How It All Began

Venturing began nationally on August 1, 1998. Shortly thereafter discussions began in the Greater Pittsburgh Council about how to transition from Exploring to Venturing, and in 1999 Tony Rosenberger was appointed as the first Council Venturing Committee Chairman.

The first announcement of Venturing

Date: February 12, 1998
To: Scout Executives
From: Jere B. Ratcliffe, Chief Scout Executive
Subject: National Executive Board Action

The National Executive Board of the BSA took steps at it's February
11, 1998 meeting to broaden our capacity to impact the character
education and ethical behavior of teenagers and to expand our
mission-based, traditional program by approving the following program
changes.

1.  Create a new program division of the BSA called "Venturing" for
high school age youth.

2.  Move the Career Exploring program to the Learning for Life
subsidiary.

Supporting Information:

The Venturing program of the Boy Scouts of America will include girls
and boys ages 14 through 20 who have completed the eighth grade and
are members of our current high adventure, religious, and outdoor
Exploring programs.  The Learning for Life subsidiary will include
girls and boys who participate in elementary school, middle/junior
high, high school, special needs, and Career Exploring programs.

School Districts across the country are seeking both in-school career
educational opportunities like the Learning for Life program, as well
as workplace-based programs such as Career Exploring.  By moving the
Career Exploring programs from the traditional program to Learning for
Life, a complete career educational package is now available to
schools to meet their needs and the needs of their students.

At the same time our traditional high adventure, religious, and
outdoor Exploring program will be renamed "Venturing" and will
continue to retain all of the elements of the traditional BSA program
while enhanced with new advancement, leadership, and development
opportunities.

Discussions with many of our participating organizations clearly
indicates that these changes will make it easier for them to use our
programs with their youth. Similar discussions with many councils also
indicate that these changes will help them package a total career
education program for their schools, bring more corporate support into
the school-to-work opportunity, and clearly define our values and core
programs.

We believe that these changes will:

Lead to stronger partnerships between schools, businesses, and the Boy
Scouts of America;
Increase career exposure for students;
Improve students' understanding of business ethics and values;
Broaden employment options for students after graduation;
Reduce school dropout rates and improve school attendance;
Position the BSA as an organization playing a positive role in the fight
against unemployment;
Mirror organizational structure currently being used by many local
councils; and
Lead to increased membership in both Venturing and Career Exploring and
protect our core traditional programs from legal challenges.

A.  Effective date of change - August 1, 1998

B.  Presentations on the changes will be presented at the May National
Annual Meeting in San Antonio and the National Leadership Training
Conference in Nashville.

C.  The process of developing new literature, video, books, training
materials, quality unit requirements, and communication pieces has
begun.  We will communicate the details of these changes as soon as we
can. The Chief's Winner's Circle program and measurements will not
change for this year's program.

As I told our National Executive Board, "Preparing young people for a
responsible future is our mission. Learning for Life is the best
program in character education available. The Boy Scouts of America
should be, and is, the pioneer in character education and now in
school-to-work programs. When we measure our resources in support of
core programs, I believe we are providing councils with more tools to
be more dominant players on the community agenda in addressing
critical youth and educational issues." This is an exciting
opportunity for all of us to move forward stronger than ever.