Silver
Award Requirements
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Venturing Bronze Award
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
- Sports
- Religious Life (Formerly "Youth Ministries")
- Arts and Hobbies
- Outdoor (Half of Ranger Award is needed for Silver
Award credit
- Ordinary (Half of Sea Scouting Quartermaster Award is
needed for Silver Award credit.)
Requirement:
Earn at least one of the five Venturing
Bronze Awards.
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Venturing
Gold Award
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.
Requirement:
Earn the Venturing Gold
Award.
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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 6½ 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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