George_Scouter

In all my years of scouting I've never known of a youth attempting to earn a merit badge who wasn't in scouts. It also seems that the advancements person could easily determine that the young boy who turned in the unsigned blue card isn't registered in the troop, no need to have the SM pre-determine this. That said I've know numerous troops who thought a boy was registered only to find at council that somehow the application hadn't made it in yet.

Instead, I believe the signature is part of what forces the scout and SM to see and get to know each other. It gives them something to break the ice at the SM conference. "So you've been in the troop 5 years? Who are you again? Haven't I seen you recently with something blue in your hand?" I crack myself up.

If the rules were written like laws then all the wanna-be lawyers would be looking for loopholes that their son could use to punch his ticket. Instead the rules are written loosely so that they can sit around the campfire and debate them while the SM quietly works the program.

Boys are young and here to develop. Guide them on how many MBs to persue at a time and which ones would be good to do. If they get muddled and confused then use the power of the pen to help them define some boundaries and get back on their path, realizing that each scout walks a sllightly different path. The real problem is the usual one, adults arguing without resolution and causing the youth to believe this is the way to do things.

I suppose since we are looking at the legalities I should ask: Does anyone know why the words change from "Complete your board of review" to "Successfully complete an Eagle Scout board of review" for Eagle? Can you simply attend all the lower level BORs but actually have to have "Success" for Eagle?