Central Region Venturing Newsletter - the Central Point - November 2013

The Central Point Newsletter of Central Region Venturing | BSA November Newsletter 2013

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Excitement Awaits at Powder Horn!

When you hear about the training “Powder Horn” you may think that isn’t for you since you already attended NYLT or Wood Badge, but you should rethink your decision. Powder Horn is an outdoor resource management course designed to motivate and prepare adult and youth leaders to provide their unit with safe and fun High Adventure activities. Participants will get the chance to experience many different High Adventure activities throughout their time at Powder horn.

In This Issue: Powderhorn

1

Venturing Leadership Awards

2

The course is designed to help unit-level adult leaders to:

See Our Venturing

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1. Find the resources necessary for a high adventure program.

2. Understand what is involved in different high adventure

Survey

3

Communications

disciplines.

3. Run a high adventure program safely.

Membership Dues

3

Sea Scout Update

4

Learning Objectives:

Area Pages

5

1. Learn what resources are available to support a high

President’s Corner

6

adventure program.

2. Learn where to find the resources.

3. Learn how to use the resources.

4. Learn how to safely do a high adventure program.

5. Learn what is involved with different high adventure disciplines.

Go to http://www.crventuring.org/Training/Powder_Horn/ to find the dates and location of a course near you! ~ Sarah Mittrucker

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.

The Who, What, When, Why, and How of Venturing Leadership Awards.

Name That Camp!!

Who: These pr estigious awar ds ar e meant to be bestowed youth in the Venturing program that have held leadership positions in Venturing and exhibited great dedication to leadership in the program.

Each edition of the Central Point will feature a photo from a Boy Scout camp in the Central Region. Can you name that camp?

What: The Ventur ing Leader ship Awar d (or VLA) is awar ded on four different levels; Council, Area, Regional, and National.

This Month:

When: These awar ds can bestowed once a year , at differ ent limits for each level of award. Council VLA limitations are as follows: two awards for youth members per year for up to 50 crews/ ships, and one additional youth recognition per year for each fraction of 25 crews/ships above 50 (e.g., for 51 registered crews/ ships, a total of three youth awards may be presented; for 78 crew/ ships, four youth awards may be presented). Areas, Regions, and National may present eight awards per year.

Why: These awar ds ar e meant to r ecognize and encour age youth Venturing leaders on every level.

How: Simply fill out the for m located at the bottom of this page: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/venturing/awards/ leadership.aspx and send it to the National Scouting Offices.

Last Month:

Additionally, a Council level VLA toolkit has been prepared to aid in the selection, nomination, and presentation of VLA awards on the council level. This resource is available at http:// www.crventuring.org/Home/Fulltext/s=1&id=285 Now that you know what to do and where to find the correct resources, go and recognize some of the outstanding Venturing youth around you! ~ Dagny Gargas

Did You Know… 

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

18 current U.S. governors participated in Scouting as a youth and/or adult volunteer.

Four are Eagle Scouts.

25% of the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis) midshipmen were involved in Scouting as youth. 11% are Eagle Scouts.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

Camp Robert Drake Fairmount, Illinois

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—Venturing Officers’ Associations Have you ever been elected to or selected for a position, but had absolutely no idea what you were supposed to do in that role? Fear no more!

The Standard Operating Procedures have a complete description of each position within Venturing! Go to www.crventuring.org. Click on Leadership, then Venturing Officers’ Associations. This page not only has the Standard Operating Procedures, but also several other helpful documents! If you like the SOPs and want to create something similar for your crew, check out the by-law generator. Follow the prompts to create a document specific to your crew, that outlines the expectations and procedures!

If you are interested in getting involved as an officer outside of your crew, make this page your best friend. The procedures for selecting officers, as well as sample selection questions are posted here.

Finally, if you are unsure about proper uniforms and what patches to where, check out the link on uniforming!

Make Your Voice Heard!

Starting on January 1st, 2014, annual membership dues will increase from $15 to $24 each year. While this may seem like a large increase, it is still only $2 a month to participate in the Scouting program. According to Wayne Brock, Chief Scout Executive, “In order to continue to deliver the nation’s foremost youth program, it is occasionally necessary to increase membership fees so that we can offset rising administrative costs.” For more information, go to: http:// blog.scoutingmagazine.org/20 13/09/03/bsa-membership-feeincreased-to-24-what-doesyour-24-get-you/

“It’s surprising how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

Venturing Communications Survey Do you find the Central Point helpful? Are their articles that you can relate to? If you could change one thing, what would it be?

How about the Facebook group— what would you change there?

Take this short survey on communications regarding Facebook and this newsletter! It is only 10 questions, should take no more than 5 minutes, and would greatly help us serve you better!

We can’t improve the newsletter if we don’t know what you need, so take the survey now! Your article suggestions or Facebook post ideas just might show up! https:// www.surveymonkey.com/s/ D26FB95 ~Emily Mausshardt

Membership Dues Change in 2014

~ Abraham Lincoln

Caption Contest Last Month’s Picture:

London Bridges Falling Down, oh no!!!!! ~Caption Submitted By: Jerry Kiste

This Month’s Picture:

“Secret Agent Man” demonstrates left handed archery sighting to a passing penguin. Watch that posture, Agent! ~ Caption Submitted By: Karen Hudson

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.

Sea Scouting Update A lot is happening in Sea Scouting. upcoming events you can be a part of.

Here are some

The Scouts in Chicago are holding a Christmas Tree give away to those not able to afford one. It first begins with a sleepover on the 12th of December 2013, on the Columbia Yacht Club Ship, a 372' Icebreaker, in Monroe Harbor which includes dancing, karaoke, with a maximum of 250 Scouts. The next morning the Scouts unload the Christmas trees, by hand, off the USCG Vessel onto awaiting trucks. Come and join the Scouts up in Chicago for a great experience of serving the community and fun. For more information: http://www.chicagonow.com/ sail-lake-michigan/2013/06/sea-scouts-and-mariners/

Capture the Moment!

Have you seen the “We are Ventures” video? Check it out by clicking on the photo below!

Create your own video for your crew and share it on the Central Region Venturing Facebook page! Videos make an excellent promotional tool, so get out our camera, have some fun, create your video, and show it at your next crew open house or recruitment event!

Sea Scouts in Area 3 are presenting two courses, Gilligan's Island themed, about Sea Scouting at the Area 3 Venturing Conference in January 2014. The first, "If Gilligan had been a Sea Scout," where you can learn about Sea Scouts, and what you can do in the program. The second, "Boatswain's Academy on Gilligan's Island," where you can learn about being a good leader in Sea Scouts.

Have you ever been sailing? Have you ever gone to NYLT and heard of NAYLE? Well there is a opportunity for you to combine both experiences and have an amazing time doing it. They are offering two sessions of NAYLE (National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience) at Sea Base this spring for Venturers, Boy Scouts, and Sea Scouts. The sessions will be March 15 -21, 2014 and April 12-18 2014. You will be able to learn to sail, snorkel and most of all, enjoy the fun of NAYLE. For more information: https:// dl.dropboxusercontent.com/ u/20874669/Sea_Base_NAYLE_Flyer_2014.pdf Start gathering your swimsuits, there are only 190 more days until the Central Region Rendezvous, which will be held on May 16-18, 2014. The Rendezvous is for any Venturing and Sea Scout aged Scout who wants to attend a fun-filled weekend of many events including cardboard canoe races, sailing, and much more. There are more events being added to the event too. For more information: https://sites.google.com/site/ crseascoutrendezvous/. ~Katie Bruton (Central Region Boatswain)

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:

September 5th-7th, 2014, Powderhorn, Haugen and Rhinelander, WI

January 10th-12th, 2014, Area 2 Venturing Planning Conference, Lansing, MI January 24th-26th, 2014, Venturing Winter Biathalon, Gregory, MI February 21st-23rd, 2014, Area 2 Venturing Kickback Weekend, Twin Lake, MI

President: Mikaela Boston

President: Jasmine Dittel

Advisor: Chris Sandberg

Advisor: Jeff Geralds

Area 3

Area 4

Upcoming events:

Upcoming Events:

November 19th, 2013, Marketing, Recruiting, and Retaining for Venturing and Sea Scouting Webinar, online January 10th-11th, 2014, Area 3 Venturing Conference, Normal, IL Also, check out Area 3’s YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/user/CRVenturingArea3

May 9th-11th, Area 4 Whitewater Weekend in the New River Gorge, Fayetteville, WV August 30th-31st, 2014, Powderhorn-BC, Kensignton, OH

President: Elizabeth Schneider

President: Henry Gunther

Advisor: Bob Vogt

Advisor: Duane Zobrist

Area 5

Area 6

Upcoming Events:

Upcoming Events:

No upcoming events. If you have an event you would like listed here, please submit it to http:// www.crventuring.org/event_submission.php.

President: Mallory Ware Advisor: Julie Dalton

No upcoming events. If you have an event you would like listed here, please submit it to http:// www.crventuring.org/event_submission.php.

President: Mandi Forsythe Advisor: Carla Gargas

Area 7 Upcoming Events: 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!

Technology advancement has become a big part of our lives today, making social media a big part of our daily lives. It’s time to take social media and use it to your advantage to promote Venturing!

A picture is worth a thousand words so why not post a picture of your camping trip on Facebook or Twitter to promote your crew and all the cool adventure that Venturing offers. Many crews have used Facebook and Twitter as a tool to promote their crew and to get the word out about them. Crew Facebook pages are a great way to get information out to the crew members about upcoming events along with event reminders. Now that Instagram has become a big hit, put photos up or make it a challenge in your crew to find the best photo that represents Venturing. It’s amazing how many of your non-Venturing friends will see these photos and get interested in the program.

Besides posting photos, videos are a great way to show the reallife action happening. There are some great promotional videos for Venturing and Scouting in general on YouTube and www.scouting.org/Venturing. I highly encourage your crew to make a video that you can use for promotion. Social media can be a great tool to help promote Venturing but it’s up to us youth to start taking these photos. I challenge you all to put up a Venturing photo that best represents Venturing at least once a week until the end of the year.

You can post your photo to the Central Region Facebook group or mention us on Twitter ( @CRVenturing)! The challenge starts now! ~ Christina Vogt

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

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.