Re: advancement question

Jon,

It is all going to depend on your local Council. They are the
ones who verify and certify that the requirements were met.
National checks the application, but the few times I have seen
one returned, it is because of an error such as not enough
required merit badges before the Life BoR date. They do not
check the merit badge cards to see if they were signed by a
registered counselor. That, if done at all, is a council
function.

My position has always been to go out of my way to help the
young man find the records he needs verify that he has done the
requirements. While the youth is responsible for one segment of
the blue merit badge card, I can usually finger us adults when
there are problems with advancement records. Some Scout
Leaders do not use these and I have met quite a few scouts who
have never seen one. (OK, I am working on it, but that is
another long post.) Lack of records is mostly an Adult problem
and I treat it as such and avoid having the Scout earn the badge
again.

Here is the order I use to look for advancement records:
1. I look for the Troop advancement records sheet that should
be turned in.
2. I look for the merit badge blue cards. These can be the
Unit copy, the Scout's Copy, or the COUNSELORS COPY.
3. I look at the Scout book for rank advancements, the BoR's
should be dated and signed in the book.
4. Then I look for the presentation cards. (Keep in mind, these
rarely have the earned date, they can cause date problems with
the Eagle Application.)
5. I even had one case where some of the Scout's merit badge
work was signed off in his Boy Scout Handbook.
6. If there is absolutely no paper trail, then we try to trace
down the Merit Badge Counselors. If they kept their records or
remember the Scout, then they can verify that the advancement
was done.

I have had cases where there are Scouts writing and calling back
to old Scout Leaders thousands of miles away to get records.
(Sierra Vista is mostly a military town for Fort Huachuca and
we have an Air Force Base in Tucson.)

Only once do I recall a Scout Leader actually getting so
desperate that he just had the Scout do the merit badge over.
Even in that particular case, I am not sure how desperate they
were. I told them what I would need for verification when I
came to do the Board of Review, but I think they just decided it
was easier to just do the merit bade over than to try and find a
record of it. (For a 17 year old, some of these merit badges do
not require much effort.)

My position as Council Advancement Chairman is to avoid
requiring the youth to earn merit badges a second time. I
GUARANTEE THAT YOUR MILEAGE WILL VARY DEPENDING ON HOW YOUR
COUNCIL ADVANCEMENT IS HANDLED. I strongly recommend a
conversation with your district and maybe even your Council
Advancement chair. The Council's person who checks the Eagle
Scout Applications is another excellent person to speak with to
find out how to handle this in your council.

Good Luck.

Chris Haggerty
Sierra Vista, Arizona
Legacy Systems Analyst, Anteon Corporation
Catalina Council Advancement Chairman
Instructor Trainer for Water Safety, Southern Arizona Chapter,
American Red Cross
haggerty@primenet.com or haggerty@bpa.arizona.edu


Question is, what sort of paper trail needs to be found/created
so
that when the Eagle application is sent to national it doesn't
get
summarily bounced back? Also, given that the only record the
boy
seems to have currently is the collection of MBs and rank
patches, how
would you go about assembling this paperwork?

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