Piedmont Venturing Open House

Piedmont’s Boy Scout Program has been a community fixture for over a century, providing Piedmont’s boys with the life skills that help them mature into young men. The Piedmont Council also works to bring equally great volunteer and adventure opportunities to Piedmont’s young women.

Through the National Boy Scouts of America’s Venturing Program, boys and girls aged 14 through 20 create crews, equivalent to troops, that are entirely student-led and based upon a common interest. In Piedmont, this program has nourished many wonderful groups of Piedmont youth, as they explore developing interests and take on leadership roles. The programs are co-ed teen led, adult coached activities, as teens are leading peers and younger teens.  Teens can progressively gain more leadership as a result of having mixed ages collaborate together. Awards can be earned through the Venturing program.

The Venturing Silver Award is the highest award available to Venturers, equivalent to the rank of Eagle Scout.  Teens are able to put this on the college application documents and resume. Currently Piedmont has 3 silver award recipients in recent past: Madison Silver, Jenny Thompson and Forrest Yeh. 

“I thought receiving the Silver award would just affect me within the relm of the Venturing Program and the city of Piedmont, however, to my appreciated surprise, it affected me in broader opportunities as well,” said the summer intern with the Venturing Program within the Boy Scouts, Madison Silver, “The Silver Award was instrumental in helping me secure an interview thus securing my first real job on campus at Seattle University.”

Girl Venturers may now attend NYLT, National Youth Leadership Training, the Boy Scouts' week-long intensive leadership and management skills camp, typically held at the beginning of summer vacation.

“NYLT helped my leadership skills by teaching me that the most important part of leadership is teamwork, not being in charge all the time and ordering your team around,” said the previous vice president of programming for the Piedmont Community Service Crew Ellen Davis, “It's about working together and teaching together so that your teammates become leaders too in their lives.”

Davis attended NYLT the first year the camp was open to females.

“[The NYLT staff] definitely did not treat [females] any differently than the boys. There was just as much responsibility expected from us,” Davis said, “but they were very understanding that we were very new to the Boy Scout way of things and really helped us along through it.”

Venturing crews in Piedmont include the Piedmont Community Service Crew, Police Explorers (Post 911), Oakland Strokes, Piedmont Post, Piedmont Fencing Crew, High Adventure Crew, Piedmont Youth Bagpipe Band, and Sea Scouts (Ship 16).

Along with individual crews, Venturing also brings Piedmont opportunities with the Venturing Officers Association, or the VOA. Youth that are active in Venturing add their insight to the Venturing program of their council, strengthening it to appeal to all youth. Venturers can also become VOA representatives at the Area VOA meeting, where several councils send youth representatives to discuss news in Venturing. Piedmont and all of Northern California participate in Area 3 VOA meetings, but can also meet with representatives from the all the Western states in the US at the Western Region meeting.
Piedmont’s Venturing program offers a lot for youth looking to expand their interests, but also encourages students to take on leadership roles, work toward awards, and become prominent members of the BSA community.
For more information about Piedmont Venturing, visit the Venturing Open House in the Kettlewell Room of the Piedmont Community Church. RSVP to Madison Silver at mrules@sbcglobal.net to attend the Open House on August 26 from 3pm to 5pm. For online information visit http://piedmontbsa.org/venturing/