Re: When to give the Badge Out...
Alan Houser (troop24@EMF.NET)
Mon, 17 Jul 1995 22:46:04 -0700
Larry Jones <lwjones@FOLEY.GULF.NET> wrote:
> I'm all for giving them out after they are earned and not waiting for the
>next court of honor. Case in point, my sons troop at best has only 2 Courts
>of Honor per year (to much work for the SM to have to do the paperwork).
The Advancement Chair should do the paperwork, and if you have 4 Courts per
year, there's less to do at a time. The only thing the SM needs to do is
sign book after the SM conference, then sign the cards after the Advancement
Chair has filled them out. His signature is not needed on the advancement
report.
We used to do 3 Courts a year, but we found that most of the advancement
was being done in the last two weeks before the Court of Honor. By adding
a fourth, we now have eight weeks of furious advancement instead of six,
and more advancement, too.
> My second son earned his Tenderfoot last Sept after (by 2 weeks) the
>August (post Summer Camp) CoH. He then completed his second class in
>December of '94.
>Finally in early May '95 they had the end of school CoH awarding eveything
>since August and John was only presented with the 2nd Class badge and card.
This is exactly why Courts of Honor should be held more frequently. And
perhaps why the Advancement Guidelines (1992 edition) say on page 18: "Formal
courts of honor should be conducted at least four times a year."
> When questioning the SM after the CoH he was told that he had no need for
>the Tenderfoot badge as he was beyond that. I just hope that his record
>reflects his having earned it. If he had been given the badge at the time of
>earning it now he'd have it in his patch box when he grows up. As it is, was
>he ever really a Tenderfoot???
This is pretty outrageous. I would ask to see the advancement report just
to make sure that it was recorded properly and won't come back to haunt your
son as he's filling out his Eagle application. Then I would march down to
the Council Service Center with it and buy a Tenderfoot badge to put in his
patch box for now and perhaps an Eagle Trail display later.
And I would get someone else to handle advancement!!!!
Alan R. Houser ** Scoutmaster, Berkeley Troop 24 ** troop24@emf.net
** WWW page ** http://www.emf.net/~troop24/t24.html **
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
