Name

Group

Name

Group

Al McPhee

1^st Greely

Joanne Mullen

Bell’s Corners

Alan Griffin

112^th Nepean

John Dougherty

DAC Odawa Area

Allan Yates

1^st Merrickville

John Stalker

Carleton Place  /Valley H.

Andrew Wiens

92^nd Ottawa

Joel Martin

8^th Orleans

Bill Bowman

1^st Nepean

Ken Shore

1^st Osgoode

Brian Watling

1^st Orleans

Lois Sowden Plunkett

1^st Nepean

Bruce Morton

14^th Gloucester

Malcolm Volmer

27^th Nepean

Cal Clupp

2^nd Gatineau

Matthew Janssen

Carleton Area Rovers

Catherine Snedden

Carleton Area Rovers

Neal Rice

Nepean Area

Christiaan Burchell

1^st Nepean

Patrick Megan

1^st Wakefield

Chuck Fraser

1^st Glen Cairn

Perry Schippers

2nd Gatineau & VRSC/LCS

Cyndy Courtland

Carleton Place

Ray Renton

1^st Dunrobin

Chris Tyler

1^st Manotick

Sharon Ley

7^th Kanata

Dan Karwowski

1^st Glen Cairn

Stephen Smye

1^st Wakefield

Dean Smith

2^nd Orleans

Steve Allen

112^th Nepean

Doug MacKinnon

112^th Nepean

Stewart Ross

Nepean Area Senior Section

Doug Proud

1^st Greenwood

Terry Rimmington

1^st Rockland

Doug Zahody

3^rd Orleans

Tim Harbinson

137^th Ottawa

Gilbert Lepine

4^th Orleans

Tim Redpath

1^st Stittsville

Greg Brost

1^st Orleans

Tim Taylor

123^rd Ottawa

Greg McGinnis

2^nd Russell

Thérèse Desjardins

137^th Ottawa

Jan Stodola

7^th Kanata

Wally Gale

14^th Gloucester

Jim Montgomery

1^st Glen Cairn

Opening Remarks:

Wally Gale, the chair of the Venturer Advisor Forum (VAF) noted that he used the Member Management System (MMS) to send out the notice for this meeting but will use the VAF distribution list from now on.  The VAF email list is maintained using addresses provided by meeting attendees or by request.

There were several new members attending so everyone introduced themselves to the room.

Wally also recommended that new members review the previous year’s meeting minutes for reference and to see what kinds of program and events are held on the VAF website maintained by Bill Bowman.  Bill includes all VAF event announcements upon request and follows up with event reports and pictures.  The VAF website can be found at http://web.ncf.ca/ad554/.

Past Events - The summer is usually very quiet for VAF events but notes from the summer are below:

River Rescue: Alan Yates highly recommended the River Rescue session given by Paddlers Co-op.  His groups and some other scouting members had the occasion to take it to prepare for some trips and received some good personalized lessons.  They are so enthused that they are looking forward to the Level II of the course.  Alan noted that what Boat Rescue is for flat water, the River Rescue is for swift or white water.  Ray Renton indicated that Bear Creek will also put on a session for River Rescue as well.

BC Rover Guests: Alan Griffin wanted to extend a special and official thanks to the Nepean Area Rovers and other Rovers from the Ottawa Council who welcomed the visiting Rovers from BC.  They were picked up from the airport and taken to Mackie House where they stayed for the week while they toured Ottawa.  The time taken to welcoming the guests and taking them around town was greatly appreciated.  It was well done, well organized and he was proud of their contribution.

Upcoming Activities:

Wilderness First Aid (Doug Proud):  This is coming up this weekend as part of our annual rotation of courses for the beginning of September (the other two in the cycle are River Rescue and Vertical Rescue in coming years).  There are 15 currently registered but more were welcome provided they got their registration into Doug at VAF or shortly after to allow for proper course preparation by the trainer.  The course will run from 8:30 to 5:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Couch Rally (Raymond Desjardins from Rideau Area Rovers):  Note: this fall event has been deferred until Spring of 2009.  They are also going to look to changing it up, add different events, etc.

Venclimb (Jim Montgomery and Christiaan Burchell) Registration opens tonight (including both the form and payment to Jim) and closes on Sunday September 14^th in order to allow time to finalize numbers before the session. Registration cutoff is at around 50 climbing participants.  Preparation sessions include the Ground School (held after the current VAF meeting), and the Advisor training to be held on Sunday September 14^th.  The formal event starts Friday September 19^th with evening check in and camp set up.  Climbing starts at Homecliff on Saturday morning.  Note: The only personal gear absolutely required by each individual is their helmet.

Some Background:  This is an annual activity that acts as a skills orientation and introduction to rock climbing.  This is the only opportunity in the VAF events to start from zero knowledge and gain some skills and experience.  This is also good preparation for the Crazy Canuck event (see below) as it also has some climbing.  There is camping on site (in a farmer’s field) and a kybo is brought in however there is no water source so bring your own.  If you have gear, bring it but if not come along anyway as what is brought by others is always gladly shared.  Note that VAF has a budget to help groups start their gear inventory for climbing so please apply to Wally if you would like some help with funding.  If you need replacement gear, there is also some provision to partially fund that as well.

Alan Yates was looking into some wholesale pricing on a bulk purchase for some climbing gear so let him know if you want in on his deal as well.  He is talking to Cascade Designs out west and they seem pretty friendly.

RoVent (Neil Rice): This is a medieval themed camp for Rovers and Venturers on October 17^th to 19^th.  This year Pathfinder guides have also been invited.  Early registration is until September 24^th for $27 and after that the cost raises to $30 until registration closes on October 9^th.  The contact for registration is noted on the forms.  The registration includes the feast on Saturday night for the first 275 participants (due to the limit of the dining hall) so those that register after that limit do pay a lower fee of $15.  All the information, camp rules, siege rules, camp layout and registration packages are on the VAF website under Announcements.  So far there are about 7 or 8 groups registered.  Note, the main part of the camp is around the siege with catapults and flour bombs.  This year the camp is providing all the bags, flour, marking tape and supervising the creation of the bombs for security reasons and to ensure consistency in the bombs.  The next RoVent Committee meeting is on Tuesday September 9^th at HQ at 7 pm so youth are all invited to come and help brainstorm ideas to solve problems.  The camp is pretty much planned at this point but there are ongoing questions and issues to be addressed, such as the parking issue below.

Two other notes:

1. A question was raised around the meaning of the deposit and how does that work for groups who have not yet met for the year and have not finalized numbers?  The response noted that fully paid groups have precedence in registration over those that put down deposits only.  Also deposits only act as some faith some groups are coming as the $50 deposit only guarantees 2 people are coming.  However if groups don’t advise on final numbers before Friday October 9^th then they will be charged for any previously committed numbers as the invoice to the camp needs to be paid after that date.

2. Tim Taylor noted that parking at the camp will be very tight with the number of participants, and all the trailers with catapults.  So groups are encouraged to please send full cars only not send people up in ones and twos.

Crazy Canuck Adventure Challenge (Alan Yates): The Merrickville group has offered to host the event concurrent with their centenary camp.  The event will be held on October 4^th with a cost of $15 per participant and $8 for support personnel.  An information sheet and registration form was provided at the back and is on the VAF website.  Registration is requested as soon as possible, but at least a week before the event to allow for final dinner arrangements and quantities. The Challenges will be held in the same format as per previous years with challenges in Canoeing, hiking, rock climbing and rappelling, mountain biking and a new event this year, crate staking.  Dinner is included and camping at no charge is on site at the Lions Club grounds (note for Venturers only and separate from rest of the camp).  Menus are not yet set so the suggestions of a nut free meal for those with nut allergies can still be discussed.  See Alan if this is an issue.

River Clean Up (Wally Gale):  A former member of VAF, Laurel Rosene, is working with the Ottawa River Keepers and Venturers are welcome to get involved in this annual clean up event.  This year’s clean up will take place at Kettle Island  on Saturday September 27^th from 10am to 3pm.  The organizers are looking for confirmation by September 10^th to ensure sufficient supplies of food and beverages that are provided as part of the event. The Venturers participated in the first few years of this event and now the general public helps out too and scouting youth join in as volunteers (it counts as volunteer hours for those that need them for high school, or other scouting related badges / awards).  For more information, go to http://ottawariverkeeper.ca/ under Upcoming Events: Fall Paddle and Garbage Pick-Up.

Reports:

VRSC, Lost Children (Perry Schippers): Perry noted the Exhibition went quite well although it would have been nice if more groups came out.

The Food Drive planning for the year has started.  The contact email if you have any questions or wish to help is the same as usual at vrsc_lcs@gmail.com.  The group will meet next week on the 10^th to finalize the organization.  So far the date is Saturday November 1^st.  For those that are new, this event takes place on the same day as the regular scout food drive and the Venturers participate at the sorting station once the food is collected and delivered there via Purolator.  About 15 to 20 Venturers sort and put away the deliveries on rotating 2 hour time periods.  Groups who are interested are encouraged to sign up for their preferred shift.

Perry noted they are looking for a volunteer who either has or has the skill to operate a forklift, so let him know if you know of anyone.  . 

Joint Council Activities  (Scott and Ruth): The September event is golf and go karts on September 12^th from 6 to 8 pm.  The event takes place at the ThunderBird Go Karts at 3145 Conroy Road - Ottawa, (Phone : (613) 739-3064), Between Hunt Club and Walkley Road in the South east end of Ottawa.  The cost is $27 for go karts, $9 for golf and there is a discount for every 10 people in attendance. 

Report on the semiformal – This event did take place as planned with about 50 attendants or so.  It was considered a success.

It was noted that their website had an error when accessing so the group promised to look into it and repair the problem.  So if you have problems, try again.

Training and Development:

Venturer Executive Workshop (Wally Gale):  This is being organized by Francesca Viney tentatively for the 8^th and 9^th of  November as per the VAF plan in June.  This is a workshop for Venturer executive team put on by the Rovers to help the Venturers understand their various roles and responsibilities of the executive.  There is no news yet on location or cost but stay tuned.

Focus:  There is also no further news yet on the Focus leadership training tentatively scheduled for November for youth volunteers.  Sarah Szabo is the course leader.

Senior Section Specific Woodbadge (Wally Gale): Woodbadge 1 is still scheduled to take place concurrently with RoVent at Ope and is listed under Training on the Voyageur Council web site.  Participants not involved in RoVent need to arrange accommodation through RoVent.  The sessions will run Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning, with time off for the siege event.  Alex Gazaleh is running it this year so any questions on the course can be addressed directly to Alex at (613) 749-7650 or scouteralex@gmail.com.  Stewart Ross also noted for those going that the new training standards that came out will be used in this course.

Note: if you have NOT taken the Core Woodbadge 1 session, you will still need to sign up for that training held according to the training calendar on the Voyageur website http://www.voyageur.scouts.ca/.  The training at OPE during Rovent is strictly the senior section specific session.

Senior Section Woodbadge 2 – There is currently no information on this but Wally sent a note to Heather Chilvers to ask if anything will be held on our tentative dates, November 28^th to 30^th.  Wally will pass along any information found.  So far Peter Goddard has been named as the course leader.

Other Business:

Crew Cabin (Wally Gale)  Wally noted that OPE is looking for master electrician for work in the crew cabin.  The walls and roof are up and they are now trying to get to the next major pieces of work.  If you know of anyone who could volunteer (or even a paid resource who is willing to go to OPE), let Alex Gazaleh know as per the OPE website.

Presentations (Wally Gale)  Wally wanted to remind VAF members and those that are new that if you have a suggestion or recommendation for a presentation of general interest to our VAF community, Please let him know and he will book it.

Next Meeting:  Tuesday October 7, 2008 at 7:30 pm

The Chair for the Venturer Advisor Forum is Wally Gale at vafchair@rogers.com.  Please contact Wally for any notices to distribute or ideas on future topics.

The VAF is currently looking for a meeting secretary position so if anyone is interested, please contact Wally Gale at the above address.  This position is a great way to get to know the Venturer community, events and your peer advisors, so please come out and volunteer if you can.  Meanwhile any errors or omissions can be reported to Catherine Snedden at csnedden@forethoughtsystems.com.

Also view current and previous copies of the minutes and other VAF notices at http://web.ncf.ca/ad554/ or contact Bill Bowman at wbowman@ncf.ca to get information posted to this website.