I spent this past weekend at the Wente Scout Reservation. The reservation is located in Mendocino County. Just outside of Willits, California. Over 250 Scouts from the Venturing program came together from several different counties for a Venturing Rendezvous. A Venturing Rendezvous is an annual gathering of Venture Crews and Sea Scouts during the last weekend in September for the purpose of having fun with other Venture Scouts doing Venturing activities. There were Sea Scouts present and Venture Crews that came from all parts of the Bay area including the Central Valley.
Opportunities for members of Venturing Crews to interact with each other were plentiful.
Organized activities available to Crews were:
- Shooting Sports
- Shotgun
- Rifle
- Archery
- Water Sports
- Swimming
- Kayaking
- Canoeing
- Row boats
- Sail Boating
- Mountain Biking
- Rock climbing / rappelling
- Horseback riding
One added bonus over this weekend was that my friends and fellow Crew Advisors Ward Shelley brought out his high powered tracking telescope for some cool Astronomy. His telescope had software that would find visible planets, stars, start clusters and nebulas. Seeing the heavenly bodies were awesome.
Some of the heavenly sites we saw:
- Jupiter – we saw 4 of her moons
- Moon craters near the edge of the Dark Side of the Moon
- M92 Nebula
- Butterfly Star Cluster
The scouts had a blast interacting with other crews and having good natured fun. There were many Crew Team building opportunities with some healthy competition.
It was great getting away from civilization for a while and getting back in touch with nature.
Any Venturing or Sea scouts or groups that attended, please feel free post your comments.