age or grade requirements-AOL
Nancy Smith S (munss@UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU)
Mon, 16 Jan 1995 22:59:24 -0600
Hi All!
I need some input from all the wise Scouters out there. I am the
committee chair for our cub pack. We have one committee member who is
basically a pain in the ** at all our meetings. The *only* time she
speaks up is to complain or try to shoot down one of our ideas. Our
CM is a very mild-mannered man, and even he finds her totally
obnoxious and doesn't even like to have her on the committee. Anyway,
we just finished a committee meeting. We had our AOL ceremony this
past weekend and also bridged the 9 boys into one of our local
troops. Now here's our problem...this committee member has a boy who
is in the first year of Webelos--he's in fourth grade. She pointed
out that he is actually a year older than most 4th graders--he's
already ten and will be 11 this summer. She wants him to earn his AOL
soon after school starts in the fall and have us arrange a special
AOL ceremony for him so he can move into boy scouts during his fifth
grade year.
When we pointed out that this is a *pack* effort and he should wait
until we have our regular AOL for all the 4th grade boys she became
upset and said if her boy earned it he should receive it, no matter
when that happened. We finally said that we would consider awarding
his AOL patch to him at a regular pack meeting and he would be
welcome to come back for our regular AOL ceremony. That wasn't good
enough. We also argued that if we gave him his one month, then the
next month another boy may qualify and demand his own ceremony, etc.
She didn't think that should be a problem. The CM and I don't think
this should be an every-month occurrence. We have a pack to run with
many different events. We can't plan every month's meeting around an
AOL ceremony!
Our feelings are that he should continue through his 5th grade year
(we were under the assumption that Webelos is a 2-year program and
that AOL should be earned during the 2nd year). If she wants him to
move into Boy Scouts we told her to contact the troops and see when
they wanted to accept new boys.
To be honest, this boy is a nice kid (despite his mom) but really
doesn't have the maturity to move up. Unfortunately, there is no
father in the picture so we can't get an ally from that angle. I'm
going to call our district office tomorrow and get their input, but I
really want to know if anyone out there has had a similar experience.
We really would prefer to enforce the grade-level advancement over
the age-level advancement. We really don't know how he would get the
rest of the AOL requirements completed anyway. His den has not done
any camping or activities with the Boy Scout troops.
Can she force us to award him the AOL in August or September as
opposed to giving it to him along with the rest of the boys who will
advance in February? Help!?
Nancy Smith
Chair
Pack 39
Carthage, Illinois
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
