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t In This Issue:

1 President’s Corner

1 San Diego Beach Blowout

2 Region Updates

2 NYLT Leadership Academy

3 Boseker Scout Camp

4 NAYLE

4 Featured Advisor

5 WRVYE and X-Games

wrventuring-bsa.net

Western Region VenturingBoy Scouts of America

WESTERN REGION VENTURING

SEPTEMBER 2014

Summer News!

Region Highlights:

2015 San Diego Beach Blowout pg. 1

WRVYE and X-Games Recap pg. 5

President’s Corner

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!I hope you all had an amazing time at the Western Region Venturing Youth Ex-travaganza during Labor Day weekend. It was such a successful event with such a great turnout! We all owe a big thank you to the Denver Area Council for putting on such an amazing X-Games on Friday night and for being able to have so many different activities for the participants on Saturday. A huge shout-out goes to Jer-emy Felty and Jillian Infusino for organizing this activity since last summer, their hard work and dedication to this event was a huge factor into the success of the Extravaganza.

During the end of our Saturday night banquet at the Extravaganza, something super awesome was announced. Want to take a guess? It’s the date and location of our 2015 region-wide event. The San Diego Youth Aquatics Center on Fiesta Island will be the host of the Western Region Venturing Beach Blowout on April 17-19, 2015! We are super excited about this event, and you should be too! It will be the first-ever aquatics-based region event, and first ever region event on the beach. Not only will the warm sand and beautiful weather of San Diego be offered at the Blowout, some of our activities will include night kayaking, canoe-ing, sailing, beach volleyball, Venturing relays, Sea Scout events, rock climbing, and an amazing Saturday night campfire. Registration will be out shortly, so make sure you check our website and Facebook page frequently to see updates about this event.

Cover: Thanks to Arija Noël for providing the cover photo.

A Venturer from the Den-ver Area Council shooting a Ruger 10/22, just one of the many shooting activi-ties offered at the WRVYE.

If you have photos you would like to submit for use in our promotions, please email: vpcomms@wrventuring-bsa.org

Edward AbrahamWestern Region President

BEACH BLOWOUTCATCH OUR DRIFT AT

April 17th - 19th, 2015San Diego Youth Acquatic Center

1750 Fiesta Island Rd. CA 92109

KayakingSailingCanoeingStand Up PaddleboardingVenturing RelaysRock ClimbingSea Scout Events

THE SAN DIEGO

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had an amaz-ing summer! This summer, I updated the Western Re-gion Venturing Contact List with the help of the areas. From June 22-28, I staffed my council’s Kodiak course held at Camp Wolfeboro, and we also camped at Spicer

Meadow Reservoir. It was a blast and I can’t wait for the next one! I also attended Area 3’s Powder Horn in August, which was held by the Silicon Valley Mon-terey Bay Council. The first weekend was at Camp Hi-Sierra, and we did sailing, kayaking, archery, disc golf, conservation, mountain biking, leave no trace, and astronomy. Between the two weekends, about 12 of the participants, including me, went on a trip to Yosemite. It was so much fun! We went to Bodie State Park, Tuolumne Meadows to go climbing and boul-dering, Tenaya Lake, Yosemite Valley to watch a pre-sentation on Search and Rescue, and Devil’s Postpile. The second weekend was at Camp Chesebrough, and we did rock climbing, rappelling, shooting, field ar-chery, scuba diving, COPE, geocaching, orienteering, and wilderness first aid. I met some awesome people, and it was an experience I’ll never forget. I can’t wait for the rest of the year!

Hello Western Region!

Happy SeptemberI As it starts to cool down and school be-gins, I hope all your summers were filled with great memo-ries. Over the summer, I had a wonderful time leading a week of NYLT, going on sever-al different backpacking trips, and enjoying the sun on a

community service kayaking trip where we cleaned up all the trash in the river.

Venturers are well known for their compassion and willingness to help others. I’m sure many of you heard about or participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. People around the world joined together to raise money and awareness for such a debilitating disease. Now we want to hear how your crew is making a dif-ference in the community! Let us know what you all are up to and even send us your crew’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video.

As we enter the fall season, I wish you all best of luck for all of your events and activities. Be sure to share your pictures and videos with us! Also, be on the lookout for more information about our upcoming event, The San Diego Beach Blowout, in the next few weeks!

Region Updates

3,000 miles away from my home in Area 3 is where my summer adventures truly began. The Northeast region hosted the NYLT Leadership Academy in our nations’ capital, Washington DC. The NYLT Leadership Academy is the train-the-trainer program for NYLT youth staff across the nation. My role at the Leadership Academy was that of a “Patrol Mentor” which can be best defined as one who is responsible for aiding in the growth of the participating staff and giving them the nutrients they need to grow and supporting them until they are able to support themselves. Over my three weeks, I not only taught others numerous leadership lessons and tips to improve, but also al-lowed my participating staff to learn about themselves. It was through these experiences that allowed me to learn just as much, if not more about myself, my leadership and why I’ll come back to the Academy each year.

NYLT Leadership Academy - Submitted by Dante Rodondi, Area 3 President

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This summer was quite an exciting one for me, I was given the chance to go through some experiences that were wonderful. I first began my summer staffing the Great Southwest Councils National Youth Leadership Training course for my third year in a row. I was able to meet some great participants and was given the opportunity to be the Senior Patrol Leader for the next course in 2015.

A week later I was off to Emerald Bay on Catalina Island for a week of scuba diving. Although two days into it I did pop two blood vessels in my head and wasn’t able to continue diving, I had an amazing time at the camp. I decided to go on hikes around the island for the rest of the week and was able to see some amazing aspects of the island. I hope everyone gets a chance to attend that camp at some point!

Along with my adventures I am getting ready for my senior year and working on all the events that will be occurring in the Western Region. So stay tuned for those, because I can promise there will be some amazing events. I hope you all continue to find adventures.

Following my trip to the Leadership Academy, a few of my fellow Academy colleagues and I headed up to The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve. At the Summit, we serve as members of the Summit High Ad-venture Task Force in which our purpose is to evaluate the inaugural Paul R. Christen National High Adventure Base and give feedback while developing the new program. Throughout my week at The Summit I did as many activities as I could. This includes mountain biking, BMX biking at “The TRAX”, skate boarding at “The Park”, The Big Zip, and of course some nice naps on the Consol Energy Bridge. Out of all the activities, I truly enjoyed BMX biking the most. It was like no other activity that I have experienced before and offered a different feel-ing to the high adventure experiences I previously had. It forced me out of my comfort zone as I progressed through the different tracks.

It’s been an absolute blast so far this summer and I am so grateful for the experiences and friends I have made. The sign to having a good summer is when you are sad to be home. However, in the end, it makes you even more excited for the next one!

Camp Emerson, part of the Boseker Scout Reservation in Idyllwild, is in the midst of creating a program for Venturers. A Venturing Crew can sign up for the E-Team program, where they can choose what they want to do from a selection of high-adventure activities. Activities can vary from metalworking to mountain biking. The current dream of the E-Team staff is that it will in the future be able to have a high COPE course with a zipline and climbing tower, and that they will be able to go up the San Jacinto peak. In addition to these, they also hope to have a wilderness survival course and first aid course up-to-par with the Venturing elective standards. Also, they hope to have the option to do a Kodiak course over the week. While Emerson is not the most luxurious super activity, it is rather inexpensive in comparison to a comparable trip, and overall is an extremely fun experience, and should not be over-looked regardless of its low profile.

Boseker Scout Reservation - Submitted by Gavin Vlietstra, Area 4 President

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Hello from Area 2 West! Awesome stuff has happened in Area 2W this summer! This summer Crew 1284, from the Utah National Parks Council went to Bryce Canyon Na-tional Park for a week-long high adventure experience. The Crew started with a ropes course, then time at a shooting range. The rest of the week was spent camping out-side of Bryce Canyon National Park and taking hiking, canoeing and biking excursions. Hayden Wenig, a member of the crew said “the bike ride was a lot harder than we expected, and we just had to stick with it, and push through to the end.” Hayden also said his character was strengthened as his crew discussed choices and religion around multiple campfires.

FEATURING AREA 1 ADVISOR, BEN DEREMERBen DeRemer is from Cascade Pacific Council in Oregon and serves as the Area 1 Ven-turing Advisor. He graduated in 2014, focusing his studies on Industrial and Organiza-tional Psychology with Business Administration. Ben is also the Executive Director of The Optimist Club of Gresham Youth Fund.

His Scouting career started off in Cub Scouts, taking the Trail to Eagle, and finally enter-ing into the world of Venturing and Sea Scouts earning both his Silver award and Quar-termaster. Outside of Scouting, Ben competed internationally as a gymnast becoming an All-Around State champion multiple times and competing on the region’s team, while also working on his full diploma for the International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

In addition, he was able to organize his time to earn all five Bronze awards, as well as the Trust, Ranger, Quest, and Pope Pius XII awards. Ben founded his own Venturing Crew, resurrected his council’s VOA, serving three terms as President before forming the Area 1 Venturing Officers’ Association and serving as its first President. Ben was also active in the Order of the Arrow, serving as a Section Chief and training at National Leadership Seminars across the country, as well as in Japan.

NAYLE - Submitted by Veronica Ninteman, Area 6 PresidentSummer is over and now School is back in session!

There have been many events in Area 6; some recreational and some educational, but there is one event I had staffed that was both! It is a Training program called National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience; it is the next and highest step in the youth leadership programs (ILSC-Kodiak-NYLT-NAYLE). Held in a new facility specially made for this program in Rayado Ridge in Philmont Scout Ranch at New Mexico; this event is a week-long camp for both Venturing and Boy Scout youth from all over the nation. During this week Scouts learn about communication, team work, and how to lead a team; to fully utilize these skills all six crews of eight youth participated in a COPE course, an Outpost hike, SAR skills lesson and a hike to the top of the Tooth of Time, plus many other fun learning opportunities.

It was an amazing experience and I got to expand on my leadership skills and make true friends that I will keep forever. Philmont holds NAYLE every year and there are six sessions per year. I highly suggest that all youth leaders participate in this training because it will be one scouts remember for the rest of their lives, so sign up!

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What did you do over Labor Day weekend? I bet it wasn’t near as fun as what happened at the Western Region Venturing Youth Extravaganza! For those of you who went, you know exactly what I mean!

There were over 200 Venturers from all over the Western Region, ranging from Wyoming to Washington to all the way over to Southern California! Seeing all those faces was exciting enough, but we had even more fun and excitement throughout the weekend. Friday night was the legendary Venturing X-Games. Groups were formed and everyone raced to finish the orienteering course, in the middle of the night!

So naturally, at each waypoint were activities, to add that extra challenge. These weren’t normal activities. There was the classic who can tie the most amount of knots in the shortest amount of time, there was glow in the dark jousting with inflatable horses, semaphore communications (the alphabet with the flags), and my personal favorite, the infrared rifle shooting station! The X-Games finished around 2am, just to give you a time scale.

Saturday had even more events (after everyone got some sleep of course)! The whole shooting sports range was open, including rifle, pistol, muzzleloaders, archery, and tomahawks! There was also the high ropes course, an even bigger orienteering course for those who didn’t get enough from the night before, rock climbing and rappelling, an disc golf.

Be sure to keep your eyes and ears open for more information about our upcoming event in San Diego!

As an adult, Ben has served for four years as a Crew Advisor, has served as an Assistant Scoutmaster, Skipper’s Mate, Committee Chairman, a Chapter Adviser, on several district, council, and area committees, and over the years he has served on the Venturing, Order of the Arrow, Sea Scout, and Youth Development region commit-tees.

WRVYE and X-Games Recap - Submitted by Greg Robinson, Area 2E President