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I just became the Venturing Roundtable Commissioner for our district. I was on Venturing Roundtable Staff for Council last year.

I want to involve the Venturing youth in roundtables does anybody have any ideas that they have done to make roundtables more exciting.

We had cavers come in, EMT's taught how to use personal defibulators, olympic bicicylist teach us biking, Need some ideas. We only have 5 Venturing Crews in our district, Would like ideas from adults and youth. Without youth input how do we know what they want?

 

Jim

Advisor

Crew 80

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Invite the crews to a meeting where they can display a posterboard of their activities or some other way to show off the trips they liked and have them talk about them and also talk about trips that didnt do well.

 

After all the crews have presented what they liked, and what didnt do well, and what they want to do, you will know what topics to present and the kids may never know they set the agenda

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  • 3 months later...

Our council has it's own youth roundtable for Venturing Crew members. It started out with the intent of being an officers meeting, with Presidents and VPs of the crews coming, but it has since expaned and includes anyone who wants to come. In fact, their president, myself, is not an officer in her crew. The youth board, called the Venture Executive Board or VEB, meets monthly with the adult roundtable meeting at the same time, and we plan events for all the crews in the council to participate in, as well as dicuss problems and issues that come up within the crews, and we inform the crews about new oppertunities for Crew members and other generic information that needs to be passed out. We've been around about six months under the title of the VEB, but the youth of the crews have been meeting for over a year and have planned three large camping events for the Crews in the council. We've also planned a leadership training weekend and a first aid/cpr training weekend. The possibilities are endless, especially if the crew youth get excited about it. Best of luck!

 

 

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Outdoor Thinker, what a coincidence, our council has a youth officier group called the VEB as well and a member of the crew I am honored to serve is its president as well. I would like to know how you balance the youth input and adult ideas. Seems our group wants to be youth led, but we have a tough time with a few council types who want to run things like they always have, roughshod over the youth.

 

 

Actually the more I think about it, I think the Round Table topics should be 100 percent youth driven. Now thats a goal to strive for!(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

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We as yet do not have Venturing Roundtables.

There has been talk about it on the council level, but so far it is just talk and has been for about 3 years!!

OGE, makes a good point about the "Council Types" It seems to me that they just want Venturing to be Cub Scouting for older youth. Of course on the other hand there are a few Crew Leaders who are going out of their way to be out and out rebels.

Finding common ground ought not be as hard as we seem to be making it.

Eamonn

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Eamonn, my advice for you to help get the ball rolling for a youth roundtable is (if your youth are truly interested) have them start to make the contacts to the other crews and get them to start putting it together. Our council was finally kicked into high gear after my crew began to contact other crews for an all-council crew camp out in 2002. When council got word, they decided to be supportive, and six months after a successful campout, the youth roundtable began.

 

OGE, to answer your question, the youth officers of the VEB are ready, willing and able, and in fact have showed their capabalities as an entirely youth led entity, however, we continue the arduous uphill battle that we often find ourselves fighting to gain youth soveriegnty over the VEB. We're making progress and I think we have in our history as a VEB put some adults into their place, but if you think it's hard for some of the old time scouters to pass leadership over to the youth, just think about what happens when the youth in charge are all female.

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well in our council the head Venture guy keeps trying to turn it into Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts have roundtables so obviously Ventures have to as well, and what topics do we want to present? and that is directed to the adults, not the youth. The youth should be setting the roundtable agenda, and he keeps harping on the youth officiers, is this done, is that done, I think we leave them alone and see what happens, if they fall on their face, we ask what they did, what they didnt do and what can be done in the future to not repeat the problem, and then we look over their shoulder, but I dont think he should be as heavy handed as he is or appears to be.

 

Right now they (adult committee) want to establish a curfew, these kids dont slow down until 3 am and are up early in the morning, I dont see setting a curfew on a Crew event if they are adults, they need to act like one and pay the consequences of a late night I think they can stay as long as they want, they do have to be at colors in the morning

 

Just seems the adults dont want to let go is all, the crew advisors are ok, its the council types that bother me, guys with out crews

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To answer Pounder's question, despite a mission statement that has advisors working towards a youth'-led organization, we all know that most things are easier said than done. In the case that I have been dealing with, many of the adult advisors are still stuck in a Boy Scout mentality, rather than a Venturing Crew mentality.

 

In the case of the council youth board, I've had my setbacks come from advisors who do not have coed crews and are not familiar with girls in the Boy Scouting movement, thus, I have had to on a number of occasions with a number of advisors (fortunately never from my own crew advisors) had to prove my abilities in a much longer drawn out process than any boy would have to. Right or wrong, it is a reality.

 

Fortunately after being involved in Venturing youth leadership on a council level for over two years, I have proven myself as a capable female Boy Scout to all but one or two of these advisors. My battle was long (and I am still fighting it with one of the head honchos) and I feel that I could have goten more accomplished (and can still get more accomplished) if my ever move is not questioned by the powers to be that still have trouble with my leadership role.

 

Whether this is a gender issue (which I feel it is partly) or just a youth in leadership issue, it is a problem, especially in an organization where the youth should be calling the shots.

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Outdoor Thinker, I am not sure how to phrase this, because it may come off sounding negative, and I dont want to do that, but here goes.

 

Of course, Venturing is a youth led organization, and the adults are there to lend support. However, one thing the youth must bear in mind is the adults have to be interested in the activities as well as the youth, else they may find other things to do with their time. I am a Venture Committee member, but if my son lost interest in the activities, my involvment would be curtailed.

 

At the extreme end a Crew cant say hey adults, drive us to Chicago this week end cuz we want to see the Cubs in in the playoffs, but the adults cant say we will have a 10:30 pm curfew whether you like it or not. It is a balancing act, tilted towards the youth, as it should be, but the adults capabilities and likes/dislikes should be accounted for, do you understand?

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OGE, I totally agree with the fact that although, youth-led, the Venturing Youth in leadership positions must be reasonable.

 

However, despite our imperfections, the youth are supposed to run the show. To quote an earlier post of yours: "Actually the more I think about it, I think the Round Table topics should be 100 percent youth driven. Now thats a goal to strive for!" As we strive to be 100 percent youth driven are you ready to advise that? Adults role is to advise, which basically means sit back and reel us in when we get too far off the path (I'll use your example, when we want to go see the Cubs in the playoffs this weekend) or teach us from our mistakes (I'll use an example of my own, I did not inform my advisor of something before another party got to inform him, despite the fact there was only a 24 hour or so interlude between the two, he would have rather the information come from me imediately). It is in those moments where you need to act that you teach us our lessons about leadership. We learn from our slip ups and we learn where our advisors' limits are by pushing them. We're teenagers. We're imperfect.

 

I recently helped at a Powderhorn training offering my view as a "real live teenage human being" (yes, shocking isnt it? they let us out of the zoo for a day, and they were even allowed to feed the animals) along with three other "real live teenage human beings." We got talking to the Powderhorn trainees and it seems that beyond dealing with mixed gender teenage relationships, most advisors (at least at this session and grant it, it's not a statistical analysis by any means)are most concerned about finding the fine line and keeping that line between leader (as many of them were in Scout troops) and advisor (the role they need to play with Venturing Crews). OGE, you said earlier that you want the youth to totally led their roundtables, with your slamming on the brakes now, is it becuase you've had a change of heart or is it because you're concerned about teh role that adults will have to play when youth actually begin running the Venturing organization?

 

As I've stated in previous posts, I've been in Venturing for nearly four years and I've had the same two advisors since the start. Awesome guys, I couldn't have asked for anything better, but we've had our rocky moments until they found their role as advisor as opposed to leader. It's taken almost the whole four years, but the youth are now getting comfortable with taking charge and the adults are now getting comfortable with being advisors. We had the original problem of them being leaders and the youth following, then when they realized they were doing that, they had the not so brillant idea of being completely silent during meetings (although, quite an achievement if you were to ever meet my advisors), this not only was burdensome for them, but it became a problem as we youth needed advise and guidance and we turned to them and got silence looks on their faces as if they were ready to burst. The youth in my crew have now stepped up and the advisors have stepped back, but come to our advisal when the time is needed.

 

I feel it's a two way street between advisors and youth in crews based on trust and communication. The adults trust us to make good decisions most of the time (knowing that we have our imperfections) and we trust the adults not to be baby-sitters. I hope that all of your crews can find the happy coexsistance that we have in our crew.

 

I realize that I've veered off from the original post, but I'll admit I got a little fired up. I'll be stepping down from my soap box now, ready and willing to read what you all have to right.

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OGE Jr, 3 am! LOL I accompanied a party of 9 this past weekend to our crew's first 15 mile backpacking trip. It was up and down hills and the trails consisted almost entirely of 4 inch deep loose sand. I have a blister on each of my little toes to prove it. After a 9 mile Saturday over and over and over sand hills, my crew was entirely racked out between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm. No need for any curfew here. Pounder

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