Welcome aboard to our newest Venturers!  Jeanette M and Daria F joined us on the first of June.  Additionally, Jeanette's dad is a very experienced Scouter and signed up as an Associate Advisor.  Daria sped quickly out of the gate and spent her first weekend with us at Powder Horn 2012 (more on that later)!

Did you know that the average size of a community-based Venturing Crew, nationally, is now 6 youth and has an average tenure of 4 years?  BSA has begun to pay very close attention to improving those metrics and we're helping.  On June 1st, our Crew celebrated the 5th anniversary of the signing of the Charter between the Chief Seattle Council and American Legion Post 245 to sponsor us, and our membership now stands at 29.

Apparently Crew 1042 happens to be decent at doing Wood Badge, because this is the 5th one we have been invited to staff as a Crew. At 6 o’clock on Wednesday the 16th of May, Crew 1042 rendezvoused at the Poulsbo Wal-Mart at 6 pm. We were joined there by Avalon R of Crew 898 who went with our Crew for Days 4, 5, and 6 of Wood Badge. We then left for Camp Parsons where we helped out the adults on the practical side of things at Wood Badge W1-609-12-1. (Translated as Western Region, Area 1, Council 609, 2012's 1st course). We were joined there by Ian B, Lodge Chief of the T’Kope Kwis Kwis OA Lodge.

So you are probably guessing what is this fabled Wood Badge all about? Well, Wood Badge (WB) is a place where adults go for 6 days and are taught things like leadership and how to run a troop/crew/team/pack. Youth: think NYLT but for adults. That is what WB is. Well now you must be wondering; what do Venturers do at WB? The Venturers start by building a model campsite for the Leave No Trace (LNT) presentation. The Crew then does a LNT presentation on Day 4 with 70+ adults watching. After that the Venturers will disperse themselves amongst the 8 patrols of adults at WB and be their personal Font of Wisdom. On Day 5 the Venturers help lead a service project.

The project for this WB was a cleaning out Camp Parsons Arboretum’s (an arboretum is pretty much a forest that is made for looking at trees) invasive species of trees (i.e. alders). The Crew helped with this massive undertaking, pulling up trees and dragging them to the area where they were going to be disposed of. Afterward Ian Bellows departed for the OA Ordeal at Camp Piggot. We then returned to the Camp where we assisted with our Patrol’s activities for the day. That night we were left by 3 out of our 8 Venturers. On Day 6 we had a banquet and the remainder of us departed later that day after helping clean up the dining hall.

On May 11th and 12th, our Crew was invited to an Introduction to Leadership Skills (Crews) course for Crew 67 in Briar, WA.  Our Nat W needed an ILSC experience in order to be eligible for National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) this summer, and Jeff and John Z facilitiated the three sessions. Their Crew President, Julie W, sent the following:

ILSC went really well for our crew 67. We learned a lot about what our crew wasn't doing. Having gone through an ILSC we really are more motivated to want to take the responsibility instead of having our advisers do everything. Also the games were a little un even for each session but they helped to get the skill or lesson across. It was a great experience thanks to Jeff and John Zantek and we look forward to holding more in the future.