mdutch

I'm sure if you do a google search, you can probably get lots of ideas.

The first thing that comes to my mind (and I have no idea why) would be a human knot activity.

Good luck with the recruitment.

I don't think MBC's can designate troop only in my district. Either you are an MBC or not. And from my experience of calling counselors, they usually seem to be willing to work with just about anybody. But maybe I just got lucky and called the right ones.

Hi! I just wanted to update everybody and let you all know that I passed my Eagle BOR earlier this afternoon. Guess now I just have to wait to hear from national and start planning my COH.

So long as he is already first class, he does not need to be duel registered to continue earning merit badges and rank advancement (including to eagle). If he were to continue through the venturing crew, I am not sure if he would need to serve in a venturing POR or if the troop one would count.

While I do not know for fact, I do not believe he would be allowed to where the Boy Scout uniform or merit badge sash, if he is not registered in a troop. He can simply wear the Venturing uniform (whatever his crew decided to adopt).

As I just mentioned in another thread, I am going to be heading off to college soon. So, I will not be writing/reading here much anymore. For those of you who don't know, I just spent the past week doing 3 merit badges (who said you can't wait until the last minute), and my Eagle SM Conference. I will be scheduling my BOR for either Thanksgiving break or Christmas Break.

At the SM conference I was asked one interesting question that I didn't have a very good answer to. "Why do you want to become an Eagle Scout if you can't put it on your college applications?"

Anyways, thanks to all of you for the support that I have gotten from reading here plus this has been a great excuse to do something when I should have (but didn't want to) worked on merit badges.

Anyway, best of luck to everybody out here.

YiS,

Eric

It'll be a little while before I have my BOR, as I am heading out of town to college soon. What I am told is that for the BOR I get to choose two people from the references on the application (preferably religious and either employer or educator) and then two Troop Committee Members. Seems reasonable enough to me.

Thank you for the replies.

To clarify, the cards are only off by 1 day w/ one badge, and one month for the other (the troop section of the card was clearly not legible). Council told us it wont be an issue to change the dates in the system.

I had my SM conference last night, and all went well. It was the first Eagle SMC that he did, so it was a learning experience for both of us. More on the SMC in a later post.

-Eric

At what point would you also add a region patch to the right sleeve?

I am filling out my Eagle application and noticed that the dates on the blue cards for 2 of my merit badges do not match the date on the advancement report that was sent to council. Does anybody know if there is a way to correct this, or if it will become a problem?

Anyway, I have my SM Conference tomorrow, so I am off to go write my "statement of life purpose"

-Eric

I, personally, am registered (as a youth) in 2 crews and a troop. Hasn't been a problem so far

While most of us agree that it is preferable not to do merit badges at troop meetings, how would you handle it if the PLC decided that that is what they want to do?

From the Guide to Officers and Advisors:

Boy Scouts, Varsity Scouts, or adults

remain candidates until completion of the Ordeal and

Ordeal ceremony. If this period of candidacy exceeds one

year, the candidates name will be dropped. To become

candidates again, they must be elected/selected again.

The executive committee of the lodge may extend the

one-year limit if a candidate is ill or there are other

unusual circumstances.

I believe (but can't find a citation for it) that this period begins upon election, not being called out. Also, I don't believe you actually have to be called out in order to take the ordeal. While prefered, I don't think it is neccesary

Just to add on to what was already said, the Lodge Executive Committee (all youth members) is allowed to grant an exemption to the 1-year policy. It is atleast worth having your son talk to them to find out, if you want to push the issue.

To add a couple of things:

You may want to consider having a conversation with the scout in question to see what they think. Explain your concerns to them. If they don't even want to be in the OA, it takes away the whole issue.

Also, even if you don't have any eligible scouts, you can (in most Lodges) still request that some members of the OA come in to talk to your troop about the OA, this way you can still build hype about it.

Bill,

Yes, the scouts can definitely vote no. During the election, the OA election team will come to a troop meeting and explain a little bit about the OA, and what criteria are necessary for election (helpful, cheerful ect.) They then pass out ballots and have the boys in the troop vote. A scout must receive votes from at least half of the scouts who turn in ballots in order to become a candidate. If you have any other questions, please ask.

Specialty venturing crews can be started the same way as any other venturing crew. When the (youth members of the) crew adopt the by-laws, they should put in as their purpose whatever specialty they want to have. I don't think I am really answering your question, so I guess I am not quite sure what you are asking.

The decision of who can sign off on rank advancement is left up to the individual scoutmaster. However, as long as their is no question as to if the scout met the requirements, I see no problems. I also don't know if stuff he does their would count for something like 1st class #3 ("Since joining, have participated in 10 separate troop/patrol activities)

I'm getting closer to eagle. After nearly 2 years of planning, I finally completed my eagle project. Thank you to those forum members who provided me with advice on how to proceed. Now it's time to knock of 3 merit badges in 3 weeks before I head off to college (any advice on which non-required badges can be done easily in a short time frame?)

Scoutldr,

In that case they would still be allowed to complete the ordeal, as conducted by their new lodge

From Guide to officers and advisors (http://www.main.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/GOA-2006-Final.pdf page 23)

"If a candidate permanently relocates to a new Boy Scout council prior to completing the Ordeal, the candidate should immediately join a troop or team in the new council. A copy of the election report must be presented to the new unit leader to arrange induction in the new lodge. The candidacy period is not restarted or extended."

Also note, that out of council ordeals (according to this same source) are permited "when religious custom and observance precludes attendance at the Ordeals of a Scouts home lodge (e.g., Sabbath-observant Jewish Scouts). In this special case, the region Order of the Arrow chairman may be petitioned for an exception to permit the Scout to be inducted by

another lodge."

Out of council call outs are permitted (so long as advance permission of both home lodge and out of council lodge are obtained). However, out of council ordeals are NOT allowed. See http://www.main.oa-bsa.org/annc/opup/opup-05-5.pdf for more information

What! Robin Hood isn't real! At least I still have the Easter Bunny to believe in

My Lodge is also currently facing the same problem. While we have not been overly successful in solving it, here are some things that we considered:

Location of meeting- How centralized to your council is the meeting place? My council takes about 5 hours to drive end to end, so obviously it is going to be a big time commitment to drive their for atleast some of the people. By moving our meetings farther north, we were able to attract some more people.

Time of the meeting- we found that holding the meeting on the weekend (Sundays) was much more successful than on a weeknight evening.

Incentives to attend- As part of our Lodges "Quality Chapter" program (with requirements based partial on the Quality Lodge requirements), we added that the Chapter Chief or his designee must be present at, and make a report at, atleast 85% of LECMs.

Hope this helps!

This happened to one troop in our district. The election team said that you had to be present to run, when in fact you don't (or at least nobody that anybody talked to could find anything saying that you did). The election team went back and did another election. I think a phone call to the chapter/lodge advisor/chief might be a good first step.

Your best bet is to try to get in touch with either the lodge or chapter advisor (whoever you seem to have information for). If you can't get in touch with either, call the council office and ask to speak to the OA Lodge Staff Advisor. They should be able to help you out.

May I suggest that the scout (incorrectly) assumed that for the Eagle BOR, like all other BORs, do not have SM participation, and therefore the scout did not see a need for the SM to know about the BOR ahead of time.