Re: Last Minute Eagles

There has been discussion here before about how "active participation"
should be defined. Most of us would agree that we'd like to see Eagle
candidates attend troop meetings regularly, go on campouts, and so
forth, but the official intrepretation seems to be that if a boy is
registered, he's considered active.

I don't know what the Scoutmaster's motivation was here. Perhaps he sees
good leadership potential in this Scout and feels that the troop will
benefit from having him as SPL.

Even so, the SPL should be elected by the scouts (see the Junior Leader
Handbook or Scoutmasters Handbook) not appointed by the Scoutmaster.

If the Scout needs the leadership service to make Eagle, he could serve
in many other positions, like junior assistant scoutmaster, den leader
or instructor, which are normally apppointed by the Scoutmaster rather
than elected.

I recently sat on an Eagle Board of Review for a (young) Eagle candidate
who had held no leadership position during his entire time as a Scout
except Den Chief--though he held that job for three years and by all
reports he did an outstanding job. The Board members all felt that we
would rather have seen him serve some time giving leadership within his
own troop, and we challenged him to do that in the future, but the way
the rules are written we had to accept the Den Chief service for
purposes of granting his Eagle rank.

Larry Tuck
ASM, Troop 761
Thousand Oaks, CA
(2 days 'til Wood Badge--next time you hear from me I'll be a usta be)

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message
• Maybe in reply to
• Next in thread