Venturing and Sea Scouting Announce 2016-17 Youth Leaders

The votes are in! Pratik Vaidya of the Chief Seattle Council has been named National Venturing President, and Rachel West from Capitol Area Council , the National Sea Scout Boatswain for the coming year.

On June 1, 2016,Pratik and Rachel will join Order of the Arrow National Chief Hunter Jones as Scouting’s three top youth representatives for 2016-17.

Bryan on Scouting has the details on these two exceptional youth leaders and thanks to his recent blog post, you can get to know Pratik and Rachel just in time for the start of their terms.

National Venturing President

Pratik currently serves as the Western Region Venturing President and in addition to being a Venturing Silver Award recipient, he is also an Eagle Scout.

Leadership is nothing new to Pratik. While serving in his current position, he started several new Venturing Officers’ Associations, giving Venturers the ability to plan and lead events in their councils.

Some of Pratik’s goals as National Venturing President include improving Venturing communication, establishing new Venturing Officers’ Associations, and promoting Venturing programs.

National Sea Scout Boatswain

When Rachel steps into her new position in June, she will be the first National Boatswain to lead since the Sea Scouts became its own program, earlier this year.

Rachel, also a Venturing Silver Award recipient, has demonstrated her ability to lead through both Sea Scout and Venturing development courses and has even completed the Sea Scout SEAL training course.

In her application for the National Boatswain position, Rachel explained how Sea Scouts has helped her grow and she hopes to make a difference in the lives of others as she leads the program.

We can’t wait to see what these two accomplished Scouts will achieve in the coming year! Be sure to read the full story on Bryan on Scouting to learn more about Rachel and Pratik.

Do you know any Scouts with outstanding leadership skills? Share your story in the comments!