Venturing and the OA

[Guneukitschik]

I know of a few crews that might be interested in the cardboard boat race you mentioned earlier. Could you post some additional information please?

[ScoutMom2]

I work with Venturing and many of my boys don't intend to join the Boy Scouts or work for those awards, so they are excluded from OA as well. It's not just the girls that are excluded. Venturing is just a different animal, so trying to integrate it into traditional BoyScouting just doesn't work IMHO. I think it's great to have OA, and my son and husband are in it and LOVE it, but for Venturing I don't feel that it's necessary.

[Scholarch]

I second the idea of Venturing having its own separate Honor Society. What do 18 year old Venturing guys and girls care about brotherhood? Technically, siblinghood would be the better word. Also, the underlying mechanism of an Ordeal should not be precluded as what is definitively right for the Venturing program. E. Urner Goodman wasn't even around when Venturing was inaugurated. How can you put words in a deadman's mouth?

In fact, a full 18 years went by between the death of Goodman and the inauguration of Venturing. That means not one Venturing member can recall the man even being alive. He made an awesome program but please give someone else a chance with their respective program. I know for a fact that there are plenty of good crew advisors alive and well trying to create something momentous for Crews that is different from the Ordeal and custom-designed for Venturing. I can't understand why people infer that the OA should incorporate Venturing just because Wood Badge updated the scope of its programs covered. Wood Badge and OA are two different things. (For instance, no active "youth participants" of either Boy Scouts or Venturing can earn Wood Badge until they become "adult leaders." = big difference)

New society, new customs, new ceremonies, new founders, it's that easy.

[Chiefsttryker]

This is an interesting subject that I have talked about with many people.

I think that in the next 10 years that the OA will start inducting ventures. I think this will happen with the stipulation that youth will have earned the bronze outdoor award. There are sevral reasons for this;
1. That venture's that have earned the outdoor award have more that completed the requirements for the OA.
2. Venturing is not yet strong enough to justify the the time/cost investment to start a seperate honour organization.
3. The theme that would best suite the ventures in my opion is the frontiersmen which is already taken by another organization, the Royal Rangers.
4. National has aready left a clause letting certain venture's in if they met one stipulation, if a venture was a first class scout before joining he may be elected by the crew ( he is not required to be daul regestired). It doesn't take much to expand or change this stipulation to let them all in.
5. There are alot of lodges that have active female adults which would cover the two deep leadership necessary to have female youth.

Chiefstryker

[Buffalo Bill]

Chiefsttryker stated:

4. National has aready left a clause letting certain venture's in if they met one stipulation, if a venture was a first class scout before joining he may be elected by the crew ( he is not required to be daul regestired). It doesn't take much to expand or change this stipulation to let them all in.

From the 2006 Revision of the OA Guide for Officers and Advisers

III. Election to membership.
A. The requirements for membership in this lodge
are as stated in the current printing of the Order
of the Arrow Handbook and the Order of the Arrow
Guide for Officers and Advisers.

• Hold the First Class rank of the Boy Scouts of America,
as a minimum.
• After registration with a troop or team, have experienced
15 days and nights of Boy Scout camping during
the two-year period prior to the election. The 15 days
and nights must include one, but no more than one,
long-term camp consisting of six consecutive days and
five nights of resident camping, approved and under
the auspices and standards of the Boy Scouts of
America. The balance of the camping must be
overnight, weekend, or other short-term camps.
Candidates for youth membership shall be elected
by other youth members in accordance with policies set
forth by the national Order of the Arrow committee.

Elections outside the registered council. All elections
must be conducted by the Order of the Arrow lodge of the
council in which the unit is chartered. No unit may visit outside
its own council and hold an OA election under the auspices of
an OA lodge of another council. Elections are held only in troops or
teams.

Please note the sole use of "troop" or "team" in all of the quoted text above and the fact that this quoted Guide and the Handbook are the only guidance for requirements of membership--also this is extracted from the 2006 revision--"Elections are held only in troop or teams"

Even after doing a word search in the PDF document, I can't find the term "crew" listed in any of the election procedures. In fact, it doesn't occur in the entire document.

Could you please direct us to the source of your statement?

[wagionvigil]

Crews do not and are not permitted to hold elections!!!

[Chiefsttryker]

Sorry, I stand Corrected.

I got those replies when I asked asked One of the national people at NOAC 2000, and again when I called national sometime in 2003.

I wish National would make this CLEAR councils and lodges so there would not be so much confusion in this area. And that all that people at national would read off the same page.


Chiefstryker