Venturing Crew Roll Call

[Geocrew 44°85°]

A year ago our Venturing Crew was chartered by Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGO). We've had quite a year... We've taught geocaching to boy scouts, found some caches, hid some caches, attended events, and hosted events. Now we are in the process of minting our own coin. (see it here) We would love to see more crews like ours but so far we haven't heard from any other crews with geocaching as it's theme.

 

This is a roll call!! If you're involved in a Venturing crew that does geocaching we'd love to hear from you. If there are, we might be able to coordinate some activities together. (maybe at a mega event)

[Scouter John]

This is Scouter John

 

I introduced my Venturer Company here in Calgaryto geocaching shortly after I started geocaching myself

[+emb021]

Am not with a Crew, but do work with Venturing at the council-level in 2 councils.

 

I've been asked to organize a geocaching event at a local major scout camporee that brings in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Venturers, and hope to get help from our local Venturers to run it.

 

This is our first time doing this, so am going to keep in simple. Maybe next time we can have a more challenging course along with a simple one.

[+ByrnedFish]

I represent Venture Crew 10 in Honoeye falls NY. We dont specifically focus on geocaching (i wish we did), but im sure we will do it as several of us in teh crew are obsessed.

[+ScoutingWV]

I've got members of Crew 550 in our council involved. We currently have a GeoCamporee in progress and many of them are participating.

[+Team_CSG]

Crew 1050 in Wheat Ridge, Colorado is now chartering. (Crew 4485 provided me with inspiration that this can be done!!) Our speciality will be Geocaching in addition to Traditional Letterboxing, Benchmarking, and Waymarking. We are planning a open house and join night on 10/10/07. Need ideas as how to promote to the geocaching community as I was not allowed to set an event cache.

Edited September 7, 2007 by arthurat

[TopangaHiker]

How do you guys deal with the fact that the extensive use of a GPSr takes away from map and compass reading?

Caching is fun but you can easily cross the line into a game creating a dependency on electronics. What's next? An Xbox Venturing crew?

[+Team_CSG]

How do you guys deal with the fact that the extensive use of a GPSr takes away from map and compass reading?

Caching is fun but you can easily cross the line into a game creating a dependency on electronics. What's next? An Xbox Venturing crew?

 

Hate to tell you, they do exist! There is a gaming crew in the Denver area.

 

Map and compass reading is a Boy Scout requirement. If the crew wants to include this in activities, they can.

 

Just my two cents. As technology advances, certain skills become 'obsolete'. At one time, I could work a slide rule very efficiently. Why bother now since I can use a calculator.

 

I also instruct my Scouts (I'm a Scoutmaster in a Troop, in addition to a Crew Advisor) to have a map and compass as a backup. Electronics fail. Remember the Boy Scout motto, 'Be Prepared'.

Edited September 8, 2007 by arthurat

[TopangaHiker]

How do you guys deal with the fact that the extensive use of a GPSr takes away from map and compass reading?

Caching is fun but you can easily cross the line into a game creating a dependency on electronics. What's next? An Xbox Venturing crew?

 

Hate to tell you, they do exist! There is a gaming crew in the Denver area.

 

Map and compass reading is a Boy Scout requirement. If the crew wants to include this in activities, they can.

 

Just my two cents. As technology advances, certain skills become 'obsolete'. At one time, I could work a slide rule very efficiently. Why bother now since I can use a calculator.

 

I also instruct my Scouts (I'm a Scoutmaster in a Troop, in addition to a Crew Advisor) to have a map and compass as a backup. Electronics fail. Remember the Boy Scout motto, 'Be Prepared'.

 

I understand that skills like semaphore have become irrelevant but it was an outdoor skill none-the-less but a gaming crew? How sad. I really hate to see scouting getting dumbed down like that because adults are afraid to stand up and keep scouting real. Oh well, that's a perfect example of the vagaries of a boy run program. That in addition to indulging kids every want.

Edited September 9, 2007 by TopangaHiker

[Koda and Meesa]

A couple things to remember. The Venturing program is a different program than Boy Scout program. Venturing can be hobby themed ours happens to be Geocaching. Virtiually any type of club can become a Venturing Crew, including computer gaming and roll playing.

Geocaching is not all our crew does. We have been canoeing, hiking, caving, camping, etc. geocaching is just something we do while were doing all those other things. Just because we use GPSr's for our hobby doesn't mean that we don't teach map and compass skills.

Edited September 13, 2007 by Koda

[Nowgethis]

I'm looking for a way to have a geocaching event for my troop on a Saturday. Something around 90 minutes. Already familiar, somewhat, with GPS's. Only a few GPSr's in the troop. Is there a GPS event that can work as a game or event? Geoteaming? (don't know quite how that works) How could a patrol competition type event work. Seems like everyone would be going for the same cache at the same time and falling over each other.

[+janice33]

A year ago our Venturing Crew was chartered by Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGO). We've had quite a year... We've taught geocaching to boy scouts, found some caches, hid some caches, attended events, and hosted events. Now we are in the process of minting our own coin. (see it here) We would love to see more crews like ours but so far we haven't heard from any other crews with geocaching as it's theme.

 

This is a roll call!! If you're involved in a Venturing crew that does geocaching we'd love to hear from you. If there are, we might be able to coordinate some activities together. (maybe at a mega event)

 

Found one of your wooden nickels in Mondo Loves his Jeep gc. I will move it around the area.

janice33