Outdoor Adventure Skills (OAS) Benchmarking
Saturday 3rd June 2023 at the 1st Eltham Scout Hall. 1pm-4pm
We have had ongoing discussions about OAS benchmarking over the last twelve months and would like everyone in the Unit to be benchmarked and be presented with their current stage badges across all nine areas (not just the three core areas). To do this we have a proposed benchmarking session on the afternoon of Saturday 3rd June 2023 at the 1st Eltham Scout Hall.
❝ When a young person joins Scouting, there will need to be an initial skills assessment made. This involves going through the 9 OAS areas, checking and verifying their competency in each one. Most new members won’t be much higher than stage 2 or 3 due to the requirement to have worked with younger Scouts. ❞
– Unit Council 101 for Venturers
In practice, this works by each Venturer looking at each of the 9 OAS Areas, starting at stage one and checking “can I tick all of the items?” including “My log book is up to date at the end of this stage.”
The Venturer will keep working up through the stages until they cannot tick all of the items; and that is the stage they are working on – they are at the last stage where they can tick off all of the items. (Once an OAS area splits into streams they work up each of the streams using the same method. eg. Vertical has abseiling, canyoning, caving and climbing streams after Stage 3).
Use the PDF files in our Unit GoogleDrive to get the requirements for each stage.
Venturers should do an initial run through before Saturday to get their rough stage levels. Venturers should be keeping their records in their portfolios, they will want to bring paper copies of the PDFs or a copy of the
OAS Progression Book
If Venturers are printing the PDFs; bring the last level that you can tick all of the boxes, and at least the next level up.
(NOTE: Venturers manage their own portfolios and log books.)
As an example; a Venturer is working through OAS Bushwalking, they can tick all of the items for Stage 2 but they have not helped a Stage 1 Scout pack a back pack for a bushwalk for Stage 3. This means that they are benchmarked at Stage 2 (and get that badge) and are now working on Stage 3.
Venturers should bench mark for all 9 OAS areas;
CORE
1. Bushcraft
2. Bushwalking
3. Camping
LAND
4. Apline
5. Cycling
6. Vertical
WATER
7. Aquatics
8. Boating
9. Paddling
Each stage finishes with “My log book is up to date at the end of this stage.”
Bring your completed Log Book on Saturday (Digital log books are great).
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Log Book vs Journal / Diary
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Filling in your log book
(NOTE: Venturers manage their own portfolios and log books.)
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained 