A Glorious Weekend for Beginning Backpacking

Troop One Backpackers on the trail at Ohio Pyle State Park
(picture by Bob Biggs)

Can 11 year old scouts go backpacking?  A few intrepid souls from our favorite troop just did.

Our patch for the
first backpacking trip.

On the first weekend in May it was beautiful in the Ohio Pyle area of SW Pennsylvania.  While it was a perfect weekend for backpacking there and possibly everywhere, a few scouts set off on their first backpacking experience. They joined a few experienced scouts and set off to walk their first 9 miles with packs that were too heavy or didn't fit their small frame just right.

The patch we would like to make
design by Gabe Hunt, all rights reserved)

Welcome to the Akron based "Troop One Backpackers."  About a year ago we recognized a problem:  The Boy Scout Troop had essentially left the high adventure to our close sister Venturing Crew 2001.  After all, all of the troop trips to Philmont and elsewhere were Crew trips since the older scouts and the coed Venturers would make up the participants.  This means that no one backpacked until they were 14 and while there are a lot of good reasons to have scout's wait (such as expense and upper body strength), it is a loss not to get the youngest excited about this fabulous sport. And excited they are.

About a year ago, Eagle Scout Sam Hyde and backpacking "pro" and assistant scoutmaster Bob Biggs helped plan out a way to engage the youngest in hitting the trail.  Our idea is that each young scout that wants to sample carrying a pack should get a chance and when they are older they will enter the Venturing Crew raring to go.  This trip represented our second trip in recent years with young scouts. Listening to the scouts we will be doing this again very soon.

Perhaps, in the future, we can engage our pocket crew (see our story on the pocket crew) so the girls will also be ready for the backpacking lovers in our outdoor Venturing Crew.

On the way back from Ohio Pyle, these scouts were very attentive to the presentation on choosing the right backpack when they visited REI in Pittsburgh.

Steve and Kimberly Myers
 

A Venturing Celebration by Hundreds of Youth in the Woods of Pennsylvania

Crew 2001 at the Venturing Summit: Central Region Area 4 plays in Area 4 of the NE Region

Crew 2001 at the Medieval Festival
of the 2013 NE4AVOA Venturing Summit

Imagine 350 high school and college-aged young adults from perhaps a dozen states all converging on a patch of woods in Pennsylvania wearing chain mail and all manners of medieval dress.  What you just conjured up is a typical event for Venturing.

Everyone had fun, some did not want to leave, all wished they had more time to enjoy the fun of the Venturing Summit sponsored by the northeast region area 4 Venturing Officers Association at the Heritage Scout Reservation in Farmington, PA.( see @NE4AVOA)

Crew 2001 in the
Medieval Spirit

Our crew, Crew 2001 from Akron OH,  backpacks, camps, goes climbing, caving and other typical outdoor activities. However, the weekend of April 19-21, 2013 was truly unlike anything we had ever done.  Our planning complete and 180 miles later, 20 Venturers and their Advisors pile out of five cars and on to the grounds of the beautiful Heritage Scout Reservation of the Greater Pittsburgh Council.

BSA's Program
for young adults

After checking in at the Keystone building, we were given our "knights of Heritage" t-shirts, patches, and maps.  We were directed to our cabin, actually a five bedroom, 2 bath house with kitchen, dining room and living room, named for George Washington, and the last one on the lane. A special weekend was about to begin.

We spent the evening playing games and meeting other venturers at Pathfinder Lodge. Games of Twister, pool, ping pong, DDR, Rock Band, and so much more kept our youth laughing and playing until the building closed.  Back in our house, card games began and we quickly got comfortable and settled down for the night anxious for the next day.

Live Action Role Play
at the Venturing Summit

Our venturers then climbed, COPEd, shot pistols, threw tomahawks, did AtLatl, Archery, played video games and board games, branded leather and other things, learned to dance, LARPed, and much more.  The highlight of the day was when the youth and adults donned costumes for the Highland Games,

NE4AVOA Staff for the Venturing Summit

Canterbury Feast, and the dance and party Saturday night. Sunday morning was given to devotions and waffles.

NE Region President Luczka
& National President Readenour

We got to meet and hear from the Northeast Region Venturing President Christine Luczka and the National Venturing President Dustin Readenour.  While we would have liked to hear more about what venturing changes are coming, we heard that the Venturing Pants are redesigned and about to be released.  (If they only change the side pockets that would be fantastic.)

Crew 2001 at Venturing Summit

This was the first Area, Regional or National event that our crew have attended. As we did a thorns and roses on Sunday morning it was obvious this won't be our last.  Thanks to the staff at NE4AVOA and all the others for showing our youth what Venturing can be.  Venturing is more than just what happens in the local crew.   Everyone went home pumped.

Crew 2001 helping with
Sunday morning devotions

The camp was beautiful, the facilities outstanding, the programming was quite good, the food was the only low point.  OK April is supposed to be warm and lack snow, but it did not deter the young adults of Crew 2001 nor anyone else.  

Check out the pictures below and we may have more available for you to see later.

Most of these pictures are of Crew 2001.   



Good Scouting, Venture onward
Steve and Kimberly Myers
See us at the National Jamboree (Troop B326 and Crew F610)

2013 National Jamboree App Available

"Download version 1.0 of the Jamboree app on Android; coming soon to Apple

"24 April 2013

"They say this summer’s National Jamboree will be the most-connected ever. Well, this is a great start. Version 1.0 of the Jamboree Summit App is available on Android devices. The app clocks in at just over 10 MB and costs $0.99 in the Google Play store. The iOS version for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch should be available later this week."

Read the rest at http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/04/24/jamboree-app/

Initial Review

Well it will not let me sign in, but it has identified me as the scoutmaster and  shows the names of all of the members of my troop.  There is a section to add friends, so I can keep track of Mrs. ScoutingCouple.   Links to activities, daily schedule and times that areas are open readily appear.  The map appears not to load for me yet, but under "more" you can sign-in (I couldn't), and find links to their Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Flickr and blog sites.

My first impression is very favorable.
Steve Myers

Young Girls, Future Venturers

Venturing for All

Two Venturing Guides "guiding" the Pocket Crew
and celebrating a new Eagle

Update:  Our female crew guide pictured to the left has received one of the three Council Venturing Leadership Awards to be given at the council annual meeting on May 13 in part for the work she has done with these future venturers.

Second update (June 2013):  a good explanation of Frontier Girls Clubs is published in the Daily Caller. 

Venturing is typically for youth 14 to 20.  Now two Venturers guide the next generation.  In a Boy Scout troop the older scouts are Troop Guides to the younger, now older Venturing Crew Guides are working with the youngest girls who want to be in venturing, but are not yet old enough. How do you make sure the young ladies can hold their own in the outdoors against highly skilled young men?

Imagine how hard it is for a young lady to join a Venturing Crew when she knows nothing about surviving and thriving in the outdoors.  Imagine how hard is it to camp and backpack alongside young men highly skilled in those same skills.

Our Pocket Crew & Crew Guides at the Great Trail Council
Old Portage District Klondike, 2013

Venturing is for young adults in high school and college, both boys and girls. Boys get to be Boy Scouts and camp from age 11 and as they age they can join a Venturing Crew.   Boy Scouts who enter at 14 have three years of experience and can demonstrate their proficiency in outdoor scout skills at the drop of a hat.  So when girls join an Outdoor Venturing Crew like ours, they have from zero to little outdoor skill experience.  In short they are at an immediate disadvantage.  This is changing. It can change for you too if you act to support a girls program affiliated with your unit.

So how do you get the inexperienced girls, experienced?  

First, you can just dive in and start learning by doing at age 14.  This of course works and is how scouting has progressed for years, but who likes being the novice next to the Eagle Scout?  Second, you can schedule weekend first timer camp outs and run courses like backpacking 101, but what if they can't make that one or are not ready?  Third, you can approach your council course director for Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills (like Steve) and bring those Venturers who have never had the Boy Scout Outdoor Experience to the training.  Throughout a busy weekend the youth can learn a little about a lot from tenting to compasses to axes.

Venturing Crew Guiding Frontier Girls

A Venturing Leadership Position Patch.
A guide is typically older, skilled, experienced and
passionate about helping new venturers learn.

But the best we have seen is point four. One parent of two boys in our troop and crew wanted the same experience and skills for her daughter that her son's received.  The fourth way is to form a young Venturing-type crew.  Our girls (ages 8 to 13) are chartered as a Frontier Girls Club (Troop 201) precisely because their program allows the Pocket Crew to use Boy Scout and Venturing resources.  Further, the Frontier Girls actively encourage such a  partnership.

Frontier Girls FAQ:

 "8. Are Frontier Girls troops allowed to partner with Boy Scouts troops or other local scouting organizations?

"Yes. Frontier Girls is a very flexible program and we encourage interaction with other scouting programs. We will also honor badge requirements from these other programs as long as they are age appropriate. This way if you have a Boy Scout troop that you would like to work with for a particular activity, you may use the Boy Scout badge requirements for earning your badge rather than the Frontier Girls ones, making programming easier for all involved. We also

encourage Frontier Girls to be active in any local all scout activities such as community service projects or jamborees."

Venturing Crew guides with
Pocket Crew at Raccoon Creek in PA
photo by Teresa Michaels

Critical to the successful merging of the Pocket Crew into Crew 2001 is the guides appointed by their advisor upon request from the Frontier Girls leader. We even went so far to have our Chartered Organization, The First Baptist Church of Akron (Akron, OH) to be the sponsor to the Frontier Girls.  While not required by the Frontier Girls organization, this brings them into the First Baptist Family of Scouting with the same status as our three BSA units, the Cub Scout Pack 3001, Boy Scout Troop One and Venturing Crew 2001.

Can you spot the two Venturing Crew Guides to these girls in each of the pictures?  He is an Eagle Scout and past SPL of the Boy Scout Troop and current VP Administration in Crew 2001.  She is a director at the Great Trail Council summer camp, Camp Manatoc, and a past VP of Program for Crew 2001. He is active in the Order of the Arrow and attended the 2011 SummitCorp and the 2012 Shakedown at the new Summit Bechtel Reserve.  Both are popular with the girls and setting extremely important examples of what each girl should want to become.  Each of these girls wants to be in the crew and will be soon.  They chose the name pocket crew because they wanted to be in the pocket of the crew and the pocket crew is growing in numbers.  Oh how the crew will change when all of these arrive.  It's kind of exciting don't you agree?

Frontier Girls Facebook page
Venturing, BSA Facebook page

Steve and Kimberly Myers