venturing vs. sea scout question

[Eagle92 110]

BP,

Yep it's over 10 years since Venturing came about. but trust me it's hard to make changes to a book, unless a lawsuit is involved . I sue the BoB example, it came out in 2001, and there is still nothing correcting the Blythe info.

 

Also the person was the national director of venturing, can't remember his name, but is was the guy that Holmes replaced.

[emb021 16]

"Also the person was the national director of venturing, can't remember his name, but is was the guy that Holmes replaced."

 

The guy you refer to was the first National Director of Venturing. I never knew his name. I know Holmes replaced him in early 1999 (because I met Holmes in April of 99). My understanding (which may be wrong) was that the guy died suddenly, hence him being replaced and ALSO that he was a bit of a control freak. In addition, the creation of Venturing was a rush job. Everything in Venturing was really being developed for Exploring, but the lawsuit in Chicago lead to them splitting off Venturing & Exploring in August of 98. It was the combination of all this why so little Venturing stuff came out in 98, and it took in some cases a year or two before the basic items did.

 

I knew Venturing was coming in 98. I was engaged with people on-line regarding Venturing in the early years, and was one of handful of people on-line on places like Scouts-L trying to explain to people what this 'new' program was all about (as to most people, Exploring was just a career awareness program, nothing more) from the begining. This included explaining the Sea Scout-Venturing connection and all. I had many on-line exchanges with an old Sea Scout leader (and former Air Scout & Rover leader) named Bill Sills. He set me straight on a lot of things regarding Sea Scouts. So for me this is all old stuff we are speaking about.

 

[Eagle92 110]

Yep I'ld say he was an augmentative control freak. First met him at PDL-1 in May when he announced that Venturing was splitting out of Exploring in August. Most of us liked the program description, and that they were essentially bringing stuff back. Lot us wished the Venturing program stuff was availabel to us as scouts as most of us grew up in the 1980s/early 90s. However, he did tick off 40+ DEs for saying that Silver was going to replace Eagle. It was an "interesting" conversation.

 

Just out of curiosity, what would ti take to get some of the books revised with a knowledgeable volunteer also doing some of the editing/ After all the first BSHB did have alot of editing done by volunteers prior to being published,

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Back in '98 or so I was in a discussion where some guy said the Ranger would replace Eagle. That was fun too especially since no one had much of a handle on what the Ranger was and very few realized that Ranger only represented 20% of the available program.

[emb021 16]

"Just out of curiosity, what would ti take to get some of the books revised with a knowledgeable volunteer also doing some of the editing/ After all the first BSHB did have alot of editing done by volunteers prior to being published."

 

No idea.

 

I know I made some minor suggestions for the Venturing Leader Manual, and had a little thrill when they were incorporated in the next version. But my suggestions on fixes for the Venturer Handbook never got anywhere. But then I was asked to make suggestions for the Language of Scouting stuff. But nothing ever happened to all my work on suggested improvements for the next version of the Venturing Leader Specific Training. I wasn't even included in the recent revision team and have yet to see the draft for the new version after being promised a copy (and no idea when it will come out. its like a year or two behind).

 

I guess you win some and you lose some. I think sometimes the size of the BSA works against them, and makes it harder for some volunteers to make a contribution beyond the local level unless they have an 'in' with the right people...

 

 

And as to the comments about Silver & Ranger. Again, in the early years I heard a lot of confusion about Venturing Advancement. There were a lot of people convinced that Ranger was the top Venturing award, and good luck trying to change their minds...