Table of Contents Our Principals: Our Creed: Venturing Crew 369: Our Web Page: Our E-Mail Addresses Calendar of Events: Membership Drive Crew Finances Up-an-Coming Member Expenses Quote of the Month Life My Latest Endeavor, BeOS Perl Modules Our Advisors New Internet Computer How to master the Art of Selling The Crew in 2000-2001 369's Web Site has a new Name Vector Based Graphics Thank you 369 Venturing Crew 369

A New Year Begins! PostScript Version - PDF Version

Our Principals 1) Honor before all else.  2) The difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner tried one more time.  3) K.I.S.M.I.F.  4) Y.C.D.B.S.O.Y.A.  Our Web Page: http://www.venturingbsa.com

E-Mail Us! Our Creed Exploring: Enthusiasm, Energy, & Excellence  Venturing Crew 369 Venturing Crew 369 was chartered on December 31, 1994 to the Reformation Luthern Church.  Venturing Crew 369 specializes in UNIX for Programmers while emphasizing a deep theme of Engineering Computer Information & Science; Membership in Venturing Crew 369 is open to young men and women between the ages of 14 [and in high school] and not yet 20.  Annual Membership fees are $25.00.

Calendar of Events:

09/02/00  Dayton Air Museum

09/10/00  Court-of-Honor at Park

09/12/00  Open House Dress Rehearsal

09/16/00  Knight's Night Out

09/19/00  Open House [First Nighter]

09/22-23/00  Emergency First Aid Course, Part A

09/29-30/00  Emergency First Aid Course, Part B

10/8/00  Bike Hike, Granville

10/13-15/00  Book Binding Campout [Exchange Lodge]

10/24/00  Pizza Party

10/28/00  Knight's Night Out

11/4/00  VOA Elections and Annual Banquet

11/7/00  Guest Speaker, Scott M. Warmbier (Qwest)

11/12/00  Church Dinner [We Cook]

11/17/00  Campout

11/25/00  Knight's Night Out

12/5/00  Guest Speaker, James Power (Qwest)

12/15/00  Silver Beaver Apps Due

12/16/00  St. Stevens Food Drive

12/16/00  Knight's Night Out

12/19/00  Christmas Party

12/26/00  No Meeting

1/5/01  Guest Speaker, Dana Ritter (Nationwide)

1/19-21/01  Campout

1/30/01  Guest Speaker, Steve Romig (OSU)

02/03/01  Court-of-Honor, Pot-Luck, Sleep Over

02/04/01  Scout Sunday

03/23-25/01  Campout

04/27-29/01  Campout

06/15-17/01  Campout

07/1-7/01  Summer Camp

07/23-/01  National Scout Jamboree

08/17-19/01  Campout

09/11/01  Open House

09/28-30/01  Book Binding Campout

10/26-28/01  Campout

11/23-25/01  Campout

11/02/01  VOA Elections and Annual Banquet

12/22/01  Christmas Party

My Latest Endeavor, BeOS

Nathan C. Lee, Age 19

Be started out as an alternative to Mac OS for the Macs and compatibles around `95 or so, around the time that the Macintosh debuted with "Clones:" non-Apple Macintoshes from companies that licensed the internal ROM and the MacOS, using PowerPC processors. The new, relatively open architecture of the Mac enabled Be to create an alternative commercial operating system for the Mac. Alternative OSs like Apple's own flavored Unix, A/UX, and free varieties of BSD had already existed for years, but Be was the first time an alternative was commercially sold with any relative success.

Recently, there has been a bit of a resurgence of Be, mostly on the Intel side, mainly because it's being freely distributed. Due to the fact that Apple is now guarding their internal hardware specs with the same zeal as the Colonel does his secret herbs and spices, it has become impossible, according to Be, to build an OS for the newer Macs. One may note, however, that many flavors of Linux and BSD support newer Macs, so it is theoretically possible for Be to develop for the platform, but according to their own FAQ, http://www.be.com/support/faqs/faqs/be_faq-00083.html, they are not willing to risk legal conflict with Apple. Be is now only supported on old Macs (beige) and Intel machines. For new Macs, the option of installing Be on the Virtual PC emulation environment exists, which I tried earlier this year, but didn't have much success because the video came out in black and white (it's a known incompatibility with Virtual PC).

You very well may like Be. It supposedly runs much faster than most other OSs, and you don't have to go through all of the installation and configuration pains of Linux. It can help a Windows user get one step closer to the Mac on their machine, and can help a Mac user get one step closer to some unrealized ideal. For Unix folks, it's just a radical change of pace.

If you decide to try it out, email me at keeper@food4u.com, I'd like to see what you think of it; it's available for free download from http://www.be.com/products/freebeos/

Perl Modules

So, you have picked up O'Reilly's, "Learning Perl" book, and you know all the things that make perl Perl. Now what? It is time to start playing with some of the modules that come with perl, or are downloadable from the internet. Modules are chunks of reusable code that can be included in your scripts to perform specific functions such as: interact with other systems, manipulate images, or parse comma delimited files, etc. Modules allow you to do really technical stuff without having to know the specifics of that really technical thing.

Some modules are written in other languages (C/C++, etc.) and expose a perl interface. Often when downloading these modules, you will have to compile the parts that are written in the different language, but most of the time, running "perl Makefile.PL; make; make test" will handle most of the work. Other modules are written entirely in perl and are installed by putting the appropriate files into your PERLLIB directory.

For downloaded modules, look at the README file to find information about dependencies, special instructions, and where to put your downloaded files to make them work. For modules that were included with your base install of perl, look in your PERLLIB/man directory for documentation.

Let us assume that I have been given the task to write a script to run pings on a server and report if it does not respond. I could go research all the details on how the ping function works and then try and figure out how to get my network card to send a ping. And then I would try to understand and interpret the responses. OR, I can use Net::Ping, a pre-packaged perl module.

To use it, I go to PERLLIB/man/. I look up Net::Ping to find out how to use the module. I am given the following information: NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, Functions, WARNING, NOTES. This includes a sample program, a list of functions, and any notes the author feels you should know. Instead of spending three days researching how a ping works and writing my own code, I spend 30 seconds reading this documentation and I am on my way. Using the module, here is the code to ping a list of machines written in all of 10 seconds.

	# this includes the Net::Ping module
	  use Net::Ping;
	$computer_to_ping = "90.0.0.1";
	# this creates a Net::Ping object
	$computer_to_ping = Net::Ping-
	>new();
	# from the Net::Ping documentation, 
	we see that the ping function 
	returns
	# a true or false depending on the 
	result of the ping.
	# if the ping function is successful
	if($computer_to_ping->ping)
	{
	  # tell the caller, the ping 
	succeeded
	  print "$computer_to_ping is 
	alive!\n";
	}
	else
	{
	  # tell the caller, a computer 
	has died
	  print "$computer_to_ping is 
	dead. call the doctor!\n";
	}
	# destroy our ping object
	$computer_to_ping->close();
	

There are modules out there to do everything under the sun. SMTP, POP, PGP, HTML, NIS, are examples of protocols or functions that you can use with perl modules. You can interact with just about every technology around through the use of modules. So, if you are faced with a very technical job, and you want to use perl to do it, search for some modules to make it easier.

In summary, use modules to avoid re-creating the wheel. This 40 second script could have taken much longer had I decided to code it entirely myself. For more modules www.cpan.org.

Our Advisors

"Although he can hardly believe it, Mr. Drake has been an Associate Advisor with Venturing Crew 369 for more than 5 years. He Says: "It seems like just yesterday that I was an Explorer, interested in computers and the people that made them go." In 1990, he would take a leap of faith to imagine that 10 years later, Mr. Drake would be advising his own Crew and be involved in the building of a truly international business.

As a freshman at Worthington High School, he experienced what many students felt (and perhaps still feel) -- there were no real school based activities for those who had an interest in computer science or computer engineering. Although the Math Department offered Basic Programming on Apple IIe computers, it was a far cry from what Mr. Drake would experience once he joined the Explorer Scout Post 891 at AT&T Bell Laboratories - then an ultra modern computing facility responsible for research and development for the global phone network. Who would have imagined a 1 Terrabyte storage facility in 1990? Only the deep minds and deeper pockets of AT&T. It was quite literally a whole new world for him, playing with machines designed to communicate around the world and support thousands of simultaneous users. Hard to believe, but Mr. Drake's friends couldn't imagine the concept of why you'd need that much power - they just wanted to play Star Raider or Rampage.

Once completing High School, Mr. Drake went on to The Ohio State University where he entered studies in his first loves, Russian Language and Political Science. Recognizing that the world wasn't beating down the doors of Political Scientists or Russian translators, all during university he held a number of technical jobs designed to maintain his marketability and allow him to have first starting as the lead student repair technician for University Technical Services, later Systems Administrator for the Department of Civil Engineering's lab for study of Climatology. As his first real Systems Administration position, the lab ran on mostly modern SGI machines and a few aging Sun M68k boxes and proved to be a challenge to maintain, what with all the rigorous use the engineers and graduate students threw at the network. Without his experience at AT&T as an Explorer, Mr. Drake remarked more than once that he couldn't have succeeded in maintaining a professional level of uptime on the network as well as he did.

The Explorer program also brought him into direct contact with Sun Microsystems through the mentorship of Mr. Drakes's then Associate Advisor (now main Crew Advisor), Mr. James D. Corder. Sun received a contract for Chemical Attracts to do some large scale systems migration work, and needed experienced and eager technical contractors to complete the job. Six months and several hundred Sun machines later, Mr. Drake landed a position at Nationwide Insurance as a Systems Administration intern under Mr. Corder, working on what was the largest network outside of AT&T that he had ever seen - 215 servers and more than 1,500 Sun desktops supporting nearly 12,000 users. The staff was excellent, and the opportunity even more so, he learned more about the intricacies of large scale network design and administration than any school could possibly ever teach.

In the spring of 1997 it was apparent to Mr. Drake that his dream of working abroad needed to be fulfilled, or events in his career would take over and the likelihood of doing so in the future wouldn't be possible. With the help of some contacts at both Ohio State and through his experiences at Sun and Nationwide, Mr. Drake accepted a contract position doing Year 2000 consulting in Moscow, Russia for four months. A consortium lead by U.S. West was trying to break into the Russian market for mobile communications and their IT staff was rapidly expanding. Mr. Drake took the opportunity to continue his Russian studies as well, thus combining his computer and Russian interests perfectly.

Upon his return to the U.S. in the fall of 1997, Mr. Drake finished out his studies at The Ohio State University and began contract work with Lucent Technologies as a Unix Systems Administrator. It was a continuation of both his international interest and background in Systems Administration, as the group he worked with supported HP-UX customers in 11 European and Asian countries, as well as 165 developers at home. Although the pressure was high, he liked the work of being in the thick of operations for a flagship company. Ultimately however, the lure of working for the Nationwide Insurance Internet Team, the sole maintainers of the firewall and connectivity for Nationwide, induced him return to Nationwide.

While on the Internet Team, Mr. Drake was responsible for special projects, including devising and executing Nationwide's first broadband access program, a joint venture with Time-Warner of Columbus to make broadband network access available to all 15,000 of Nationwide's downtown employees. At the same time, Mr. Drake continued his main work of supporting the corporate firewall architecture, as well as his new area of responsibility as a technical liaison to Nationwide Global, the international division of Nationwide.

In recognition of creativity, integrity and excellence on the Web. Congratulations! Your web-site has been reviewed and chosen to bear the 2000-2001 Golden Web Award.

After working for nearly 9 months on Nationwide Global projects as an Internet Team member, Mr. Drake moved to NG full time in NG's Technology Design and Deployment group. His expertise in both large scale network design and background in Central and Eastern Europe came in particularly handy when Nationwide Global's first office in Warsaw, Poland was opening. Once Poland was operational, other countries including Luxembourg, and Brazil soon followed -- the word "busy" didn't adequately describe Mr. Drake's existence. One year, six countries on three continents and countless trips later, Mr. Drake may have a few more frequent flyer miles than he did when he started, but the prospects of more international work excite him nonetheless.

The exciting part of Mr. Drake's experience is his enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge with the Crew members he meets every week. They quickly begin to understand his passion for broadening their minds beyond the confines of their current lives and to think bigger than what they'd otherwise do. In the end, Mr. Drake still comes back to the Venturing Crew because while he can't pay back those who taught him, he can certainly pay forward by teaching others."

New Internet Computer

With some eagerness I opened the brown, fashionably decorated New Internet Computer box. Here was, in one box, what I hoped was the answer to support all of my assertions over the years that thin client technology was here to stay. First came the Xterminal, then the JavaStation and IBM thin clients, and most recently the Sun SunRay network appliance. Each promised easy delivery of internet, intranet and web based media of all kinds, but without the management headaches, endless upgrade routines and cost of running a PC.

The idea is simple enough: push the task of delivering the compelling content (in this case, application software) to the internet or the network server, and allow the desktop to remain thin. This way, the device itself, in theory, can remain relatively simple to use, low cost and easy to maintain. An IT manager's dream and the golden ring that manufacturers have been trying to grab for several years. Of all the thin client devices currently available, the SunRays have impressed me most, with their low cost, high performance, scalable capability that minimizes work on the part of support personnel. However, SunRays are not available as consumer devices, and they need a backend server to take advantage of the powerful Solaris operating system upon which the SunRay software runs. Enter the New Internet Computer Company.

Founded by Larry Ellison of Oracle fame, and headed by former IT industry journalist Gina Smith, NIC promises to be another approach to thin clients. The little black box about the size of a hardback text book contains no floppy drive, no hard drive, and boots on its own without network resources, waiting for you to press the button which takes you to the Internet via built in modem (either your own ISP or an included free ISP service), or broadband (onboard ethernet is provided). The technical specs are below:

New Internet Computer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Machine               New Internet Computer (NIC) 1                                                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Producer              New Internet Computer Company                                                       
Platform              X86, Intel clone (Cyrix MII-266)                                                    
Memory                64mb RAM, 4mb Non-Volitle RAM for preferences and bookmarks                         
Hard Disk             None                                                                                
CDROM Drive           24x                                                                                 
Ethernet              Yes, 10/100mbit                                                                     
Modem                 Yes, 56k (where available)                                                          
OS                    Netscape Navigator on top of Linux 2.2, Xfree86 v3.3.6                              
Other Features        Comes with 24x CDROM drive, two USB ports, joystick port, keyboard (black), mouse   
                      (black), mousepad (black), stereo speakers (black), free                            
internet access (no                                                                                       
monthly fees)                                                                                             
Warranty              30 Days Moneyback Guarantee, 1 Year Parts and Labor                                 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The price at a mere $199, makes NIC definitely worth an examination. The question remains, does a $199 provide enough functionality for people to avoid buying a $399 PC instead? I set out to see.

First, I found that it greatly depends on what you want that functionality to be. Many people are now buying PC's simply to do functions on the web like email, Yahoo chat or filing your income taxes (Quicken now has a web version). New Internet Computer company recons that there's enough compelling content on the web to do basically everything you really need to do, and if you were really serious about buying anything more complicated, you would have bought a computer by now. NIC is targeted at those who don't really plan on doing desktop publishing, word processing or database searches, unless those applications are deployed through the web. It's also betting that by making low cost terminals available, more and more software will be written within a web framework and compelling content will be available whenever people want it. Overall, I'd say that this is true, but the applications deployed now are only touching the surface of what could be.

The box containing NIC arrived in good shape to my house about two weeks after I ordered it on-line, and contained a carefully wrapped, nicely packed black appliance, a slim packet with documentation, all the associated cords and cables, keyboard, mouse, speakers, an OS CD-ROM and an easy setup guide. During the order process, I communicated with NIC over my status, and found them to be helpful and responsive in terms of customer support.

The machine installed easily according to the Easy Setup Guide, a large flat pictoral of how to plug in the color coded cables into the back of NIC. Definitely a nice thing to have, but the additional user documentation amounted to basically a photocopied booklet on how to get going. Not the greatest in the world, but not a show stopper because the unit was so easy to plug in. However, if the unit is targeted at first time buyers, a nicer manual would have been a handy thing to have, as it was, it basically glanced off of concepts of how to use the NIC, and only briefly covered content available on the internet. I used an existing Mitsubishi flatscreen 17" monitor instead of opting to buy the $129 15" unit that NIC sells. No problems there.

Upon powerup, the NIC prompted me to insert the OS CD-ROM into the laptop style CD-ROM drive (the try pops out, rather than slides), and from there, the machine detected this was the first time for bootup, and proceeded to start the browser based install process. The install process was very clear, with a simple set of yes or no style questions designed to ease your way online. If you have an ethernet connection, it's easy to get going, otherwise you have to input your ISP settings so NIC can dial and get connected. Other than a few moments of confusion over what method of authentication my ISP uses, there were no issues. The OS CD remains in the CDROM at all times, and the device is locked during normal usage - occasionally, it will need to load a library or application and the CD will contain all of this material.

Incidentally, NIC is the only mass market thin client currently available that doesn't require you to sign up with their ISP. In fact, NIC has several partners that offer low cost or free ISP services, should you decide you need an ISP. Several other thin clients on the market, most notably the iOpener, ePods One and Mail Station require a monthly contract for anywhere from $9.95 to $23.95, not such a good deal for basic ISP services.

Once underway, you are presented with a default, local "homepage" which contains everything you need to access the NIC system or go out onto the internet. The interface is the same old Netscape Navigator we've grown to love, complete with Flash and Real Player plugins. You can access the limited OS tools the come with the system (a few games, X client, SSH and telnet clients, a calculator, Citrix Metaframe clients, and a VNC client) simply by clicking on the button marked "Tools" and navigating your way down the menu tree. Not the greatest way of doing things (I personally would have integrated the list into the menu manager accessible via right click), but the emphasis is on ease of use, and it does make for easy access. Bookmarks are stored either in non-volitile RAM (4mb should be plenty for some time), or via an internet based drive, such as the Xdrive.

Internet web pages via the built in modem load adequately fast, though sometimes the 800x600 default resolution seems a bit cramped. In terms of speed, for a free ISP service, I couldn't ask for much more. All international pages that I tried to load on the machine worked well, in contrast to some thin clients which shave off language localization to save space. I did have a chance to plug the NIC into both a broadband network and an ethernet network, and performance was great, easily able to keep up with any PC in the office. I suspect that the modem performance was due to the nature of the sites I was visiting, with the Flash enabled content that sometimes can be a bit cumbersome.

Also, I had a chance to test NIC out as a regular network station, running a variety of X-Window applications, including Sun Microsystems StarOffice, over our local office network. Performance was great, though again things felt a bit cramped by the 800x600 default screen depth. I would definitely trade color depth for more pixels, and the machine supports them - 1024x768 should be perfectly achievable with this chipset, but for some reason isn't enabled by default.

In the three weeks I've had the NIC, I'd say that in general my usage of it has broken down as follows: 60% NIC versus 40% regular PC. If I had a server or two deployed for example in my basement, where I could keep more network services active, I would probably convert totally to NIC. Quite simply, when I want to surf the web, it boots up fast, requires no shutdown, and all resources are instantly available. However, there are those few times when I absolutely need to run word processing functions, and it would sure be nice to have something available to do that - I see no reason why a local version of Star Office couldn't be locally loaded onto the NIC and printing via the local USB interface or network printing supported (NIC only supports one printer, the Epson 740i by default in the 1.1 OS release).

I expect great things from NIC in subsequent releases of the OS software, including the addition of more software on CD, a refined user interface, and better options in terms of unit configurability. I'll be content to leave the unit as it is, but other users will probably want to hack it to make it do things their way, or perhaps to even run other OS's. I could easily see this as the perfect NetBSD/OpenBSD terminal.

The NIC would be perfect for schools or businesses where web applications or software are either already present or are actively being developed for regular PC's. NIC makes a compelling argument for network based computing - it's low cost, you don't have to do maintenance, everything is as simple as on and off, and NIC supports most of the latest web based standards. Now, if firms come out with more web based courseware or applications, this machine will sell itself. All in all, NIC is an easily recommended choice for internet applications.

How to master the Art of Selling

"How to Master the Art of Selling" by Tom Hokins (From our required reading list): What a great book that has application to both business, Crew, and life in general. Chapter 5, "Why Don't I Do What I Know I Should Do?" Is an awesome chapter that has application in many parts of life. Mr. Hopkins says that if your fear and anxiety are bigger than your motivation to do something, you won't do it. What then, would be a good solution to eliminating your fear and anxiety. He says to face it head on, and it will disappear. Finally, he says, when ever you conquer a fear, you forget all the pain it took to conquer it. Awesome chapter... awesome book. Thanks for recommending it Mr. Corder.

The Crew in 2000-2001

One thing that makes this crew stand apart is its vision. For example, look at the calendar page; you will notice that the dates extend into 2020. I have always heard that "to fail to plan is to plan to fail". We will not fail. I see some great things for the crew in the future. One obvious goal we have set for ourselves is to earn the Bronze award. This award is exclusive to Venturing and demonstrates the learning of set basic skills and some the awardee chooses. Efforts for this award so far include the scheduling of a First Aid course and securing of an advanced outdoors instructor. We plan to grow in numbers to, as a shorter-term goal, 100 or more. We already had set the goal of having a sister group, and one is currently being set up in Colorado. Finally, a goal that has been discussed for the group is some sort of major project, called a superactivity in scouting, for next summer. Some ideas have been camping and snorkeling on the Florida keys, signing up as entertainment at Disney World (after preparing some sort of show), or waiting a year and going to Australia. Of course, the other neat thing about this crew is how they make their goals happen. I am very excited to see where we're going in the next year.

369's Web Site has a new Name

In order to keep up with times, Venturing Crew 369 has changed its web site name from:

http://www.venturingbsa.com to: http://www.venturingbsa.com

Vector Based Graphics

Can you imagine a 150 frame animation that is only 5.5k in size, better yet can you imagine that presentation being interactive with the user. Even better imagine if the content it shows is dynamic. All of this is the power of Macromedia Flash 4. Flash has become the de facto standard in serious internet animation.

All this power stems from the vector based symbols used in Flash animation. Vector symbols are mathematical equations that describe shapes. Take a circle for example, in Rastor/Bitmap (jpg, gif, bmp, etc..) images a circle has to be broken up in to pixel size chunks and the location of all of those stored. This makes for large files and a lack of scalability. A vector based circle is simply a trigonometric equation, but since Flash in a completely graphical interface you don't need to know the equation. This approach to graphics leads to tiny files and infinite scalability since the image is rendered at the proper resolution when it is needed.

I've spent about a week learning the simple interface of Flash, you can find the results of my labor:

Thank you 369

In the last six months, since I have bee associated with the Venturing Crew 369, my personal and professional life have improved in quality by 300%.

My relationships with my friends and family have got better drastically. I am taking the things that I have learned about leadership and applying them to my personal relationships. I am helping my friends and family become better people professionally and personally threw service and information.

I have tripled my income because of my association with the Crew. I have learned negotiating skills, leadership skills, and professional relationship skills. Ladies and gents, I did not want to work in Chicago. When the recruiter called and asked if I would accept a position in Chicago, I first said no. I hesitated, and then remembered the teachings of the Crew. I changed my answer to, I would not be willing to work in Chicago for anything less than $X. Well, they happily met the $X, and now I am in Chicago. Because of this move, I am well on my way to financial independence. Thank you 369!

My roles in my jobs are moving from technical roles to leadership roles. I am making decisions for my QWEST group that is going to shape the future of the group, and provide prosperity to all of it's members. I am building an awesome group of people that will significantly change the way employee and account information is handled. QWEST will be a different more competitive company because of my leadership and site. My ability to have this influence has come directly from my association with the Crew. I'm not even exaggerating.

My spiritual life has snow balled into an awesome thing. Six months ago to the time I was born, I have been struggling with faith. God was losing. When I came to the Crew, and I heard Mr. Corder talk about how God works, I gave it a try. It is amazing. I am more at peace with my life, and more confident about everything I do, because I know that if I am doing God's work he will help me along.

Mr. Corder, Mr. Drake, and Mr. Potter are some of the top technical individuals in the world. They are THE BEST teachers of leadership that I have ever witnessed, and you can be assured that the any association to the these people and the Crew will lead to prosperity, peace of mind, satisfying spirituality, and a strong leadership position in the world to come.

Venturing Crew 369

The program of Venturing Crew 369 is best described as the best of what it's like to be a kid, and the best of becoming an adult. Not only does Crew 369 go camping, throw parties for the youth, take trips out of Columbus and help make new friends, it also provides youth with valuable skills in UNIX, Perl and HTML. We always keep things simple, and make them fun. Since what's the sense in learning when you're not having fun?

Venturing Crew 369 participates in a variety of activities. The Crew maintains a web page with over 5.75 million hits to date, and 1000+ web pages. Each youth receives their own personal page on the site when joining. On the site the Crew maintains the Scouting the Web Award, a very prestigious award available only to scout sites. The Crew writes a monthly newsletter, produced by the youth, that is sent out internationally. Crew 369 participates in a variety of service projects throughout the year, including helping out at COSI Unmasked and St. Stephen's Community Center during their annual food drive. The Crew has given presentations at the State Fair and at iTec, where we were the only youth group there. Bi-Monthly, the Crew goes out on a camping trip to scout reservations around the state--always just for fun.

Venturing Crew 369 is open to all youth 14-20 and in high school or above. Our weekly meeting is every Tuesday night at 7:30pm at the Reformation Lutheran Church, 1355 S. Hamilton Rd., Columbus, OH 43227.