WESTERN REGION VENTURING

MAY 2015

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1 President’s Corner

2 Region Updates

2 Greetings from A2W

3 Beach Blowout Recap

4 2015 Scout Expo

5 A Word From Our Advisor

wrventuring-bsa.org

Western Region VenturingBoy Scouts of America

Spring News!

Region Highlights:

San Diego Beach Blowout Recap pg. 3

2015 Scout Expo pg. 4

President’s Corner

HAPPY MAY, WESTERN REGION!Thank you for all of those who attended the San Diego Venturing Beach Blow-out. The nine months of planning, three trips to San Diego, and hours of emails and phone calls with Shannon Mulligan paid off. With over 220 participants from twenty-five councils from all across the Western Region, some from the Central Region, and even the Southern Region, this event would not have been a success without your support and participation. We hope you had a weekend filled with memories with new and old friends.

As of today, I have thirty-one days left until my term as the Western Region Ven-turing President ends. These past eleven months have been the experience of a lifetime and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I have travelled over 30,000 miles to meet with Venturers and experience Venturing across our amazing region, and have made lifelong friends doing so. I have been able to work with the best team of Venturers in the Western Region this past year, and I’m proud of everything that they have accomplished. I have been blessed with such a supportive, ener-getic, and passionate advisor who has left his legacy in this region during his five years as our region’s advisor.

I would have never been able to serve in this honorable position if it wasn’t for another youth motivating me to run for a VOA position over two years ago. At first, I didn’t think I was cut for the job two years ago, yet in thirty-one days, I’ll be serving as your National Venturing President.. Risks must be taken in order to reach for high goals and fulfill your dreams. Take a risk once in a while, Western Region. Step out of your comfort zone and be passionate to make your dreams come true.

Thank you for the experience of a lifetime!

Yours in Venturing,Edward AbrahamWestern Region Venturing President

Cover: Melanie Stert hails from Crew 301 in Upland, CA and is shown enjoying stand-up paddleboarding at the recent San Diego Beach Blowout!

If you have photos you would like to submit for use in our promotions, please email: vpcomms@wrventuring-bsa.org

Edward AbrahamWestern Region President

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Hey Western Region!

I hope your first quarter of 2015 was filled with wonderful memories, friends, and adventures! I know I’ve had a great year so far, especially with the recent San Diego Beach Blowout in April! It was amazing seeing Venturers from all over the region and learning about the different Venturing traditions!

During the San Diego Beach Blowout, we introduced a hashtag for the event, #WRBeachBlowout! We had hundreds of posts using the hashtag across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Please keep using #WRVenturing so we can continue sharing all the Venturing-related activities, events, and adventures you experience through-

out the summer. As the old mantra goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Your pictures and articles help inspire crews across the Region and stregthen the Venturing program.

We will continue to post the latest news on our website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! You can follow us on Instagram @WRVenturing and on Twitter @VenturingWR. Along with Venturing news, we feature pictures of crews around the Region to give you lots of ideas and inspiration! If you have pictures or short write-ups about your crew’s events, be sure to send them to vpcomms@wrventuring-bsa.org!

Region UpdatesPr

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My term as Area 2 West VOA is coming to an end. I am incredibly grateful for the wonderful opportunity to serve on the Western Region VOA with passionate andcapable youth and advisors. My highlights from the year were the X Games in Denver, the Western Region Board Meetings, the Area 1 RAVE, and the WR Beach Blowout. I’ve learned a lot about Venturing and what amazing things this program can do. Thank you WR Venturing for making this year a wonderful one!

Greetings from Area 2 West - Submitted by Sariah Bunker, Area 2W President

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I have one word to sum up the beach blowout. AMAZING.

On Friday, everyone finally showed up and the event was able to begin! Our team awaited anxiously for the participants to arrive and as they came one by one I saw the spiels begin and my hope was to keep them there all weekend.

Our main goal for this event was for everyone to have fun and be relaxed. No intense scheduling, no crazy time limits, just plain fun. On Saturday, we felt that was accomplished! Our morning began with a

leaders training, canoeing, kayaking, sailing classes, and paddle boarding. All I could see was smiles across the bay which told me that everyone was having a blast! As the afternoon rolled around, they were able to spend more time out on the water. Our next event, called war bat, now began as well. Everyone tied two water bal-loons around their waist and had half a pool noodle. The object was to be the last person standing with their water balloons filled! Let me just say, it was crazy and a bit of violence chaos, but the laughs were contagious!!

From there, we went to our heptathlon! A huge event that accompanied kayaking, running, knot tying, paddle boarding, Venturing trivia, swimming, and a mystery event. The youth got into teams of seven and tackled this heptathlon with vengeance! As they took this on, it ended with the mystery event of a kayak war, where teams of two attempted to tip over everyone else’ kayaks! The laughs were roar-ing!

As the night came to an end, dinner came and so did our closing ceremo-ny. It began with our keynote speaker, Ken Bower, who gave an incredible speech about what it means to be great and to be inspired to inspire. From there, Council, Area and Regional Venturing Leadership Awards were given out. Our night came to a close with Edward wrapping up the weekend and a fantastic slideshow made by Pratik!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and a huge thank you to everyone who came and participated to make the Beach Blowout a weekend for everyone to remember. You all are amazing, thank you.

Beach Blowout Recap - Submitted by Shannon Mulligan, Region VP Program

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Over 200 Venturers joined a group of around 5,000 Scout-ers on the weekend of April 17th-19th at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California for the Golden Empire Councils Scout Expo. The event, themed “Catch the Spirit” had dif-ferent programs running throughout the day for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers. The Venturing Program included human foosball, water sports, scuba, shooting, zip lines, and so much more! Of course, what would be a Golden Empire Council event without their famous shooting sports team? The LaPorte Archery machine made its way to another week-end where Venturers were able to test their skills at aiming for moving targets.

On the opening night, the Venturing subcamp hosted a luau with plenty of food, music, and fun to spread around. This was a great way for Venturers from all across Northern California to meet new people and kick off what was a fantastic weekend. Without a doubt, each Venturer who attended made new friends, new memo-ries, and had an awesome weekend!

Venturers “Catch the Spirit” at the 2015 Scout Expo Submitted by Dante Rodondi, Area 3 President

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Well as you well know, this past weekend was the Beach Blowout in San Diego, CA. Area 1 had a decent amount of crews and participants there and all had a blast at the event. Currently, the Area is winding down from the huge R.A.V.E. we had last month which had 179 participants and activities that everyone could enjoy. The horse back riding trek and the dance were two of the main hits during this weekend. We are also prepar-ing for the hand off of terms on the Area and Council level VOAs. If you are wanting to be an officer please con-tact your local Council VOA President. Jeremy Linch from Cascade Pacific Council will be the next Area 1 VOA President and am very confident of him leading the Area in the year to come. Congratulations to him.

Update from Area 1 - Submitted by James Guzek, Area 1 President

The day Ken became the Region Venturing Volunteer Advisor, we had a single Officer: ‘Kenzie Lardie was the newly selected Region President, and Ken was her newly appointed Advisor. The Western Region “Venturing Task Force”, a training team (and the only Venturing “thing” that had ever exist-ed in the region) had just been disbanded when the region offices closed. A couple of areas had some informal collaborations of a few councils, but nothing was coordinated. That year’s National Venturing Cabinet did some-thing new and important: they wrote (from scratch) the Venturing Standard Operating Procedures. Ken is very proud to have assisted them as their sec-retary. It’s just a dozen pieces of paper with some rather dull content, but it achieved something extremely important: it showed councils (and regions and areas) that Venturers should have a place to form teams, to host activi-ties, to train each other, and to lead. It wasn’t left to some adult committee to make decisions for Venturing, instead youth Venturers were expected to be the core part of the decisions about their own program and activities.

June 1, 2015, is five years after Ken put gold shoulder loops on a new Venturing uniform. We’ve had five superior Region Presidents (whom have gone on to serve as an Area Advisor, a National staffer, a National Vice-President, and two National Presidents). In 2014, we activated Venturing Officer Associations in all of our areas. The number of council VOAs has nearly tripled since 2009. It’s been a rough period for Venturing membership: between March, 2010 and March, 2015, the Western Region lost 19% of its Venturers. However, that’s quite good when compared to the other three regions, which lost 52% over the same period. The Western Region now has more Venturers than the rest of the country combined. Ken says he feels good about our accomplishments during his term of service, yet recognizes that it’s time for someone else to take his seat. “Five years ago, I was a revolutionary seeking systemic change in our region. Today, I’m on the path to becoming a caretaker. My ideas, and my vigor, are a bit stale. It is time for someone new to begin trying new things, making new mistakes and new discoveries, and extending our impact. I am very happy to pass the baton of Advisorship to my successor, Rick Kagawa.” Ken wants to leave us all some advice. “We have some ‘traditional practices’, but we really don’t have ‘tradi-tions’. If the way we did things before still works, then feel free to use those methods, but don’t feel obliged to use methods because they were used before. Look at your challenges, and look at the past solutions (and failures), and understand why they worked or failed. Adopt or adapt the methods that you think will work for you today. Be bold about proposing new things. When they fail, learn from the failure. When they succeed, document your methods for your own successors.” “The lasting measure of your leadership is when your successor exceeds you.” Ken now seeks a new place to be a revolutionary.

A Word From Our Advisor

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