certainly not up to anyone but the Troop leadership).

My thoughts: the kid with the knife is expelled. The others can be handled constructively in house.

I didn't see anything in there about the Scoutmaster. What does he/she think?(This message has been edited by dhendron)

(This message has been edited by dhendron)

(This message has been edited by dhendron)

Money does seem to be the driving force behind many things. I know me and my leaders are quite tired of being hit on for money every time we turn around.

I am a trainer. My unit does it for the leaders and for the youth. In order to have the class sanctioned and the training recognized, I have to charge three times what I need to run the class. It is only $6.00, but I only need $2/pp for the class. Is Council really so hard up that the need to force me to overcharge for a training class in order to make $4 lousy dollars?

I am on Powder Horn staff. in 2010, the course was over budget by several hundred dollars. When we ran the 2012 course, we were told that PH had to make up the difference for the loss in 2010. We called BS on that one, but we kept hearing about it. I was program director, and I ran a very tightly budgeted program. It turned out that we were WAY under budget. So, as I am course director for 2014, I approached Council and asked to have that extra money held so that I could offset the cost for youth attendance. The answer: "Budgets don't work that way." Huh? How come it worked that way for 2012 when Council wanted the money it lost, but it did not work that way when it was going to cost money?

We do not do FOS in my unit. We haven't allowed it for the past two years. We stopped a few years ago when or Council got caught fudging numbers. We learned that they had registered all of the youth at a local military academy and used FOS money to do it, all in the name of raised youth numbers to meet goals. I had a sit-down with our DE, told him what I thought of that particular idea, and pledged that FOS would not be part of our program again.

Yes, we do it for the boys and the girls (go Venturing!). As a volunteer, it is easy for me to see the focus. How come the Council and National execs don't get it?

Yep, those darn, hardworking, dedicated volunteers!

I don't know about you all, but I will take a volunteer with a good head of steam any day! Anyone dedicated to BSA and the youth is alright in my book. Yes, sir! If I had one that was a mite "enthusiastic" with it, I think I will reserve my public comment to "thank you!"

One thing I have learned all these years: never criticize someone who is willing to give it their best effort. Just be glad they showed up.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I am a long-time (31 years and counting!) police officer and have been a Scouting leader since 1991. Sometimes I have one, sometimes I don't. It depends on where we are going. My own policy as the Advisor of my Venturing Crew is that it has to stay on me 24/7. The youth never know I have it, but frequently assume I do and have politely been asked not to inquire.

One of the unit's parents is also an officer. He gets the same deal: carry it on you 24/7 and it's no problem. We don't leave them in our cars, and I don't carry them on backpacks or water events (I have enough stuff to carry, and the nut cases tend not to go backpacking or canoeing!).

Law enforcement officers are, of course, required (within the guidelines of common sense!) to carry our firearms and/or required to act in the case of certain events, so a discrete firearm, handcuffs, etc., are typically kept handy. Frankly, requirement or no, it would have to take something very, very serious for me to act with Scout's present, but it can be there if I am forced to protect myself or my unit's members. Just because I am Scouting doesn't mean the world suddenly became less dangerous.

Good ideas! I like both of them...particularly the "hop ha!" in the second suggestions! Thanks!

Greetings:

I have two folks we are appointing as associate advisors this coming Thursday. One is a youth member and Silver recipient that turns 21 this week, and another a committee member who us switching over. I am looking for a simple swearing in ceremony. Anyone have anything they would like to share?

Thanks!

Good luck, BP!

About time! Hopefully their availability will handled quickly.

A crew of 80! Wow! The must be the largest crew I have ever heard of. Although I am glad my own unit is relatively small at 23 youth, I am impressed with a unit that is so happy that it has 80 members.

I agree that National is clueless about Venturing, but I would hazard the opinion that it is not just the Venturing program they are floundering on. What I see is an attempt to reinvent the program in order to fix things that are not broken. It seems to me that National is repeating a previous horrendous mistake (from the 70's or early 80's, I believe) that nearly destroyed the program. Change for the sake of change without any real idea of what is being accomplished or why it is being done. No vision.

I know folks mean well in the end. But for Pete's sake, leave it alone! I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers, but I know that the current program is working just fine. Some minor tweaks are fine (ditching the Code, for example), but the other stuff...

Pretty good! We have 23 youth right now: 13 girls and 10 guys. Two dating couples among them. We had one spat among a former dating couple two years ago, but no other problems before or since.

We have been co-end since we chartered.

The issue of the Oath and Code, to me, has more to do with losing our identity than anything that has any huge impact. Basically, I see it as BSA screwing with the program...and we don't need them to. It is working just fine as it is.

A couple of years ago, BSA pulled the Venturing/Ranger books off the shelves suddenly. As I understand it, it was done for a legal issue. The books were off the shelves for close to a year.

Recently, changes were voted on by BSA that resulted in the loss of the Venturing Oath and Code, effective in 2014. While I can't say I will miss the Code when this all becomes effective, the loss of Venturing's Oath has really ticked off the scouts in my Venturing unit. I hear rumor that the Venturing sign and salute are likewise history, but while this is being put out as fact on the blog attached to Scout Wire, some youth involved at the National level have denied this is the case. I called National and was told that, indeed, the Venturing hand sign and salute will be replaced by the three-fingered Boy Scout sign and salute. Who knows what is actually correct. Additional tinkering may be in the works in the form of the elimination of Venturing's achievements, namely the elimination of the Bronze, Gold and Silver Awards. God knows what they will replace them with if that is correct. Merit badges and ranks? My crew will run for the hills and I will be left wondering if I can sell our home-built kitchen box on eBay and will our crew flag make an okay souvenir of four years of fun and effort.

The latest fiasco is the Venturing uniform shirts. While Venturing crew's can use the uniform or not, mine does. Most of the crew's in my Council (San Diego-Imperial) do, or at least when I see them they are. The shirts have been pulled off the shelves with no indication on when we will see them again. I made a bunch of calls and emails today to Council and National and got nowhere. No one at Council was willing to make inquiries, and National was not giving up any info. A previous call on this issue elicited the opinion that it would likely be Spring 2013 or later before uniforms were available again.

I remarked to more than one person today that this kind of thing would never happen in the Boy Scout program. Can you imagine the Boy Scout book not being available? Not being able to purchase a Boy Scout uniform for any period whatsoever, let alone until next Spring? Not likely.

While none of these issues are likely connected, I feel like every time I turn around, some silliness is impacting the Venturing program and no one is in any hurry whatsoever to fix it. One could almost say that BSA is dragging their collective feet. But to what end?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. Quite the contrary, I am a big believer in Occam's Razor. With that in mind, the issues are likely unintentional screw ups that BSA is simply slow to fix. Tinkering with the identity of Venturing by replacing our Oath, Code, and sign/salute, is the result of well-meaning (if not ignorant) individuals who honestly believe they are doing a good thing. May I recommend to those well-meaning individuals to leave our achievements alone while I am on this subject? If it's not broken, don't fix it, eh?

While I am trying to take the proverbial high road, I keep coming back to wondering why we always seem to be getting screwed...what is your take on the matter?

Sigh...one of these days we are going to be so politically correct that we cannot even venture out without hazarding an offense to someone.

The difference between name calling versus nicknames (which the youth often find to be in good fun, as intended) should be obvious. I think this one would fall into the "Get over it" category.

Some years ago, my wife (also a leader in our Venturing Crew) and I got labeled "Papa Bear" and "Mama Bear". I think I would have preferred something more manly (joke!) but the name stuck. One of my girls was nicknamed "Pigpen", which was not derogatory. Many other nicknames were given, all in good fun and not a single person complained.

Over the years, I have found most of the complaints I have received to be frivolous (put very charitably for some of them). People looking for things to be unhappy about. For some reason, the silly stuff generates complaints and the stuff that folks should be griping about usually goes without notice. I tell these folks to try to have some fun and not to take it all so seriously.

Short of taking an EMT course (which I have been told was not what BSA was looking for), we couldn't find a course here in Southern California that would fit. After extensive research, we compromised. For my Crew, I am looking at the spirit of the requirement and accepting Wilderness First Aid. This is a 16-hour course, but the only game in town.

We also have a rule about no PDA's in our bylaws. We set our expectations, tell the youth we expect them to act like adults, and leave it at that.

We have had several dating couples over the years. Two of them now. The youth tend to police themselves. As long as we don't make a big deal out of it, we don't sweat a little hand holding or innocent contact.

On the other hand, when the relationship inevitably blows up, our hope is that if the relationship does not exist within the Crew, then hopefully the aftermath will not either. Wishful thinking sometimes. Once the drama that unfolded when a relationship failed caused all kinds of problems. The male half of the failed relationship required repeated counseling for poor behavior. The Crew youth, again policing themselves, had a low sense of humor about the whole thing. The male half had his Board of Review for his Gold Award during our 2010 Philmont Trek. We actually had three Gold BoR and one Silver at the same time. Anyway, the offending youth was unanimously rejected by his BoR for his behavior issues. Again, self-policing and self correcting. (The youth in question later pulled his head out of his behind, gained the support of the Crew, and went on to successfully apply for Gold and then Silver. I was somewhat amused that the Crew President in each case was his former girlfriend, who chaired each of his Boards!)

My feeling is that the youth are going to get involved anyway. Establishing clear but simple guidelines and expectations will take care of most issues.

Our Council has an active Venturing Committee, but the current VOA is a dysfunctional at best. Our crew stopped attending the VOA's since nothing was happening, they kept changing the meeting place and location, and really, there was no benefit to our participation.

What should we expect: full Council support for the program, ability to purchase or obtain the support material and awards, a go-to person for issues, and Council support for Crews and Ships in all things Scouting.

I personally have mixed feelings about it. I see the need for National, at least in terms of providing the basic structure. Region...what do they do? Council? Other than a place to purchase stuff I need (which I can also get from National, and frankly, it is sometimes faster to do that since the local scout shop frequently does not have what I need in stock), my unit doesn't get any real benefit. Too commercial, and every time I turn around I am being asked for money. Geez, I can't even teach a adult or youth Council-sanctioned training without charging more than I need to run the class (I am told I have to charge $6.00 even though I only need about $2.00 to run the classes...the rest goes to Council).

District? I see a lot of adults running around doing adult things, but very little, if anything, benefits my unit. In fact, as a Venturing advisor, many times the mainstream events are not really open to my unit unless we volunteer as staff. Mostly, I see adults in the District doing things that benefit the adults, frequent seeking of awards and recognition, and none of this benefits the youth. I always ask, "How does this benefit the youth" but don't get good answers.

Really, what I need is the support to help my youth run their unit, go do fun and educational things, earn the awards if they want them. What I don't need: the constant and rising commercialism, constantly being told "no, you can't do that any more", the scout camps in disrepair, the watering down of the awards and achievements, the lost paperwork at Council, and the frequent requests for more and more donations from the adult leaders. In short, I need the BSA I remember as a kid. You got what you needed, you could do the fun things (heck, I remember eating rattlesnake at Camporee, shooting, having a great time, and my dad was not barraged with money stuff).

Really, I wish that BSA would stop and look at what we have become, focus our efforts on the youth, back off on the commercialism, and stick to the basics. This is a great organization, or can be anyway, if we just remember what this is all for: the youth.

Hi all:

For those who may be interested, the Venturing Leadership Award (VLA) has been discontinued effective the end of the year for adults. From that point forward, it will be a youth-only award.

Too bad about that. I found it to be a useful way to recognize outstanding youth AND adults. Here is a link to the announcement (I only found it by happenstance via a post on a Facebook Venturing page):

http://scout-wire.org/2011/10/25/new-youth-only-venturing-leadership-award-qualifications-announced/

...and I just saw a previous post mentioning this. Sorry for the cross post. I did not see the other one and I don't know how to just delete this.(This message has been edited by dhendron)

The books were pulled in March or so. They are unavailable in the scout shops and on scoutstuff.org. Currently, scoutstuff.org shows them available again on 08/10/10, but that date came and went.

Hi all:

The Venturing/Ranger books were pulled several months ago. We have heard various reasons, including a legal review associated with youth protection polices, updates to the books, etc. We cannot figure out why the older books could not continue on the shell pending whatever was being done. It has been quite the source of frustration since it has now been five or six months and our crew has several new members who do not have their Venturing/Ranger books to work with.

Our DE checked and was simply told the book is being reviewed and will be available in 8-10 weeks. This is exactly what he was told three months ago. Does anyone have any better information?

I have had a couple of comments, including one sent directly to me, about whether the appropriate notifications were made, among other comments, including those accusing me of not doing my job, not protecting the scouts, or essentially failing to act as a true leader. Thanks for those, by the way, but I would like to say that sending me hate email while we are discussing an issue like this -- which included a similar email from the boy's parents -- is probably counterproductive and not in keeping with scout spirit.

Back to the issue at hand: When the incident occurred, the troop notified the chartered organization rep, our unit commissioner, and our SE, who is a district director. The district director asked the scoutmaster to conduct an investigation that included witness statements, a statement from the perpetrator, and other information. That is being compiled. All that occurred prior to my original post.

Don't forget that my question had more to do with his Venturing Gold award than what would occur at the troop level. Since I am the advisor for the scout who injured the other scout, my part of this has less to do with the actual incident -- which is the troop's responsibility -- than to deal with scout spirit or other issues that impact crew operations, future achievements, etc.

Discipline is still being worked out. The family has come around and is now cooperative. Thank you again for the constructive comments. For those intent on sending me personal hate mail, please don't. I am trying to solve the problem here and was seeking advice, not invective.

Great advice from everyone!

I have met with our unit commissioner and district executive. Of course, for my part, my action is related to his Gold award, not the actual incident in terms of direct action related to that since it occurred within the troop, not my crew. However, I will pass that on to the scoutmaster for his consideration.

I have a meeting this weekend with my committee chair, so...more later. Thanks again, everyone!

I am gonna have to try that complaint form sometime! I shouldn't have been drinking my soda when I read that one and then clicked on the link!