Venturing Silver Award
The
Silver award is the highest award for Venturers. Requirements are found in the
Venturer Handbook. In
addition to the Bronze and Gold awards, Venturers do additional work in the
areas of leadership, emergency
preparedness, and ethics. The Silver award requires a pre-approved plan of
action, and upon completion, a
board of review. For crews, this board is comprised of 4 - 6 Venturers and
adults from the Crew, for ships, the
ship's quarterdeck. The District's Advancement Chair should be invited to visit
and observe the review.
When this has been completed, the Advisor then fills out & turns in an
Unit
Advancement Report into the local Council
service center, secures the award, and presents it, at a ceremony such as a
Court of Honor, or Eagle/Silver
recognition banquet. It is appropriate to recognize the award in local and
school newspapers.
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Introduction
One of the strengths of the Venturing program is its
ability to meet the interests of all Venturers. Sometimes,
Venturers like to investigate new, different areas, such as
an arts and hobbies crew going whitewater rafting or
learning first aid. Variety in a crew always seems to make
it more fun to go to meetings and weekend outings. Also, you
as an individual Venturer probably have many interests or
would like to have more. Because of that desire on your part
and to give you a pathway to many different experiences, the
Venturing Bronze Award is wide open to you. You can earn
your crew specialty’s Bronze Award, pick out a different one
you like, or even earn them all. It’s up to you!
The Venturing Bronze Awards
are
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Introduction
The Gold is available to all Venturer members of the Boy
Scouts of America.
The purpose of the Gold Award is to:
- Recognize achievement by young adults.
- Encourage personal growth through exposure to
activities related to the six experience areas of
Venturing.
- Offer challenging and stimulating opportunities for
young adults to develop and achieve personal goals in
leadership, character development, and personal fitness.
- Provide a favorable image of Venturing among youth,
parents, schools, and communities.
Background
Venturers should have the opportunity to work toward
tangible, challenging goals, and to be recognized for their
efforts.
The Gold Award program has been developed to recognize a
significant accomplishment in a young person’s life; it
requires outstanding performance in a broad spectrum of
activities related to Venturing's six experience areas
(citizenship, service, fitness, social, leadership, and
outdoor). The program was developed to challenge and to
motivate young people over an extended period of time.
Qualification
Candidates for the Venturing Gold Award must submit a
written petition to their crew Advisor, in which they should
outline their plans and ambitions for their projects to
achieve the award. Advisors are encouraged to have a
conference with each candidate to ensure that the Venturer
developed a well-conceived plan, and that he or she has
specific goals in mind.
The program is designed to challenge young men and women
with interests that cover a wide variety of Venturing
activities. Several requirements must be met to qualify for
the Gold Award; the requirements arc listed separately
below.
The Gold Award will be presented only to young adults
whose personal conduct is in keeping with the principles of
the Venturing Oath and the Boy Scouts of America.
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Emergency Preparedness
Introduction
Being prepared has always been one of the key tenets of
Scouting. Being prepared continues to be important for
today's action-oriented, can-do-anything Venturers.
Venturers must be prepared to take care of themselves as
well as be ready to serve others when called. When faced
with an emergency situation, people react in various ways.
Some people leave, some panic, some do nothing at all, and
some respond. Venturers should be prepared to respond!
Requirements:
- Become certified in Standard First Aid or
equivalent course. If you choose the American
Red Cross Standard First Aid version of the course, the
curriculum includes how to recognize an emergency and
overcome the reluctance to react; how to recognize and
care for breathing and cardiac emergencies in adults
(training to care for infants and children is optional);
and how to identify and care for life-threatening
bleeding, sudden illness, and injury. The course is
approximately 6 hours. Your Standard First Aid
certification will expire three years from the date of
issue. Your CPR certification will expire one year from
the date of issue.
If you hold an unexpired certification in this or a
higher course, you can receive credit for this
requirement. However, you must be currently certified at
the time of your Silver Award crew review. You are
encouraged to get certified as soon as possible and stay
certified. For this requirement, you are not required to
seek a higher certification, but you are encouraged to
get certifications in higher-level course such as First
Aid -- Responding to Emergencies or Emergency Response.
You will be even more prepared.
[Note: If you need help finding an American Red Cross
instructor in your area, call your local Red Cross chapter.
For literature, call toll-free 1-800-667-2968].
- Become certified in CPR. You can
take a stand-alone CPR course or take it as part of
another course such as Standard First Aid. Please
remember that CPR certification lasts for only one year,
at which time you will need a refresher course. Like
Standard First Aid,. it is good to always be current in
your CPR certification. You most likely will get an
opportunity to use your skill in saving a life.
- Complete the BSA Safe Swim Defense training
course. In this course, you will learn how each
of the eight points of the Safe Swim program affects
safe crew swimming activities. You will learn that
qualified supervision and discipline are the two most
important points, upon which the other points rely. You
will also learn how to set up a safe swim area. Any BSA
aquatics resource person, your crew Advisors, or other
council-authorized individual can provide the training
course for you. Use Safe Swim Defense, No. 34370, and
Safe Swim Defense Training Outline, No. 19-417.
- Either lead or participate in a group swim
using BSA Safe Swim Defense. Swimming can be a
great way for you and your crew members to stay fit and
to just have fun. To ensure that you and your friends
will continue to do just that, always insist you use
Safe Swim Defense.
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Leadership
Introduction
Leadership is a cornerstone of the Venturing Silver
Award. As you work on the Silver Award, you will experience
many new things, learn many new skills, and learn to serve
others. But to effectively take advantage of all those
newly-learned skills and experiences, you must know how to
effectively lead. It is true that some people are born with
some natural leadership ability, but the best leaders
develop leadership sills and continue to expand and hone
these skills throughout their lives.
We all get the opportunity to be followers and leaders.
It takes skill to be a good follower, too, but in this
section, you will concentrate on developing leadership
skills and implementing those skills as a leader.
Requirements:
- Successfully complete the Venturing
Leadership Skills Course.
- Successfully serve for at least six months
in an elected or appointed crew, district, or council
leadership position. Since leadership is a form
of service to others, don't be afraid to ask your
followers, those you serve, how you are doing. If you
don't have an occasional assessment of your progress,
you might not improve. Learn to value the opinion of
others. This must be in addition to the leadership
requirement in the Venturing Gold Award.
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Ethics in Action
Introduction
Another cornerstone of the Venturing Silver Award is
learning through experience. While you are working on your
Venturing Silver Award requirements, you will have many
experiences. You will enjoy experiences that let you
interact with your peers, learn decision-making skills,
evaluate and reflect so that you can learn from your
successes and failures, and discuss conflicting values and
form your own value system. Experience can be a powerful
learning tool!
Requirements:
- Participate in at least two Ethical
Controversies Activities from chapter 9 of the
Venturing Leader Manual. These activities
are scenarios that will put you and those who do the
activities with you into challenging, problem-solving
situations. In a constructive way, these activities will
help you develop the following personal skills:
- Promoting productive conflict resolution
- Polite disagreement
- Listening to new ideas
- Understanding other people's perspectives
- Working toward a solution that the group
involved will support and implement
- Either organize and lead, or help to
organize and lead, an Ethics Forum for your crew,
another crew, school class, or other youth group.
An Ethics Forum is simply another, more formal, way of
gathering information about ethics. You will invite two
or more adults to form a panel for your crew or group to
ask questions about ethics in their personal or
professional lives. You can even invite adults related
to your crew's specialty; if you are in a sports crew,
you could invite a sports doctor, a coach, and a
professional athlete. You can even invite guests such as
family members and friends to join you. You can even use
the information gathered from the Ethics Forum to
develop your own Ethical Controversies activities.
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Silver Award Review
After completing all requirements, the candidate should
prepare evidence of completion of work. It should be
submitted to the crew Advisor along with the completed and
personally signed Silver Award Progress Record and
Application. The crew president, in conjunction with the
crew Advisor, should then appoint a review committee of four
to six people including Venturers and adults. The review
committee should review the candidate's written
documentation and interview the candidate to determine
whether the candidate complete all work and grew as a result
of the pursuit of the Silver Award. The application is then
approved by the crew Advisor and crew committee chairman and
submitted to your council service center.
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