Scoutmaster Podcast 53

And now for you, Scoutmaster. So I was thinking about this and I wonder if, when mosquitoes go camping, they complain about all the people I don't know.

What do you think? Hey, this is podcast number 53..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

I wanted to let you know that I have an interview scheduled tomorrow morning with Cliff Jacobson, And Cliff is a very respected outdoors author, a guide, and I am really looking forward to speaking with him And hopefully we'll have that interview on next week's podcast. So a lot of you got in touch this week. Let me see here: Arlen, thanks for the retweet on podcast number 52 and the Scoutmaster newsletter which went out last week.

The January edition went out last week And there's always a giveaway in the Scoutmaster newsletter and I will let you know who won that next week because the giveaway is open for entries until tomorrow. I think Tim got in touch about the newsletter And the content of the newsletter. The focus of the newsletter this time was special needs scouting And Tim had this to say: He says thanks for starting up your newsletter. Your writings on special needs scouting were very timely for me today. This weekend on a campout, I had a Scout approach me for a hug. It was the first time that had ever happened and it was a bit awkward, to tell you the truth.

My mind was racing with youth protection concerns as to how this might appear to others in the room. And what you said about hugs are for families and scouts. Shake hands sounds like a great approach And if I ever run into this again, I'll give it a try. Tim, I'm glad that you found that information useful. I really am. James, a Scoutmaster from Haymarket, Virginia, sent me this story, He said three years ago, a Scout with Down syndrome bridged over from Weebelos into our troop.

His parents were a little skeptical about scouting as other troops were kind of waving them off, And I told them that the other troops were wrong and I welcomed this great opportunity. This Scout was functioning at about a third grade level and he had some physical challenges. His first summer camp was a great success, You know. As a matter of fact, he fared better than my son and even earned more merit badges than he did. Our Scouts may have gotten more out of working with this Scout, whose name was Rusty, than Rusty ever got out of scouting.

As years passed, I kept in touch with his parents and eventually we came to the conclusion that Rusty just was not keeping up with us and within our troop, So we started looking around to try to find a troop that could better suit his needs. I found an active troop that worked with boys like Rusty, And Rusty and his parents and I visited them and decided that this was a great place for Rusty to continue in scouting. They have several members with Down syndrome, including the Scoutmaster's son. This past summer, as a part of my diversity ticket for wood badge, my troop and Rusty's new troop planned a joint activity. Our youth leadership met with theirs and they planned the event together. We held a joint troop meeting and a Saturday session to work on the historic carpentry merit badge.

Scouts formed a group with members from both troops and about 30 scouts completed the merit badge that day. What a production that was. We formed some friendships and planned more joint activities with this troop.

James, thanks so much for sending me the story. That's very inspirational And it also points something out that I think is important to realize.

There is a point in mainstreaming boys with some special needs where you might come to a juncture and say: well, you know, what we're doing here is not answering the needs that this particular Scout needs. Jim, I've got to give you a lot of credit for understanding that and for assessing the situation and then making sure that Rusty could continue on in scouting. That's a great story and I really do appreciate it.

I also had this message from Doug, who says this: We have three scouts in our troop and these three have been members of patrol since September, And one is a tenderfoot and two are scouts In February. We have five scouts crossing over from Cub Scouts and I'm looking for opinions or guidance on whether we should have the five join the existing patrol and reach the magic number eight, or if we should just have a new patrol, one having three and one having five.

Well, Doug, since you asked, here's my advice. I think I've boiled things down to two basic rules of thumb on patrols.

First is that the most important thing for scouts is they want to be in a patrol with their buddies, and I think that's our first consideration. So that would be one of the factors that I would want to discover: see who was buddies with who and make sure they all got to be in the same patrol. That being said, patrols do function best with at least six, but no more than ten members. Eight is, as you say, the magic number.

So my bias would be towards making sure that I have a patrol of at least eight, because patrols of three and five? Historically for me they don't work very well because there's always one guy missing, And if it's a patrol of three, well now, you're down to one guy.

If it's a patrol of five, you're down to four, And a lot of times you know, the more guys in a patrol, the more chance you have of a guy missing a particular meeting or event. So fighting strength seems to be about eight guys, no more than ten.

You know, rule of thumb: no fewer than six. None of this is official policy or rules or anything like that.

It's just rules of thumb, in my opinion, And that's what you asked for, wasn't it, Doug? So thanks for being in touch. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about venture patrols. Venture patrols, Not venture crews, Venture patrols. This is an outgrowth of a discussion that we've been having over the last couple of podcasts, but we'll talk about that in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. Then we got an email to answer.

That sounds like a lot to get done, So let's get started. Shall we

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less? Over the past couple of podcasts we've been talking about patrols and how patrols are made up. I mentioned in our last podcast- number 52, that we had been using this kind of loose venture patrol model for a long time And I got a couple of comments, One from Larry Geiger. Thanks, Larry, Thanks for being in touch again. He says just to comment on podcast 52 concerning venture activities.

I think what you're describing is a venture patrol. A venture crew is a chartered unit of scouting And I did call it a venture crew in the last podcast.

So this is trying to clear up a little bit of confusion. It doesn't really matter to me what you call it.

Larry says But to have a venture crew, you do, you know, have to have a committee, a venture crew leader, a charter and everything like that. So we're not trying to get stuck in terminology here, just like Larry says.

But this is a pretty important little piece here And what Larry sent me were a couple of links to some descriptions of venture patrols And I'm going to have those links on the blog post that contains this podcast, So you'll want to go and check those out. Larry goes on to say: we've had the venture patrol in both of my troops but I've never used the venture patch.

Now you'll see if you follow the links that I provide you. There is a venture patch available for the uniform that indicates that a scout is part of the venture patrol. The venture patrol usually becomes active in my troops in September or October when we start planning our Appalachian Trail, 50 miler every two years. They meet throughout the year to get ready for the hike. They elect a patrol leader and a quartermaster. All the scouts and adults going get together about once a month outside of regular scout meetings.

All the money collected for the trip goes through the regular troop treasury. And then Walter also commented. He said: we do exactly what you do for the venture patrol. It is a virtual patrol that exists purely for high adventure outings. They're still members of their regular patrols. The right terminology is venture patrol and not crew.

You know, I'm really thankful that there are guys out there who are smarter than me. Thank you, Walter and Larry, for putting me straight on that. A crew is a chartered unit. The leader is venture patrol leader. That is a leadership position that qualifies for Eagle.

So it's worth using the right terminology. You are exactly right, my friend. Members can wear the venture patch, certainly one of the more obscure bits of the official uniform. The Scoutmaster Handbook has a whopping one or two paragraphs about venture patrols, but the scheme is essentially a return to explorers in the troop from the 1950s.

This 60-year-old diagram is much more helpful than what is in the current handbook, and Walter provided me a link to an ancient piece of scouting literature that describes the relationship between this older boy patrol within a troop, And I think it is, as Walter says, a pretty easy way of looking at and picturing this, and I'll have that link on the blog. What exactly are we talking about?

Well, you can establish a venture patrol within your troop. This qualifies the scouts who are members of that patrol to wear the venture strip, which is a badge that goes on their uniform and it just says venture on it. The other interesting thing is is that there is actually a venture patrol letter. That's right. It looks like a letter like you would get in high school for being a part of an athletic team.

It's a big V And there are pins associated with activities that you can get to put on that letter. Now, I'm not personally using this, but I wanted to point it out just to know that that program exists and it's something that you can work with. Some of you will see that this is very similar to the varsity scout letter.

Varsity scouting is, you know, kind of like a not-so-well-known program within scouting and it's not used in a whole lot of places. The reason that the venture patrol letter looks similar to the varsity letter is because it is exactly the same thing.

So just a little program note there to know that hey, there's some badges and pins that can be worked with, and follow the links on the blog and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. Now I will reiterate that Walter and Larry and myself use this venture patrol to organize and arrange high adventure trips. Larry does a once-every-two-years 50-miler Appalachian trail hike using the venture patrol concept. We do an annual outing. Usually it's up to Canada for a canoe trip, or this year we're going over to Kondersteg in Switzerland and we're using the venture patrol model around this.

Now I have incorrectly called it a venture crew, but it is actually a venture patrol. So you encounter every once in a while little bits of scouting that are not really well-defined and I hope this helps lend a little bit of definition to it- The boys in our troop who are members of the venture patrol. That venture patrol does not exist within the troop as an official, like ongoing patrol, that meets every time patrols meet. This is an identification for scouts who are participating in this high adventure activity. They usually have to be a minimum age of 13 to do this and they get together outside of the regular meetings of the troop to plan and arrange their activities. I would love to know what your older boy program looks like in your troop.

If you have something similar to this or if you're doing it a different way, I'd love to have you get in touch with me and you'll find out how to do that right at the end of the podcast. Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods And everything? That feels just as it should. You're part of a life there. You're part of something good. If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods, Find me a letter, Send it by mail- Email that is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Well, this email came in from Chris in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. He says: hello.

I've approached several district executives, as well as our council executive, and I really haven't been able to get a clear-cut answer on my question. My question is: can an 18-year-old assistant scoutmaster drive youth members to and from camping trips? Our troop has always shrugged it off and firmly said: no driving scouts until you're 21.. Recently the troop has started saying an 18-year-old can drive if he has a 21-year-old in the vehicle, which defeats the purpose because that requires two adults to drive one vehicle. Any help you could give to clear this up would be greatly appreciated. Hey Chris, this one's easy Look at the tour permit form, And a tour permit is a piece of paperwork that gets filled out whenever you're going camping away from your scout reservation or your scout camp And it simply describes where you're going, what you're planning on doing and making sure that people have the proper training and qualifications to lead the outing.

If you look on the back of the tour permit, there you'll find this statement And let's make sure that we're talking about the most recent revision of the tour permit. If you go online and you just search for scouting tour permit, you're liable to come up with a dozen different iterations of the tour permit.

So check with your council and make sure that you have the most current edition of the tour permit. I will have a link to a PDF file of what I am pretty sure is the most current edition of the tour permit. But, like I said, make sure to check with your council. If you look on the back it'll say this: driver qualifications. In part it says all drivers must have a valid driver's license and must be at least 18 years of age. There is a youth member exception.

When traveling to an area, regional or national, Boy Scout activity or any venturing event under the leadership of an adult who is 21 years or older, a youth member at least 16 years of age may be a driver subject to the following conditions: One, he must have six months driving experience as a licensed driver- Time on a learner's permit or equivalent is not to be counted. And two, he has no record of accidents or moving violations. And three, parental permission has been granted to leader, driver and riders.

So the answer to your question, Chris, is that the BSA permits a driver who is at least 18 years of age is a qualified driver for a scout outing. There is a youth member exception if a youth member is at least 16 years old and he meets those criteria: six months driving experience, no record of accidents or moving violations and he has his parents' permission to drive and he also has the permission of any scouts he'll be transporting. He also has the permission of their parents. He becomes a qualified driver. One thing that might be confusing the issue in your troop is the too-deep leadership conundrum when it comes to driving. While two adults 121 years or older and a registered BSA leader with youth protection training are required for tour permits, they are not required in each and every vehicle.

The youth protection concept that goes into effect here is there is no one-on-one contact. In other words, you don't need to have two adults in every vehicle, We just don't want one adult and one scout in a vehicle by themselves, unless that is a father and son or mother and son. More than one scout per vehicle is the way that you solve your problem.

Naturally, a parent can transport their scout to and fro, So I hope that helps clear that up for you, Chris, and for everyone who's listening, and I appreciate you being in touch. You can get in touch with your questions and comments, and you're going to find out how in just a moment.