The Central Point Newsletter of Central Region Venturing | BSA January Newsletter 2014
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Venturing Conferences Galore! Area 7 Venturing Conference If you want to have a good time and receive some valuable information come join the Area 7 VOA for its annual Venturing Conference! This years Conference is on March 1, 2014 and will be held at Key Lime Cove in Gurnee, IL. The early bird sale ending on February 15 th is $25. After that it is $30 a person. You definitely do not want to miss this amazing opportunity for networking, teambuilding, information regarding the new changes to the program, and much more! Lunch will be provided. You can come for a day or even make it a weekend at the resort! Also, as part of your conference admission, free swim is included for after the event, so bring your swimsuits and enjoy some relaxation after a busy day. We hope you all come out and make a splash at the Central Region Venturing Area 7 Conference! ~ Katlin Adams
Area 5 Venturing Leadership Conference Calling all Venturers to the Area 5 Leadership Conference! This conference is designed to teach Venturers how to keep a strong unit and get inspired about all the endless possibilities the Venturing program has to offer. We will have a number of classes you can sign up for, and a kintera website soon to come. This is a great opportunity for Presidents and Vice Presidents of crews, councils, and areas to increase their Venturing knowledge, and have a blast while doing it. The conference will be held on February 22-23. Please join the Area 5 Facebook page by clicking here to stay posted on this event! Hope to see you all there! ~ Emily Thomas
In This Issue: Area Venturing Conferences
1
Crew Cookie Baking
2
See Our Venturing Events Calendar
3
How To: Event Planning
3
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
4
Sea Scout Update
5
Area Pages
6
President’s Corner
7
Venturing Oath: As a Venturer, I promise to do my duty to God and to help strengthen America. To help others, and to seek truth, fairness, and adventure in our world.
Crew 119 Uses Cooking Skills to Serve Others Venturing Crew 119, chartered to Ellettsville First United Methodist Church, Ellettsville, Indiana, spent their first meeting in December making home-made granola bars and icing cookies for a Cookie Walk held by the Owen County Center for Women’s Ministry. Crew 119 are old hands at cooking. They form the core of the kitchen staff for the Wapehani District Winter Rendezvous, where they put together a feast every January for 500 Scouts and leaders at Maumee Scout Reservation. The granola bars they made for the Center for Women’s Ministry are from the same recipe they’ve used at the Winter Rendezvous. The Center for Women’s Ministry provides counseling at no cost to women ages 13 and older. The Owen County Center in Spencer – a few miles west of Ellettsville – struggles to stay open at times, even while providing essential support to a number of women in the area. One of the counselors at the center, Deanne Collins, is also one of Crew 119’s adult leaders. She and her husband, the Rev. Arthur Collins, have done Venturing since before it was Venturing: their first Philmont trek was as Explorer Advisors in 1997. Crew 119 includes both high adventure and community ministry as emphases in their program.
Name That Camp!!
Each edition of the Central Point will feature a photo from a Boy Scout camp in the Central Region. Can you name that camp? This Month:
Last Month:
~ Art Collins (Venturing Crew 119 Advisor)
Gerber Scout Reservation
Did You Know…
Adults could earn the rank of Eagle Scout until 1965. Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico is the largest youth camp in the world. Approximately 14,000 T-shirts are purchased at Philmont each summer. Sea Base operates out of 3 different locations (Florida Keys, Marsh Harbour, and the Bahamas).
Twin Lakes, Michigan Activities: Camping, C.O.P.E., Swimming Lodging: rental tents For more information: click here If you would like your photo to be a “Name that Camp?” clue, please email it to Emily Mausshardt at vp-communications@crventuring.org.
See Our Venturing—Events Calendar Calling all Vice Presidents of Program! Have you submitted your crew, district, or council events to the Events Calendar on the Central Region website? Adding your events to the calendar provides information to local Venturers who may want to attend your event. In addition, your event will be publicized in this newsletter under your area’s calendar block. To submit an event, click here. Do you see an event that you are interested in attending? All Venturers are more than welcome to attend any of the events listed on the calendar. To see all of the upcoming events, you can go here. Click on more information, find their registration form or process, and have an excellent time meeting Venturers from another crew, district, council, or area! ~ Emily Mausshardt
How To: Plan Crew Events In order to execute a successful crew event, you need to follow a few steps. The first thing you need to decide is what your crew would like to do. Once you know that you can begin the planning process. With how the economy is right now, it might be better to try and stay on the cheap side of things, so try to find somewhere you can host your event for a reasonable price. Just remember, you want your event to go well, so if it’s a choice between a really cheap place and not so good event, or a great event and a little more expensive place, choose the one you know will better suit the crew and the event. You then will need to gather details about the event, such as a place to stay, what food you will need, and any other activities your crew might do. Providing information about the event with ample time to register will benefit
everyone in the long run. You can always assign some of the duties, such as food and other activities, to other members of your crew. Keep in contact with any crew member you have working with you: that is one of the most important things you can do while planning an event. Always be prepared: as you are approaching your event there are always chances that something unexpected will come up. Always have a backup plan in case something does happen. When the day of the event comes, remember to have fun and that this is your event. You have worked hard to plan and execute it. ~ Kim Legg
One Oath, One Law Changes As you probably have already heard, there are some big changes coming up for Venturing in May this year. One of these exciting changes is the new “One Oath, One Law” change. What this means is that all scouting programs will eventually have the same Oath and Law, that is, the Oath and Law currently used by the Boy Scouts. This change is meant to promote unity between these different Scouting organizations. The change for Venturers is coming about in May of 2014, so Be Prepared! For more information, please go here.
“If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.” ~ Baden Powell
Caption Contest Last Month’s Picture:
“Always the brave one, Cindy decided to be the first to take her date out to the dance floor at the annual Fir Tree Mixer.” ~ Caption Submitted By: David Peacocke
This Month’s Picture:
“Venturer taco? Or practicing First Aid? Probably the taco!” ~ Caption Submitted By: Michael Ross
We know you can do better than this caption! Send in your caption, name, and council you are from to vp-communications@crventuring.org. If you win, your caption will be featured in next month’s newsletter and on our Facebook page. Check back next month to see who wins.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory Venturing Crew 73 has been active in Buckeye Council since 2006 and we are chartered through the Canton Amateur Radio Club. As you might guess, we are technology-focused. Young people who join our unit are interested in computers, electronics and science. We serve our Council's summer camp by maintaining the camp's public address system, shower house emergency phones, and a modest sound and lighting system at one of the outdoor amphitheaters. In 2010, we remodeled a storage building on the reservation, making it into a ham radio "shack" and a small recording studio. This was done to bring the Radio Merit Badge to our camp. A Crew 73 member has always been on camp staff and in charge of the six-week summer camp program area. We are the holders of a club amateur radio license, KT8BSA, which is the call sign we use for our camp activities. In December 2013, there was an opportunity to take a quick road trip during winter break, desiring somewhere within a few hour's drive. None of the youth members had been to the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) telescope facility in Green Bank, West Virginia. Also, within a 90 minute drive of that attraction sits the formerly top-secret Greenbrier Bunker, the previous evacuation home of our Congress in the event of an attack on Washington DC. The trip was quickly arranged, a tour plan filed, and off we went. Two adults (and a spouse guest) and two crew members made a pleasant auto trip of about five hours duration. Arriving in Green Bank at lunchtime on Saturday, we ate in the visitor center's cafe and took the standard tour soon after. Our guide was very knowledgeable and explained the scientific mission of the facility and told about its history. Our evening was spent making a 40 minute trip over the ridgeline to Snowshoe ski area, where we took a meal at a local restaurant and soaked up some Allegheny Mountain hospitality. Because there is a substantial black-out radius for most forms of communication, cell phones in particular per government restrictions, we were pretty well cut off from the rest of the world The next morning before any tours began, we hiked the access road to the large 100 meter telescope. Standing very close to the reflector's structure, it was time to obey the 12th point of the Scout law. Combine the absolute stillness of the site in the cool morning mountaintop fog with huge machines which help us understand God's universe and you get the perfect stage to read inspirational words. We had a 2:30 reservation at the Bunker, so we hit the road again just before lunchtime. A quick meal in the city at a cozy mom & pop restaurant, then off to check in with the tour. If you have never been to the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, let me paint you a picture. This is a luxury hotel in the extreme. I'd give it six stars on a bad day. During the early days of the Cold War, the US Government needed a place to house Congress during an emergency. A multi-year project constructed an underground bunker containing two floors, each about the size of a football field. It was maintained as a getaway until the early 90's, when a journalist blew the site's cover. Now it's used as a repository for computer backups, business records and storage of other commercial records. And of course, as a mini-museum. Again, our tour guide for the visit was highly entertaining and knew her history quite well. We saw where Congressmen would enter, be de-contaminated of possible fallout, eat, sleep, work and possibly die. We saw gigantic blast doors which would seal the bunker against all but a direct nuclear strike. If you are a student of American history, especially Cold War history, this is a place you will want to see. There is a small fee at both NRAO and the Bunker to take the tours. Leaving the area, we arrived home in Canton late in the evening, exhausted but satisfied. Oh, yes... the trip took us very close to the Bechtel Reservation and the New River Gorge bridge, but we could not visit those on this trip. Our Crew will likely return to the area next year, possibly enjoying a campout in "bear country" and a little taste of whitewater. ~ Dale Lamm (Venturing Crew 73 Advisor)
Tell Us about Your Crew! What makes your crew the best crew out there? What have you done recently that was fun and exciting? Submit your story to vpcommunications@crventuring.org and it will appear in the next edition of the Central Point!
Has your crew ever played a live version of Where’s Waldo? How about dressed up like superheroes to go bowling? Submit a short story or even a longer one about your crew’s activities! If you have pictures, please include those, too!
Crew 73 with a telescope that is 1 mile away!
At the main entrance
Sea Scouting Update Happy New Year Everyone! I hope that the past year in Scouting has been great for all of you! Now it is time to mark your calendars because there are already lots of events being planned for 2014! Sea Scouting was started over 100 years ago as a stepping stone for boys who wanted to go into the Navy. Sea Scout Adult Leader Basic Training will be held at the 2014 University of Scouting. This is will be on January 25th at Fox High School (Arnold, Missouri). Sea Scouting has also recently approved a new century uniform that is easier to obtain. You can get the uniform from Wal-Mart and the necessary patches from the Scout Shop and also scoutstuff.org Area 3 Sea Scout Skiing TripLoving the snow? Well go up to Wisconsin with your best friends to go on a skiing trip! This trip is February 14-17, 2014. It is open to all scouts, parents, siblings and guests! The all-inclusive cost should be between $255 and $295 to attend. Contact Mark Shapland at, mark.Shapland@milliman.com if you have any questions and are interested in attending! Central Region RendezvousStart packing because the Central Region Rendezvous is just around the corner! It will be on May 16-18th, 2014. Located on Lake Springfield in Springfield Illinois(only 90 minutes from the Arch), the Rendezvous is for any scout: Sea Scout, Venturer, or Boy Scout at least 14 years or older. Like the Fall Fun Rally, the Rendezvous is a fun-filled weekend that will have over 30 events including sailing, boating triathlons, cardboard canoe races, swamped canoe races, and much more fun. For more information about this great weekend, go to: http://www.alincolnbsa.org or: https://sites.google.com/site/crseascoutrendezvous/ Lake Huron High Adventure Sailing ExperienceOn July 16th-20th, 2014, you have the chance to crew and sail a racing yacht back home after it races in the annual Macinac Race. You get hands-on learning experience while having a lot of fun sailing with experienced captains and a crew of youth. Contact Wayne Hastings, the Area 2 Vice Commodore at lwhastings@yahoo.com or, Bill Hamilton at whami9@aol.com if you are interested in this once-in -a-lifetime opportunity. ~Katie Bruton
Area 6 Fun Event— Arctic Blast AdVenturous much? Crews from around Area 7 are taking on the cold at Arctic Blast 2014 on January 18th in Morris for a day full of snowy fun! In preparation, crews will build a klondike dog sled, which will be loaded up and raced around the campgrounds in a Klondike Derby... 1897 Alaskan Gold Rush style! With competitions at every turn, you will have a great time in the snow! Venturers will also get to participate in a paintball course and take aim at the range with some new firearms! The day will conclude with hot chocolate and a campfire! This is winter Venturing!
Submit your Venturing event on the Central Region Website! Go to http://crventuring.org and click on the “submit a calendar event” button on the lower left side of the page. Fill out the form, and now you will be able reach thousands of Venturers to come to your event!
Area 1
Area 2
Upcoming events:
Upcoming Events:
February 28-March 2nd, 2014, Winter Venturing Event, Rhinelander, WI September 5th-7th, 2014, Powderhorn, Haugen and Rhinelander, WI
January 24th-26th, 2014, Venturing Winter Biathalon, Gregory, MI February 21st-23rd, 2014, Area 2 Venturing Kickback Weekend, Twin Lake, MI March 22nd, 2014, Venturing and Sea Scouting Basic Leader Training, Midland, MI
President: Mikaela Boston
President: Jasmine Dittel
Advisor: Chris Sandberg
Advisor: Jeff Geralds
Area 3
Area 4
Upcoming events:
Upcoming Events:
August 17-23rd, 2014, ArrowPower2014, Trego, WI
January 14th, 2014, Webinar for Professionals January 25th, 2014, University of Scouting, Arnold, MO March 8th, 2014, ILSC and Crew Officer Orientation, MO Also, check out Area 3’s YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/user/CRVenturingArea3
May 9th-11th, 2014, Area 4 Whitewater Weekend in the New River Gorge, Fayetteville, WV August 1st-3rd, 2014, Powder Horn-HoOC, Wakeman, OH August 30th-31st, 2014, Powderhorn-BC, Kensignton, OH September 12-14th, 2014, Wood Badge, Camp Stigwandish, OH
President: Elizabeth Schneider
President: Henry Gunther
Advisor: Bob Vogt
Advisor: Duane Zobrist
Area 5
Area 6
Upcoming Events:
Upcoming Events:
February 22nd-23rd, 2014, Area 5 Venturing Leadership Conference, St. Joseph, MO
January 18th, 2014, Arctic Blast, Morris, IL February 8th, 2014, Venturing Summit, Frankton, IN
President: Mallory Ware Advisor: Julie Dalton
President: Mandi Forsythe Advisor: Carla Gargas
Area 7 Upcoming Events: January 18th, 2014, Snowstorm 2014, Rosecoe, IL March 1st, 2014, Area 7 Venturing Conference, Gurnee, IL April 11th-13th, 2014, Powder Horn, Oregon, IL June 30th-July 5th, 2014, National Youth Leadership Training: Eagle Claw, Morris, IL
President: Katlin Adams Advisor: Kris Zahrobsky
President’s Corner Hey Central Region! Now that 2013 has wrapped up, it’s time to start thinking about all the awesome opportunities that 2014 holds for you and your crew! Not only are there some great events happening around the region but there are area conferences happening very soon close to your home! Attending area conferences not only help enhance your knowledge about Venturing, but it allows you to meet new people that have the same passion about Venturing as you do. There are great things happening right around the corner for you!
Central Region Venturing President: Christina Vogt president@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Advisor: Keith Gehlhausen venturing-chair@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Vice President of Communications: Emily Mausshardt vpcommunications@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Associate Advisor for Communications: Deb Keyes communicationscoordinator@crventuring.org
Area conferences give you the ability to learn about how you can help your crew grow and develop into the best possible Venturing crew. Not only can you learn about the crew level, but how a council can better develop or start a VOA. Every conference has something for everyone! Come spend a day with your best Venturing friends! Some upcoming area conferences are happening in Area 5 and Area 6 in February and Area 7 in March. Check out their area Facebook group or www.crventuring.org to find the registration form or for more information. I can’t wait to see you at an area conference over the next few months! Keep being adVenturous Central Region! ~ Christina Vogt
About Our Organization... Venturing is a Scouting program for male and female youth ages 13-21 that lets youth experience new activities, build leadership skills, earn awards, make new friends, and of course have fun.
The Central Region is one of four regions of the Boy Scouts of America. This region includes the states of: Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia.