How To Avoid One Year Wonder Crews

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How To AvoidOne Year Wonder Crews

• Cooper Wright
• National Capital Area Council

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Stages of Unsuccessful Crews

• Wild Enthusiasm
• Disillusionment
• Total Confusion
• Search for the Guilty
• Punishment of the Innocent
• Promotion of the Non-participants

Where is your crew???
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Visionary Leadership
A crucial factor in building and leading teams is
creating a vision, a clear, concrete picture of
intended results that is shared by the entire
team. If its powerful enough, a vision can
chart a course, inspire the commitment, and
create the momentum needed to make that picture a
reality. - John Graham from Outdoor
Leadership, Technique, Common Sense Self
Confidence
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Obstacles

• Short time span to work with Venturers, typically
  2-3 years
• Many activities competing for Venturers time
• Venturing is just one small part of their lives
• No program institutional memory
• Opposition from other Scouters
• Minimal district and council support

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Get Your Ducks In A Row First

• Dedicated male/female advisors
• Crew committee
• Equipment
• Treasury
• Meeting location

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Train Your Crew Officers

• Conduct a Crew Officers Seminar as soon as
  possible after officers are elected
• Have each crew officer develop his/her job
  description
• Have crew officers develop your job description
• Get agreement on expectations yours and theirs
• Time commitment
• Job responsibilities
• Communications

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Train Your Crew Officers

• Begin developing your crews vision
• Mission statement
• Program activities
• Assign each crew officer a task and a negotiated
  completion date
• Give each crew officer an adult mentor
• Hold monthly Crew Officer meetings
• Work with Crew President to develop written
  agenda ahead of time
• Have Crew President run the meetings to check on
  progress and critique past activities

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Build Your Crew

• Establish a consistent meeting date, location,
  and time
• Keep the communications open
• Use youth members to coordinate with other youth
  members
• Give each crew member a Brain Book
• Roster
• Calendar
• Activity announcements
• Bylaws
• Hold a Crew Program Planning Weekend within the
  first six months

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Crew Program Planning Weekend

• Go over the plan for the weekend with your crew
  officers and have them run as much of it as
  possible
• Pick a special place where weather will not be an
  issue
• Use the Venturing advancement requirements to
  build your crews program
• Provide a structure for your youth to do the
  program planning process
• Venturers do not think sequentially very well -
  teens dont do plans

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Program Planning Exercise
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Crew Program Planning Weekend

• Be sure to include time in your program year for
• Ethical controversies
• Boards of Review
• Parents/Awards nights
• Open Houses
• Youth Protection Training
• Service Project
• Crew elections and Crew Officers Seminar
• Annual Program Planning Weekend
• Venturing Leadership Skills Training course
• Summer high adventure trek

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Crew Program Planning Weekend

• Make sure there is lots of food!!
• Have a variety of fun activities i.e. day hike,
  evening movie with popcorn and sodas or ice cream
  sundaes to break up the hard work
• Refine the crews mission statement
• Develop crew bylaws and include youth developed
  expectations for
• Coed behavior
• Uniform wear

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Crew Program Planning Weekend

• Create an atmosphere of trust right from the
  beginning
• Keep things moving
• Watch who is talking and who is not
• Begin work in drafting individual Personal Growth
  Agreements
• Conduct an ethical controversy

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After The Weekend

• Based on the weekends input, flesh out the
  program details
• When, where, how much will it cost, acquiring
  consultants as required
• Assign activity chairs with adult mentors
• Provide activity chairs with a step by step event
  planning guide
• Keep good records so what works can be used again
• Publish or perish A plan not written is only a
  wish

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Program Hints That Work

• Try using intense weekend training sessions
• Provides captive audience and sufficient time to
  train
• Use normal crew meeting to go over
  administrative requirements
• Plan multi-crew training and activities
• Helps eliminate we are the only ones doing
  Venturing syndrome
• Provides synergy that adds enthusiasm and
  excitement to your own crews program

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Program Hints That Work

• Think outside the box
• There is no rule that you have to meet each week
  or that every meeting must conform to a formal
  structure
• A meeting can be a dinner out together, a movie,
  a talk at an outdoor sports store, a game of putt
  putt golf, a night at a bowling alley or a full
  fledged meeting

Remember, the program is what keeps them coming
back each week!!!!!
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5 Simple Rules For Crew Longevity

• Recruit
• Recruit
• Recruit
• Recruit
• Recruit

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Recruiting Techniques That Work

• Crews are very fragile organizations
• Maximum youth retention is 2-3 years
• At Venturing age, parents no longer come with
  their kids, so dont forget to recruit adults
• Target rising 9th and 10th grade students
• Be visible at district and council events
• Staff camporee stations
• Attend district roundtables
• Demonstrate a skill at district or council adult
  leader training
• Man a Scouting for Food collection area

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Recruiting Techniques That Work

• Use your chartered organizations newsletter
• Hold Everyone Bring A Friend crew activities
• Set up a table for Back to School night
• Develop a crew flyer and display it at local
  outdoor sports shops
• Run a crew First Nighter
• Establish an affiliated troop relationship

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Advice For Advisors

• Leave your troop scouting experience with its
  emphasis on uniform and advancement at the door
• Venturing is not Advanced Boy Scouting With
  Girls
• Let youth members lead be there to guide and
  offer advice
• Remember the 3 Ds of management
• Define the task
• Delegate it
• Disappear
• Allow youth members to fail mistakes can
  sometimes be the best teacher

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Advice For Advisors

• Let the crew members set the rule for uniform
  wear and behavior through the Bylaws
• Teach your Venturers the interpersonal skills
  they need and then trust them
• Coach by asking questions
• Be clear with your own expectations
• Reward the positive

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Advice For Advisors

• Walk your talk
• Be understanding of the teenage years and their
  search for autonomy
• Show mutual respect as a team member
• Keep it simple, make it fun (KISMIF)
• Remember, perpetual optimism can work wonders,
  even in the worst situations!

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• The very essence of leadership is that you have
  to have vision Rev. Theodore Hesburgh,
  President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
• Effective leaders convey an unwavering firmness
  and consistency in their actions, aligned with
  the picture of the future they paint. The
  result? Clarity of purpose, credibility of
  leadership, and integrity in organization Colin
  Powells Lessons in Leadership