Unit Leader Award of Merit

[Crew21_Adv 25]

Fellow Advisors,

 

 

Let me start of by telling a story of a Scouting friend and a council committee member within the program committee. Due to his profession, he was invited by national BSA to review some Cub Scout handbook literature about 15 years ago. The national BSA handbook review committee acted like a pilot program, the few members were assemble by national and read new (pre-publishing) handbooks and other specific cub scout program literature before the publication and printing date. They didnt have to travel either, they did most of their work via email and fax during the time at home. The committee had recommended a change to the Cub Scout Sports and Academics to be renames Cub Scout Academic and Sports program. They recommended easing the harsh requirements for the Sports and Academic Pins (earned by parent and Cub). But while doing their review, they found that a Cub Scout earning the Bicycling activity pin, would ride 150 miles more than a Boy Scout earning the Bicycling Merit Badge. At other previous handbook committees, Boy Scout advancement committees decided to reduce the 500 word essays to 200 word essays and remove time requirements between Scout thru First Class.

 

So sometimes, national has both sanctioned pilot committees and occasionally received feedback to review literature and requirements be sure they are SMART, specifically attainable. Now back to the current 2010 and the Unit Leader Award of Merit.

 

During Jamboree I saw a slightly different Scoutmaster POR patch, with a gold star. Similar to the Honor Patrol or Baden Powell Award Star, but this gold star was on the position patch.

 

Now I have viewed the Scouting.org website and found out it is another revision to the Scoutmaster Award of Merit, which was recently changed earlier this year.

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/512-003_WB.pdf

 

I like the recognition. I like the checks and balances, which most every private organization club and community based organization has with goal-based benchmarks. There are requirements that demonstrate that a unit leader has a program for the Cub, Scout, Venturers in place. I agree with all the requirements for this award; but except requirement item 5, I have a difficult time with.

 

5. Effectively use the advancement method so that at least 60 percent of the units youth have advanced at least once during the last 12 months.

 

Completing item 5 seems easy for Cub Scouting, it still appears easy for Boy Scouting. But Venturing? As much as I promote program and advancement within my Crew. The achievements and recognition program is much more difficult than they are in the younger programs. In Venturing it is not even called advancement, there is no rank structure.

 

I believe I have commented in our forum before. I like the Bronze, Gold and Silver, but I would like to see an intermediate step between these awards. Without the Venturing Handbook in front of me right now, I believe it is 9 of 12 items required to complete any Bronze Award. I would like to see something similar to the belt loop program, where a Venturer completes 5 of any 9 mandatory items of the optional 12/13 items. Maybe not a belt loop; but at least an intermediate step towards the Bronze Award, with some type of regalia device.

 

But from my experience with some great teenage youth that have alot on their minds; the recognition of 6 out of 10 Venturing youth each year, is near impossible. They enjoy Venturing, but they (at least my Venturers) slowly participate in the Venturing recognition program. I am lucky to get twenty percent each year, sixty percent seems to be an unattainable goal for Venturers.

 

I like the Unit Leader Award of Merit. I like the goals. I just believe goal item 5 is too difficult for most Venturing Advisors. At least for me it is a monumental challenge. Similar to the parable "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". Myself, the Associate Advisors and Crew Officers offer a program that allows for the Bronze recognition, but it is up to the Venturers to want to achieve the recogntion.

 

Any Comments? Do your Venturing Crews attain 60 percent recognition each year? Or is it just me and my Crew that is lacking in statistics?

 

Am I crying too much? Or do you think national will listen and ease the requirements for Venturing Advisors if the goal is set just a little too high?

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv(This message has been edited by Crew21_Adv)

[rdclements 10]

Nearly all of the youth in the crew that I serve do not care about recognition. They only want to go on outings and do cool stuff. I have a couple of guys who are going after Eagle in the crew, but that's it.

 

The award criteria specifically reference "advancement". Since Venturing doesn't have ranks or advancement, I dont' know if a crew where 60% could have advanced in any amount of time.

 

More than 60% of my youth did VLSC last year and a couple did NYLT.

 

They probably wrote the requirements without considering the Venturing perspective - it would not be the first time.

[Eagle92 110]

RD,

Somewhere in the past 12 years, Bronze, Gold, Silver, Ranger, Ranger, Trust, and Quest went form being recognitions to advancement. Check out this lonk which quotes the Advancement book:

http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Venturing_advancement

[rdclements 10]

There is a major side effect of using the words "advancement" and "recognition" interchangeably. The Venturing method is recognition; the Boy Scout methods include advancement. Some of the Venturing awards are earned progressively, so a youth "advances" through them, but they're not the same as ranks in Boy Scouting. In the case of Crew21's OP about the revised leader award, I think it is not correct to expect a big portion of a crew to advance during a year. That's just not the way things work in Venturing.

[qwazse 4344]

4 years, no advancement. I'm fine with some other advisor getting a ULAM because he/she has a crew of 8 that focus on one area so he/she can track requirements without going insane.

 

I'll focus on identifying six key outings so each of my 24 kids get outdoors at least once this year, getting them to recruit the next generation of venturers, getting some of them to council VOA, and seeing each of them have fun and grow a little.

 

If, after all that, you can't tell that I'm an advisor to the most dynamic crew in my council because I got no gold star, maybe you can tell by the smile on my face!

[emb021 16]

Actually, Venturing DOES have advancement. Bronze-Gold-Silver comprise the basic advancement program. Ranger, Quest, TRUST are expert awards.

 

Also, while we have advancement, we do NOT have RANKS. Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts have RANKS. A Venturer who has earned advancement does NOT 'out rank' a Venturer who doesn't.

 

BUT, advancement is NOT a method of Venturing. Recognition is. Hence, we don't push advancement, crews are not judges as 'bad crews' for not having youth advance, etc. (however, you will learn that crews that do use it usually have a better overall program).

 

I am uncomfortable with the requiring of advancement for advisors to earn the Unit Leader Award of Merit, as it flies in the face of what Venturing should be about.

 

[BadenP 93]

emb021

 

To answer your question even National doesn't even know what Venturing is supposed to be about. In 1998 they came up with a great new approach to scouting for older coed teens, where advancement is not part of the program, then Mazzuca took over reorganized the entire National structure and the original Venturing program fell into a great black hole never to be seen again. By the way I still disagree with you about bronze, gold, and silver being advancements and not recognition awards, which was their original purpose in spite of what some recent Venturing pub's may call them. Venturing is suffering because National is trying to pull it in all directions and has their heads up their collective asses in the process.

[sherminator505 10]

BadenP,

 

I won't repeat your description, but I would have to say that you have perfectly described National's approach to a lot of things!

[emb021 16]

"I won't repeat your description, but I would have to say that you have perfectly described National's approach to a lot of things!"

 

Sadly, I have to agree. I had some long chats with othe venturing people at the Jamboree, like Craig Murray & Doc Miller. Doc recommeneded I do something, which I plan to within the next week.

 

 

 

[Crew21_Adv 25]

Fellow Advisors,

 

Thanks for the comments!

 

I enjoy the Venturing recognition/advancement program. Though in my Crew, it is a slow and time consuming program. But more than that, I'm glad that we offer an annual program that will help attain those goals, plus personal goals.

 

I'll admit it, I also enjoy adult recognitions. As long as Scouters are serving their youth, financing events, providing programs, driving to camp, driving Scouts home, etc, etc.

 

IMHO, hopefully, National BSA will stop trying to measure the success of Venturing by how many advancements are completed; and find a reasonable "measuring stick" to compare against a Crew's program and membership.

 

Some of our respected forum members and Advisors believe national BSA decision makers have become detatched from the Venturing "sounding board", and not paying attention to the desires of Crews, Advisors and Venturers. Again, hopefully national begins to listen to the Advisors, Mentors and specifically the Venturing youth.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

 

[ChaiAdventure 25]

I have to agree as well, and another recent case-in-point is the newly announced National Outdoor Badge and the associated National Medal for Outdoor Achievement.

 

From the draft requirements that I have seen, some great thought and effort went into the development of these awards and they are NOT gimmes by far.

 

The one other thing they are not is available to Venturers. For some odd reason, only Boy Scouts and Varsity Scouts can earn these awards.

 

How hard would it have been to include Venturers into the program....not very. Even without changing a thing, items such as earn the "Hiking" merit badge could have been changed to "fulfill the requirements" to earn the Hiking merit badge.

 

Once again, Venturing is an afterthought.

[CHLees3rd 10]

5. Effectively use the advancement method so that at least 60 percent of the units youth have advanced at least once during the last 12 months.

 

Since advancement is not a Venturing method, I would argue that any recognition/certification/award that Venturers work towards and earns would count as advancement in terms of personal growth. If a Crew specializes in first aid/EMT activities, their advanced first aid training should count. If a Ship loves to dive but does no sailing, their SCUBA certification should count. A Crew that specializes in culinary arts where its members won cooking contests should count those awards. Earning the International Activity Award, Venturing World Conservation Award, or 50-Miler Award should count as advancement the same way that Venturers going from Star to Life counts. While these activities may not be in the way that the person or committee that wrote the requirement intended, the Venturers are still working and learning and achieving. That to me is advancement and it should satisfy Requirement 5.

 

Chazz Lees

[qwazse 4344]

Chaz, I like your liberality. Unfortunately, it only applies to crews with a narrow focus. In my general interest crew, I got kids gaining diverse skills left and right. It would be really hard for me to guage advancement. (I probably should have four crews, but advisors for each are kind of hard to find.) I'd rather do without the ULAM than have something that may mean one thing for me and something completely different for another advisor. Keep it simple. Count medals. If you doled them out to 6/10 of your crew members this year, give yourself a star.

 

I really don't think seeing a star on 1% of Advisor uni's is a problem. If somebody really cares, they can put a petition together for a lower target, but keep in mind that if it goes through, one day folks will put up posts harkening back to "the good 'ole '10, when a star really meant your crew had some serious bling!"

[emb021 16]

"I have to agree as well, and another recent case-in-point is the newly announced National Outdoor Badge and the associated National Medal for Outdoor Achievement.

 

The one other thing they are not is available to Venturers. For some odd reason, only Boy Scouts and Varsity Scouts can earn these awards."

 

Funny thing is, these awards were developed by Doc Miller & associates. Doc Miller was one of the movers & shakers in the National Venturing Committee. With the recent re-org, it seems like he and most of the old NVC moved over and are now the Youth Development committee (I think that's their name). The impression I got was they developed this award system to give the Boy Scouts parity with the Venturers's Ranger Award.

 

[shortridge 184]

"The impression I got was they developed this award system to give the Boy Scouts parity with the Venturers's Ranger Award."

 

And here I always thought that was called Eagle...