Melgamatic
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Posts posted by Melgamatic
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I am the volunteer author of the new PDF Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook (now 2021c). I was asked by BSA National to convert the old Adobe LiveCycle document to a "pure PDF" form. The BSA's license to Adobe LiveCycle has expired, and LiveCycle is at end of life. As you probably know, if you didn't use the Adobe brand PDF tools the form would not work. This was an issue for Mac users, but there is a rapidly expanding base of Scouts using alternate platforms like ChromeBooks, and the form did not work.
In moving to "pure PDF" we do lose some functionality like expanding text boxes and lists, as someone pointed out above. With the new form, it is intended that the Scout will add additional pages for longer text or photos, plans, etc. It is tricky to have a PDF form which works well on all platforms; I find that something works in Adobe Acrobat, does not work in Chrome, works in Apple Preview but not Adobe Acrobat on Macs, etc. Adding digital signatures to a PDF document will also lock its contents, so Scouts and advisors need to be careful about that.
Until last Friday, there were NO changes to the content of the form. All the questions were exactly the same (except we corrected the grammar in two questions). In the latest form we changed something on Project Report Page B - the Eagle candidate now has two lines for their hours; one for planning and one for execution. This will help Scouts realize that they need to list their PLANNING hours, which is apparently something like half the candidates failed to do. The only other substantive change was the welcome message from the Chief Scout was removed.
Since the content of the workbook is exactly the same as the previous workbook (except for the new hours line), I don't have an opinion (nor would my opinion carry any weight) about when you should start requiring the new workbook. In my Troop or District I certainly wouldn't make any Scout past the proposal stage use the new book. Any web pages which indicate the workbook should be a link to the scouting.org page which will always have the latest version.
https://www.scouting.org/programs/scouts-bsa/advancement-and-awards/eagle-scout-workbook/
Finally, starting with last week's version, there is now a change tracking page at the end of the workbook which lists the changes included with each version. As this is a new document a few issues have been found and fixed. Some issues are things we just didn't think of (like the Transatlantic Council needing to put international-format phone numbers in the phone number boxes which were formatted for US phone numbers), others are minor fixes (like a couple page references in some text).
I'm happy to address any concerns. I'm not authorized to make any additions or changes to the content of the workbook, but happy to fix any errors you find.
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I'd lean on BSA to provide that comparison. If they can't provide it, it will take you a long time to do a comparison.
It took me about an hour to highlight the Merit Badge sections (section 7) in both the 2015 and 2017 guides to show what was deleted, added and changed. I'm very happy to report that there were a few wording improvements, a few additional sentences and a few removed sentences, but almost no change, and no material change. The MB process is exactly the same, as is the process for selecting and approving counselors, etc.
You are right that reviewing the entire book would be a big task!
One of our advancement committee members had hear rumors that there were big changes in the MB process, but happily these rumors appear to be unfounded!
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Yup, thats it. I got it from another source at the same time, so I am all set. Thanks very much for the help!
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According to this doc, such changes will be laid out in this newsletter. Can email them here advancement.team@@scouting.org.
Page 7 of the most current GTA has an overview of major changes.
Thank you. I've read those, but I'm looking to do a deep analysis and see the "minor changes" as well as the major ones. I've got an email out to our whole advancement committee, in the hopes that one of them downloaded a 2015 version.
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No, when you click on the link it goes to the standard location, which is the new guide now...
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The 2017 Guide to Advancement is out, and I've been asked in my capacity as District Merit Badge Dean to prepare an analysis of what changes were made to the Merit Badge process. I've read the new GTA, and I think there are changes.
However, I can't find a 2015 GTA to compare. I've always just looked online and not saved a copy, and now every 2015 GTA has disappeared, and scouting.org doesn't appear to have old versions of things archived (which makes sense, because you wouldn't want people searching and finding information in outdated guides).
Can anyone lead me to a 2015 GTA?
Thanks,
Dave
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We sell popcorn through the council popcorn system. Our troop has about 50 scouts who do some selling, but most of the sales come through ~10 single-day "show and sell" 6-hour events at convenience stores, etc. About 30 scouts participate in that. Our troop's net profit is around $8000 a year. In addition to paying for troop equipment and events, we charge our scouts less for annual membership that we pay the council (i.e., the troop subsidizes registration fees).
We also sell poinsettia's and wreaths, but our profit is much lower.
Our scouts pay for their patrols' food at campouts, but the troop pays for camp reservation fees, reimburses drivers if necessary, etc.
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The BSA Foundation's statement of the tax status of units indicates that it comes strictly from the chartered org. If your unit is chartered by a for-profit organization (e.g., a bicycle store), your unit is a for-profit organization!
The Boy Scouts of America is a public charity, tax exempt under IRC Sec. 501 ©(3). An IRS group exemption allows us to extend this tax exempt status to “subordinate organizations†- this includes all BSA local councils and approved local council trusts.
It has been the long-standing position of the IRS and the BSA that units - such as packs, troops, teams, posts, and crews - are NOT covered by the BSA’s group exemption, and that the BSA’s tax exempt status under IRC Sec. 501©(3) does NOT extend to units. Units are not, in themselves, legal entities. They are chartered to partner organizations of the BSA such as churches, PTAs and civic groups. Since a unit is “owned†by its chartering organization, each unit takes its tax status from that organization. Units are NOT subordinate organizations of the Boy Scouts of America.
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In the past few months we have started a number of Venturing units chartered by businesses. The latest is a culinary arts-focused Venturing unit that is chartered by a local gourmet food and cooking instruction business. I think the most common for-profit chartered units are chartered by businesses like scuba stores and bike stores.
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Recently, we were informed of massive cut's coming to scouting because United Way has decided to no longer donate funds to the scout program.
United Way in our area stopped funding Boy Scouts in 2000 after the Dale decision. Before then we got massive amounts of funding from them. In the past 15 years we got almost nothing. So we faced this issue 16 years ago and managed to survive.
With the recent changes in membership guidelines, United Way has slowly started to give us funds again.
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I have a situation in my unit (for which I am the CC) which makes me uncomfortable. It's not so much the facts, but rather that I think it conflicts with YP training.
We have a youth member (17, male and mature) who is "friends" with an unrelated adult leader (35-ish, male, married, no kids). The leader is a key member of our unit, and serves as an adult leader on our weekend overnight events which happen almost every weekend. Without his service the unit would fail. There is always at least one other leader on our weekend activities (often me), and the unit follows various YP and safe scouting guidelines, but this leader is always there whenever needed.
However, the youth and the adult end up alone together a lot. The adult leader has hired the youth to help clean out a barn at his farm. They have driven alone together to various events, and the adult has visited the youth at the youth's place of employment to say hello.
The youth's family seems to be OK with this. The father is also a sometimes active member of the unit, so he knows the adult leader well, and the adult leader has been sometimes invited to eat with the family, etc.
I have no suspicion that anything untoward is happening.
But, I keep thinking to myself that this is against Youth Protection Training, which I think tells us that a leader CAN NEVER be alone with a youth.
I've mentioned this to the adult leader, and he says "What if it is non scouting related? I spend a lot of time with the family and the youth helps me work around my house."
Am I too strict and should not be worrying about this?
Or should I be worrying about this?
-Melgamatic
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What are the other boys going to do when their batteries go dead?
A Kindle battery will last several weeks. The e-ink only uses battery when changing the contents of the page (not during normal display), so they last a long time.
Both my son and I will be bringing our Kindles on trek at Philmont next year. They are lighter than the paperback book he had, and I didn't bring a book because I didn't want the weight and volume. It was a mistake. Reading for 10 minutes before falling asleep or when the scouts were doing program would have been relaxing.
I'm anti-phone on trek (mine was turned off in my pack for the 10 days on trail), but pro-Kindle.
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The web page for cubscoutpack308.com isn't coming up...
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I have used:
http://www.arrowoflightaward.com/
for the past 3 years, and just ordered again for February. They are very nice people, produce an amazingly beautiful award, and then are very fast. I had a mispelled name one year, and they got me a replacement plate for free and quick, even though I probably spelled the name wrong.
Nothing against the people you mention, I just have personal experience with these. When we started giving them out 3 years ago, the ceremony changed, people started really looking forward to getting them, etc. They are a highpoint.
-Dave
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I have at least two, often three. They handle various projects, assist at pack meetings, lead events if I'm not going to be there, etc. I'm not sure what the purpose of limiting it to just one would be, unless you don't want additional uniformed leaders helping out? Often one will lead a specific campout, another might help with a service project, another might help out with a pack program, etc.
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At a recent camporee, I spent a while helping to park cars in a too small lot with a police officer from our town, who also happens to be on the K-9 drug sniffing dog team.
He told me that the K-9 drug dog teams loved doing programs for scouts (boy scouts, cub scouts, whatever) because it was important for the dogs to work well even when surrounded by tons of confusing boys, weird smells, etc. My concerns about the boys freaking out the dogs was exactly the reason they relished such opportunities for the dogs. So, their presentations are as much a benefit to them as us.
I wonder if there is a K9 drug dog team in your town that would actually be anxious to help give an anti-drug presentation.
I know boy scouts aren't big on this kind of "dog show" as cub scouts, but it might be an easy way to knock off 9a for a lot of boys and also be a very interesting night for the others.
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They are certainly OK in our council. If latrines aren't ok, one suspects most of the cub scout family camping at most of our boy scout camps across the country isn't ok, and hasn't been ok for a long time...
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So if this is true:
> For Boy Scouts, .22's is the only rifle they can shoot
How does anybody complete Option C, Muzzle-loading rifles for the Rifle merit badge?
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OK, purchased a Getzen Bugle based on recommendations from tapsbugler.com and a bunch of other taps/bugle websites. It's a Getzen M2003 American Heritage Series Bb Field Trumpet. $358 from musiciansfriend.com. Made in America!
We'll include some lessons at the local music store, and we'll see what happens.
-Dave
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My son and I spent last weekend at a council Webelos camp and had a great time. One of the things that got him excited were the buglers (there were two, although one used a trombone). He's bridging over in a few months, and I'd like to get him going on bugling while the excitement is there.
For a new bugler (he has a little flute, and a little piano), is it better to get a bugle or a trumpet on which to learn? The bugler this weekend used a trumpet, but just kept one set of valves steady, I guess to put it into a standard bugle key. I don't think he's very interested in trumpet, the real goal is bugling.
Thanks for any input!
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I HAVE THE ANSWER!
If you aren't using IE (Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser), you won't be able to use this tool. In Safari, Firefox, etc, boxes and buttons are randomly missing, but errors are not obvious. It will tell you to "add training information", but there won't be any button visible to do this. Once you switch to IE, it's like the lights got turned on. All of a sudden the system is easier to use.
(As someone who has 30+ web developers working for him, I can tell you that it's not very hard to make a system like this work in multiple browsers, and actually all the web programmers I know do this as a matter of course, and in fact it's a lot easier to do this these days than it was a few years ago. Nevertheless, these BSA web programmers did not do their homework.)
-Dave
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I know that many of these awards do not allow overlapping time periods. Does the Unit Leader Award of Merit requirements allow the time period to overlap with the Cub Scouter or Cubmaster training awards? You can't overlap those two, so you need 4 years in Cub Scouting to be awarded the Cub Scouter and Cubmaster knots; do you need another 18 months as CM to earn this one? My DE was unable to find out for me....
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I've been thinking about buying one of the BSA rifles, and just saw that it was $20 off in the latest Cabela's sale circular!
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We held our Blue and Gold this past Friday night. We don't hold rank badges if the boys earned them before the B&G, but many dens aim for that date, and a lot of boys received those rank badges.
We did very well on popcorn this year, and with a lot of money in the bank we catered the meal, with Italian food (meatballs, sausage and peppers, baked ziti, baked chicken in sauce, fruit salad, garden salad, etc). We got a great sheet cake with the 100th Anniversary logo on the top. Cost for the roughly 100 people was around $700. We don't charge for parents, grandparents, siblings, etc to attend (we did years back before we had a financial cushion).
The Mayor of our town came and gave a very nice, very short speech.
We had each den do a skit or song, and the Boy Scouts in attendance awarded a prize to the best one. We also had each den do a centerpiece, and the Boy Scouts also judged that contest. Prize for each was a $25 Visa card for den expenses (field trips, craft materials, whatever).
We had a very nice bridging over ceremony, with 2 Scoutmasters and around 6 scouts (mostly eagles) from the two troops our Cubs tend to join. We presented them with big arrows mounted on placques from the "Arrow Of Light Award Company" in Utah.
By the way, the 2010 rank badges and AOL awards are really neat.
We tried to make the event quick, lasting less than 2 hours. Originally we hoped to do the awards and skits during dinner, but it was too noisy so we let everyone eat before we moved on.
-Dave
2021 Eagle Leadership Service Project Workbook
in Advancement Resources
Posted
I am part of a Sea Scout unit so I'm aware of the Quartermaster Project Workbook. Once the Eagle workbook has stabilized maybe I'll ask my BSA contact about that. Thanks.