Off to the BSA National Annual Meeting

Silver Antelope

Kimberly and I are heading to Nashville for the first time.  We will be staying in the Gaylord Opryland hotel with all of the other participants at the BSA National Annual Meetings. We are excited of course since this is the first time we have been to a National Annual Meeting. What got us to attend was two things. First our good friend and great scouter from the Great Trail Council and current Area 4 Membership VP, David Weyrick, is receiving the Silver Antelope

Venturing, BSA

and we are honored to be there with him for that. Secondly, the announcements of all the changes in the Venturing Program are being announced Friday Morning and we wanted to be there for that.

In the mean time I am trying to keep all of the changes posted for our Area 4 Central Region Venturing Councils at our Resources for Councils page.  Much has been released already and more will be forthcoming.  For our purposes in supporting the Area (me) and the Great Trail Council (Kimberly) we want to have a good one stop place as we try to understand and then report and train on these changes.

Here is what is on the Resources for Council page so far. I won't update the below, so check the link.

What's New in Venturing?

The Venturing Announcement will be made at the Venturing Spark Session of the BSA Annual Meeting Friday morning May 23, 2014 in Nashville, TN

Changes will be announced at 

•   http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/programupdates.aspx 

New ALPS (Adventure, Leadership, Personal Growth, Service) Program Model and Requirements

• 2014 Program Update - 
• New Award Requirements from scouting.org
• better version for printing from USScouts.org here
• note Tier II and III adventures in the requirements are defined in the Handbook for Venturers (and here is a preview)
• Here is a list of the trainings mentioned as part of the requirements in the new award structure.

Books - Drafts of books seen at the National Annual Meeting 

• Handbook for Venturers
• Venturing Advisor Guidebook
• Venturing Awards and Requirement Book

New Adult Training Materials: 

• Venturing Advisor Position - Specific Training instructor syllabus

• Crew Committee Challenge instructor syllabus
  

  
  

Here are the documents from the 2013 New Program Announcement at Scouting.org/venturing

Spread the Word: The New River Experience May 9-11, 2014

C4VOA is having a great fun event called the New River Experience for all Venturers (youth and adults included). You might want to check your Venturing registration or find a place to sign up so you can come and have a great time with us. Details? Click on the poster or shoot the QR code. cost is being determined now, but might be around $105-$110 for the Whitewater trip and about $95 for the Canopy Tour option.

Share this by hitting one of the share buttons below or by using the link in your email to your friends or on Facebook and Twitter.  

Steve

University of Scouting - Our Opportunity to Share

Tomorrow in our BSA Council the annual University of Scouting takes place.  It is a day of classes offered by dozens of scouters and attended by over 1,100 scouters. Kimberly and I have the opportunity to teach there and I always find it a lot of fun to interact with other leaders in the informal classroom environments. I always learn something too. Two of my courses are supporting Boy Scout programming (The Annual Planning Conference and the Delegating Scoutmaster).  The former is nuts and bolts, but the latter is a critical course since all too often Scoutmasters have way too much on their shoulders and learning to share and how to find help is a secret of a long and happy scoutmaster life.

On the Venturing side, Kimberly will be helping crew leaders understand what is a quality crew using the Journey to Excellence award process.  In addition, she will tie Excellence in Council Venturing to Excellence in Crews through the council Venturing Officer Association.

I will offer a third course on Mentoring.  I have taught it just three times (counting this Saturday) and I was surprised as hit hung out there on my slideshare account that it had been downloaded 53 times and viewed by over 1,800 pairs of eyeballs.  Clearly there is interest in mentoring which is good since the New Roadmap for Venturing and the national roll-out scheduled for May 2014 has mentoring at the top of leadership and service and a new BSA mentoring course is being developed.

You can see our presentations and "borrow" them for your own use at http://slideshare.net/campnmug.


If you like them or if you don't let us know.

Steve and Kimberly 2/28/2014 

First post in a long time - 22 Essential Camping Diagrams from buzzfeed.com

From BuzzFeed here are 22 essential diagrams you need for camping.   Some of these are really clever.

Had to post something, it has been too long since we have posted.  Both of us have gotten more involved in Venturing beyond the crew and that has taken our time. The 2013 National Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve was fantastic. We returned happy and tired and ready for our next adventure -- Grandchildren.  Two of them: a boy in August and a girl in September.  It has been a busy fall, but our resolution is to start posting again in this new year. 

Steve and Kimberly
1/1/2014