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New Venturing awards announced


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National just can not help screwing around with Venturing until they destroy the program all together. Those pencil pushers in Irving don't know what they are doing as usual, and the membership continues to decline each year.

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Those morons at National just can not help screwing around with a program that none of them seem to understand how to make it work. So now they make more changes which are totally unnecessary and the numbers keep dropping nationally. Those professional desk jockeys continue to lead scouting towards a self destructive end. At least our crew is strong with 90 active members this month.
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Not only do the Folks in Irving have challenges, apparently some of the volunteers who helped implement the program's changes. Everyone keeps harping on the the fact that a very small percentage of Venturers earn any recognitions. For whatever reason, they seem to forget that the awards are not, and never were intended to be advancement like Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Sea Scout ranks, but instead recognitions for Venturers to work on IF they, or as I was taught by the national director of Venturing at the time, the Charter Organization is interested in the recognition program.

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Not only do the Folks in Irving have challenges, apparently some of the volunteers who helped implement the program's changes. Everyone keeps harping on the the fact that a very small percentage of Venturers earn any recognitions. For whatever reason, they seem to forget that the awards are not, and never were intended to be advancement like Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Sea Scout ranks, but instead recognitions for Venturers to work on IF they, or as I was taught by the national director of Venturing at the time, the Charter Organization is interested in the recognition program.
Hate to say it E92, but you were fed double-speak. I started on this Advisor's gig about 8 years into the program's inception, took VLST, which basically had the rhetoric you are repeating word-for-word. Then Bill Evan's came into town and made it quite clear that every crew should have venturers working on awards.

 

I suspect folks (national and leading volunteers) were expecting more like 10-20% participation in the awards program. Participation below 1%, and membership declining faster than any division of the BSA, just screams "Fix me, please!"

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Not only do the Folks in Irving have challenges, apparently some of the volunteers who helped implement the program's changes. Everyone keeps harping on the the fact that a very small percentage of Venturers earn any recognitions. For whatever reason, they seem to forget that the awards are not, and never were intended to be advancement like Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Sea Scout ranks, but instead recognitions for Venturers to work on IF they, or as I was taught by the national director of Venturing at the time, the Charter Organization is interested in the recognition program.
A few years back I sent in an email to national regarding the advancement requirement Unit Leader Award of Merit for Advisors, and it was promptly sent to Bill Evans. The email I got back from him was the same double-speak that qwazse spoke of. He went on how advancement was good for venturing, and the how high performing units have a good record of advancement.
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Not only do the Folks in Irving have challenges, apparently some of the volunteers who helped implement the program's changes. Everyone keeps harping on the the fact that a very small percentage of Venturers earn any recognitions. For whatever reason, they seem to forget that the awards are not, and never were intended to be advancement like Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Sea Scout ranks, but instead recognitions for Venturers to work on IF they, or as I was taught by the national director of Venturing at the time, the Charter Organization is interested in the recognition program.
Click

I too talked to Bill Evans as well a while back concerning our crew advancements and he was impressed by the number who had received Silver, Ranger, and Trust Awards. He asked me what my secret was and I told him, just deliver an exciting, challenging, and fun program and the teens will pursue the awards on their own without any arm twisting. Our crew is growing every year and going stronger than ever, 90 at last count.

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If I read Evan's bio correctly, he was involved with Venturing when it came out in 1998, and HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER! It is just exteremely frustrating to see national changing the 14-20 yo program every 15-20 years. there is no stability, to "branding" etc tec.

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If I read Evan's bio correctly, he was involved with Venturing when it came out in 1998, and HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER! It is just exteremely frustrating to see national changing the 14-20 yo program every 15-20 years. there is no stability, to "branding" etc tec.
To be fair to Evans, my kids have balked at the recognitions (in contrast to BP's crew), and it has probably cost us in terms of the level of creativity and variety in our program.

 

Maybe stability for the 1% is not what our aim should be.

 

Personally, I think the awards should be named more in lock-step with the Boy Scout Awards (along the lines of Star-Venturer, Life-Venturer, Eagle-Venturer). But, even so, I'm not sure that would increase their popularity.

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