November Sub-District Venturing Forum

We're interested in how your sub-district Venturing forum turned out in November.  The Springville West Stake and Dry Creek Stake combined to discuss how to connect the dots between Scouting's PLC, Venturing Crew Officer Meetings, and quorum presidency meetings in capturing the vision of scouting.  See the on-line presentation here.

October Forum Topic: Venturing Activities - What's Working for You?

You are invited to the Hobble Creek District Venturing Forum next Thursday, October 9, 2013 at 7 p.m.  We'll be discussing the following:

• Venturing Annual Program Flow (Chart 14, page 73 of the Venturing Leader Specific Training Manual)

• Invite discussion on what is working and what is not working in your crews.

• Review rechartering and the opportunity to register youth of all faiths and activity levels into your unit.

We might even play a GAME!  Hope to see you there.

Venturing Program Announcement

Lots of changes are coming to Venturing in 2014.  It looks like the former general Young Men's president of the LDS church, Charles Dahlquist, had a hand in the new format.  Advancement and recognition look simplified.  Venturing will use the scout oath and law, including the scout sign.  Look into the details here.

See all of you at Roundtable this Thursday!

Balloon Ball and the Crew Officer's Seminar

Thursday's Venturing Forum centered on "How to conduct a Crew Officer's Seminar."  We started out by playing a game called "balloon ball."  The object of this game is to score as many goals as possible
in the time allowed.  We had 3 minutes to blow up balloons and touch the the opposite wall with the balloons.  After the first balloon was popped by one of the opposing teams, we started keeping score and then it got competitive.  We got kind of noisy, but no one poked their heads in our room when we started popping each other's balloons to see what was happening.

How did a simple activity turn into such a competition and how does a game of balloons relate to conducting a Crew Officer's Seminar?  We took time to reflect on the activity and share our thoughts.  I'll leave it up to you if you want to try similar games to get conversations going or to help facilitate a seminar, a.k.a. a Yearly Planning Retreat, but activities like this are extremely simple, inexpensive and effective ways of enabling young men to lead.

We were reminded that yearly planning is driven by interests.  Interests can be discovered through the Venturing Activity Interests Survey.  Busy young men with jobs and other interests are drawn to activities that meet their needs and interests.  Needs may be met by less frequent but better planned activities planned and led by the young men.

Venturing and the BSA's Tour and Activity Plan

Last evening's Venturing Forum was sponsored by the Hobble Creek West Stake and focused on some of the FAQ's in the BSA's Tour and Activity Plan.  We had the opportunity to take a Tour and Activity Plan Quiz that provided excellent reminders and created an opportunity for learning and discussion.  We were reminded that the purpose of the Tour and Activity Plan is to be a "planning tool for best practices to be prepared for safe and fun adventure."  We observed how easy it is to use the online Tour and Activity Plan and were encouraged to use the plan for the benefit  of our units.