The Phantom Venture Scout Unit (VSU) meet in the headquarters of 2nd West Kirby Sea Scouts, in a small town in Wirral, just "across the water"* from Liverpool. The Unit remains relatively small, numbers fluctuate up and down slightly, but usually rest between ten and fifteen.

Structure

As with all Venture Scout Units, The Phantom VSU has a Chairman, a Secretary and a Treasurer, these are the three posts which must be filled by members of the unit, but the unit also has additional extra posts. These additional posts include a Recruitment Officer who undertakes the task of visiting local Scout Troops to speak with those who are approaching the age at which they might move up from Scouts into Venture Scouts.

There has also from time to time been various other, more temporary posts, most notably the post of Webmaster, which has switched between several different people in recent times, but currently resides with no one and as such no webpage exists for The Phantom VSU.

Uniform

Unlike Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, Venture Scouts rarely wear their uniforms, they are not worn for their weekly meetings, only for special events such as investitures. But when uniform is worn by members of The Phantom it differs to that of most other Scouts. Firstly because The Phantom has a mixture of Ventures from Normal and Sea Scout troops some members of the unit wear blue sea venture scout shirts, whilst others where the brown/green shirts of normal ventures.

The unit Neckerchief is also quite unique as well, it is green, bright green, very bright green. Fluorescent green. These neckerchiefs are of particular note because they are no longer in production and when new ones are required the unit has to be white neckerchiefs and dye them. Several members of the unit also have a glow in the dark edge to their neckers.

Activities

The Unit undertakes an extremely wide range of activities, attempting to accommodate the tastes of a very varied set of young individuals. As the majority of the members of the Unit were previously in 2nd West Kirby Sea Scouts, The Phantom VSU has a tendency to lean towards more water based activities than most other units. Throughout the summer there are weekly sailing and canoeing sessions at West Kirby Marine Lake and in recent years the Unit has also participated in a sailing and canoeing competition held every October on a very cold lake near the Scottish border in Northumberland. The Unit also plan to spend two weeks of the summer of 2002 at an International Sea Scout camp, in Holland.

Of course the Unit doesn't just participate in water activities, many members of the Unit have attended district events, including Ice Skating, Bowling, Re-union Parties, Night Hikes and weekend trips to the Old School Lodge Activity centre in Deiniolen, (more information about which can be found at http://www.oldschoollodge.org.uk ). During these activity weekends members of the unit have completed a large number of walks around the Snowdownia area of Wales, as well as making visits to The Electric Mountain and The National Slate Museum in Dinorwig.

The Future?

Unfortunately it would seem that the future of The Phantom VSU is somewhat bleak. Venture Scouts are currently being phased out across the UK and by the start of 2003 The Phantom VSU will have been replaced by a number of Explorer Scout and Scout Network groups.