Re: A few topics, kinda long, I'm sorry for the babble.

Brian Walter asked several questions; I'm only going to address one of them
because, well, because I've got a LOT of email to answer (my kids were at
our home over the weekend, and I agreed with Jessica that I should spend
MORE time with them than trying to lower my workload. As she said, "They'll
be there on Tuesday, and you can spend all day -- until I get back home --
reading and answering them!")

(But honies....640 or so of them?? *heheheee*)

Brian stated:

>Lastly I don't understand how a web page can serve as an Eagle project. >A
lot of people have spoken about it but no one has really discussed >content.
A guess if the Web page is somehow related to the Community >or Church I
guess it's ok, but can someone giuve me some examples?

Let's talk content then; I'm going to also forward this over to E-Scouts as
well.

As several stated here earlier, the Eagle Service Project is supposed to be
the "capstone" of the candidate's ability to lead, motivate and cultivate
resources to get a particular "job" done. This ability will come in readily
handy as the Eagle Scout moves away from his community and into college or
the workforce and to other communities that don't know him from Adam.

Therefore, the scope of a webpage (actually a website) has to address
community or group concerns, not the concerns of the candidate. In my
response, I stated that a single webpage on a server somewhere is NOT
acceptable to me as a valid Eagle Scout Service Project. He didn't lead
anyone, didn't motivate anyone and certaintly did not use available
resources (or else his one-page webpage would have been blossomed into a
several-page site.)

First, like any other Eagle project, the candidate need to do some resource
and personal research. He needs to find out exactly whom is he doing the
project for: is he doing it for the community at large, which is admirable
and should be the direction that the project should go; or is he doing it
for a company that is going to take his page or pages and incorporate it
into a commerical site, which means that the candidate basically does the
"grunge work" of creating and designing the pages, designing and creating
graphics, and finding and typing or importing content for the pages. That's
NOT in *my* opinion, an "Eagle" quality project unless the Eagle candidate
has "enlisted" the assistance of other Scouts or community members to
provide those graphics and content and the candidate is just "putting it all
together".

Likewise, *I* would not approve a single church webpage or site, because the
content is coming from one source; now if an association of churches in a
community or within a specific denomination was involved, I would approve
it. What *I* look for in an Eagle project, among other things, Brian, is
the ability of the Scout to take leadership and provide the *widest amount
of people* the project will "touch" or impact.

Second, the Scout has to "use his resources" and "obtain the right people to
do the job". This part of leadership will expose him to several aspects of
real-life leadership and supervision: you will have no problem motivating
some to do whatever task needs to be done; you will have some problem
motivating some to even start work on the project, and everyone else will
fall somewhere in between those two. It will take the Scouts' ability to
"lead and direct others" to get the job done.

Next, the Scout has to "narrow down the scope and lenght of the project" to
something that he as a young person can handle. Remember, we're talking
about youth, with other demands (including Scouting demands) that is placed
on him. That Scout has to learn and use time-management tools just like
those used when he's at summer camp or Philmont or the Jamboree, and has to
apply those skills and planning factors to how he's going to get the website
done in a timely fashion.

Finally, after everything is up and it looks great, the Eagle candidate has
to make some kind of plans as to who is going to *maintain* the site.
Websites go up every hour, every day, Brian. What makes them useful is the
ability of the "webmaster" or owner of the site to maintain and keep as
current as possible the content of that site. I can tell you as a webmaster
and maintainer of several sites, that it takes a LOT of effort, a LOT of
time and I'll be honest with you all....there's some parts of *my* site that
hasn't been updated in quite some time. Imagine what would happen to a
community site put up by an Eagle candidate that DID NOT "plan ahead" for
what happens AFTER he gets his Eagle and moves onward and upward??

Here's examples of what *I* would approve, Brian....as you can read here, my
"standards" are a little higher than most, and its not because I'm a
"hardnose"; it's because I know that Scouts CAN DO THIS EFFECTIVELY. We
have this "image" that we can't expect Scouts to do so much work...my
standard response is that if we have kids that have taken up guns and go out
ambushing and planning to kill people....that surely a kid can create a
plan, take it and get it approved, and implement the plan to assist a
community or a set of community agencies.

So my "standards" are a little higher:

* A site which tells the historical significance of the city, town or
community in which the Scout lives or goes to school or church within.
This would be illustrated perhaps by short audio clips from the residents of
that community, pictures of homes that have been registered on the National
Registry of Historic Places or a state registry, or just special homes of
older residents.

* A site which tells the stories of several residents living in a retirement
home or facility, and tells of their childhood living in the city, town or
community. Such a site would have the faces today and "when they were
younger" of the residents that choose to participate, along with some of
their favorite songs, sayings or habits afterschool (a favorite waterspot, a
favorite activity after school games, who did they play in the school play
or in sports).

* A site which tells the development of the city or town, starting from the
earliest days of the town, city or community to the present.

* A site which allows community residents to interact with community leaders
and in turn, to allow the community leaders to interact with those that
choose to email their questions. Such a site needs a LOT of controls placed
in it and should be part of a larger site or should be under the
co-leadership of approviate city/county law enforcement leaders for obious
reasonings.

* A site which gives community residents the ability to post information
about things they want to give away or exchange (not sell) with other
community residents.

The above are NOT "one-page and I'm through" Eagle projects and allows for
the candidate to think through how he's going to create the project, who is
going to be the "recieipents" of his service and why he feels the project is
worthwhile and important.

Hope that this all answers that important question, Brian!

Settummanque!
(c) 1997 Mike Walton ("no such thing as strong coffee,...") (502) 827-9201
(settummanque, the blackeagle) http://dynasty.net/users/blkeagle
241 Fairview Dr., Henderson, KY 42420-4339 blkeagle@dynasty.net
kyblkeagle@aol.com or waltonm@hq.21taacom.army.mil
---- FORWARD in service to youth ----

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