The first step in any journey is the courage to begin. The Venturing awards program is designed to help Venturers grow in the areas of adventure, leadership, personal development, and service (the ALPS model)
. Awards serve as benchmarks that give Venturers a structure for developing their own personal vision into manageable goals that lead to recognition by their peers, mentors, and the larger community.
The Venturing awards program has four levels:
- All Venturers should earn the Venturing Award soon after formally joining the program.
- Venturers then proceed by earning the Discovery and Pathfinder Awards.
- Finally, Venturers earn the Summit Award, in which a young person formally serves as a mentor to other Venturers in his or her crew.
Venturing is a flexible program, and the awards program is designed to help all Venturers, no matter what their crew specialty, to grow and develop.
The first step in any journey is the courage to begin. At this level, the new crew member makes a commitment to join and move forward into the experience of Venturing.
The adventure of participating with the crew unfolds, and each Venturer begins to discover his or her interests and talents. As the Discovery Award recipients develop new skills and competencies, their eyes are opened, and the world expands for them.
The Venturer’s capabilities and skills expand, and with them come increased responsibility for defining their own way forward in life, service to others, and formal planning and leadership of the crew toward its goals.
The highest award of Venturing, the Summit Award, goes to those Venturers who have matured in their personal direction, skills, and life competencies, and who have accepted the responsibility to mentor others and serve their communities in a lasting way.
Specialty Awards
The Ranger Award exemplifies a challenging high-level outdoor/high-adventure skills advancement program. Once earned, it will identify a Ranger as a person who is highly skilled at a variety of outdoor sports and interests, trained in outdoor safety, and ready to lead or assist others in activities.
While working on the Quest Award, Venturers will be required to learn more about what makes up a nutritional diet as well as design their own personal exercise plans based upon lifestyle, fitness levels, and desires for a healthy and long life. Hopefully this program will introduce Venturers to a sport or sports that they will enjoy the rest of their life.
Trust is an essential aspect of our relationship with others - both personally and corporately. Learning to trust is the challenge. Today young people live in an increasingly pluralistic society made up of multiple nationalities, cultures, and religions. One way to work toward a safe future is to learn to get along and work together. Understand is a good start toward trust. While working on the TRUST award, Venturers will learn more about themselves, their communities, their religion and culture, as well as those of others.
The Boy Scouts of America developed the Nova Awards program to excite and expand a sense of wonder in our Scouts. By working with an adult counselor or mentor, the various modules allow them to explore the basic principles of STEM and discover how fun and fascinating STEM can be. The Supernova awards are offered for those who enjoy a super challenge.
While working on the Ranger Shooting Sports elective, you are required to complete one of seven disciplines. However, if you go beyond the basic requirement and instead complete five of the seven disciplines, you will earn the Venturing Shooting Sports Outstanding Achievement Award. This beautiful medal and certificate are sponsored by many organizations in the shooting sports industry to recognize outstanding achievement in shooting sports.
The World Conservation Award provides an opportunity for individual Venturers to “think globally” and “act locally” to preserve and improve our environment. This program is designed to make youth members aware that all nations are closely related through natural resources and that we are interdependent with our world environment.