NeilLup

Congratulations to you both. I was very honored a few years ago when my cousin named me as the person most influential in her receiving her Girl Scout Gold Award.

Respectfully disagree, John. The shortest path is to loan the boy a shirt. The path of greatest uproar is probably to eppeal. An intermediate path is to charter the Venture Patrol as a Venturing Crew. Or else have the boy coregister with some other Venturing Crew. Ideally, the Venturing Crew in question would specialize in clowning around and their uniform would be a clown suit. So the boy shows up in a clown suit.

Congratulations to you and your son.

My favorite gift for Eagle Scouts is a $25 gift certificate to www.kiva.org. Kiva makes microeconomic loans to small entrepreneurs in 3rd world countries, each about $500- $1000. Each opportunity is listed and the Scout can select the entrepreneur that he wishes. When enough "loaners" allocate money to that entrepreneur, he or she gets their money. When the entrepreneur pays the money back, normally taking about 6-12 months, the Scout can either withdraw the money or else reloan it. I am on my 3rd consecutive loan. The first two paid it back right on time.

Hello sheldonsmom, I don't know about your council, but mine has the policy that no one will be denied the opportunity to do Wood Badge because of finances. We have a number of ways of raising scholarship money and we pursue those ways aggressively. Have you or your husband told your council training group that finances are a problem. Having said that, I have had people who "needed" a scholarship show up in a fancy car or chain smoke during the course and felt a bit like a fool for the effort that I had put into raising scholarship money. Still, I believe they were better Sco

Hello Eagle92, You are correct, of course. The key phrase in your post is "pending national's approval." With the approval of the National council, an extension for any reason for any length of time is possible. But that's about like saying that "with the approval of the IRS, you don't have to pay your income tax." I don't want to to concern mdsummer, so I want to phrase my post carefully. Those of us who do have some advancement experience have been saying that with the situation as presented by mdsummer, it is exceedingly likely that her son will be approved for his Eagle

At the risk of bringing on severe flames, as I understand your situation, it is the following: 1) Your son, in April, submitted his Eagle application 2) The District has some procedures which it requires and is asking that your son and you follow these procedures. They sound a bit strict but probably not beyond the pale, particularly if they are giving guidance on how to comply with these procedures 3) The whole reason for this problem and your anger is that your daughter is moving out of state and June and you want her to be able to attend the Court of Honor. So you want the

Hello Sharpy, You've gotten some good advice. Thank you for doing your part to create a good Cub Pack. A few thoughts: 1) You need to get to know some of the District volunteer leadership in addition to your professional District Executive. If you have a Unit Commissioner, contact him or her and get them involved. If not, and probably even if you do, the suggestion of going to a Roundtable or two is excellent. Try to meet the Roundtable Commissioner and the District Commissioner. If the District Commissioner is not there, get his or her name and phone number and give

Your DC is more than correct. The EBOR can be held up to 3 months after the 18th birthday with no special permission needed. With that permission, which is easy to obtain for a good reason, an additional 3 months (for a total of 6 months) is almost automatic and I have heard of a case where, for very good reason, an Eagle Board of Review was held 60 YEARS after the person turned 18.

Hello mdsummer, It sounds as if your District is moving with all reasonable speed. People do get sick and go to the hospital. People do have real jobs and some have lives outside of Scouting, even your District Director. Your son will not be penalized if these situations cause his Eagle circumstances to be resolved after his 18th birthday.

With appropriate respect to Gern and others, I sometimes think that if some of the members of this forum were given gold bars, they'd complain that they were too heavy. We have for 15 web pages been appropriately complaining that the Troop is stone walling and being contrary to the principles of Scouting. Now the District Advancement Chairman is moving expeditiously and we're complaining that he is making thing too easy. How does one win? I suspect that if the DAC is on the ball, and it sounds as if he is, he already has plenty of information on the situation, has formed a rea

Hello mdsummer, It sounds as if things are proceeding, sadly, as expected. I don't have a problem with the 11:45PM e-mail. You and your son requested a timely response and you got one. You now have plenty of time to proceed. I wouldn't necessarily say in the appeal letter that your son "deserves" to be an Eagle Scout. Rather, I would say that he believes that he has "met the requirements." That is the criterion that a Board of Review is supposed to use. When the time comes for the appeal board, if questions are asked about the SM Conference, your son can point out t

Your job is to held the Board of Review to determine if the Scout has met the requirements to be an Eagle Scout, particularly the less quantifiable requirements like Scout Spirit and Leadership. It is particularly helpful if you come up with specific examples of when you saw the Scout demonstrate one of the points of the Law or of the Scout Oath or when he showed leadership. It does no harm is your letter doesn't contain tangible examples, but it is less helpful. You are trying to give the Board of Review examples of what they would have seen if they were there.

Hello Lisabob and others, Let's not pillory the kid because we agree or disagree with what the father has written. Let's take as a given that the boy does say "I want to join the Boy Scouts so I can be an Eagle Scout." Wow, that's fantastic! That says we've done a great job of branding, etc. I'd a whole lot more want that than "I don't want to be in Boy Scouts but my parents are making me do that." or "I want to get to start fires" or whatever. Either he'll learn what being an Eagle Scout is, like it and do is or else he won't like it and will do somethign else.

Daddy-O There is, to my knowledge, no such list. Advancement is tracked at the unit, district and council level but that is total advancement. Most of us would consider it as important that a young Scout earn his Tenderfoot Scout badge as that an older Scout earn the Eagle Scout award. If your council has an Eagle Scout recognition dinner, you can ask to see the list of invitees and that should tell you which units are producing a substantial number of Eagle Scouts. There is, of course, anecdotal information. If you contact volunteer leaders in your local area, you likely

Your post can be easily explained, OGE. An eagle is a raptor and kills to eat. One can only imagine the effect on one's character of a life of continuous killing. Grey is totally devoid of color -- tedious, humdrum, boring And old -- well at best, that's obsolete and over the hill and at worst demented and senescent. Oh dear. I just described myself too.

Hello Daddy-O, Not to be pugnacious but if your son had asthma that had no effect on his lifestyle except that he could not play ball and otherwise exercise vigorously, would you withhold and not "ramp up the medications" so as to not put exogenous substances in the body? Not saying that you should or shouldn't. Just trying to suggest another perspective.

Hello Fugitive, Came late to this thread. 1) Absent medical reasons or exceedingly extenuating circumstances far beyond the control of the Scout, recommend that you and the Scout not count on an extension of time to complete requirements beyond age 18. And if there are such circumstances, particularly medical, the procedure for initiating extension should have begun LONG before the 18th birthday. By and large, if the Scout hasn't completed his Eagle Scout requirements by age 18, he's out of luck and will not be an Eagle Scout. 2) Obtaining waivers to hold the Board of

Hello mdsummer, Thank you for your apology. Not necessary. I am very hard to offend. I am very reluctant to use credentials as I believe that each post should stand on its own merits regardless of the status or lack of same of the poster. Suffice it to say that I have served on more than one review board for Eagle Scout and more than one appeal board. If your son is polite, respectful and knowledgeable, the odds are extremely high that he will get his Eagle. Even if not, if he has met the requirements, the odds are high that he will get his Eagle. It is certainly possible

Hello Mdsummer45, Please feel free to accept or disregard my counsel (or anyone else's) as you see fit. I believe and hope that I and everyone else on this board have only the best interests of youth in mind.

I started this post several times. I hope that it is now appropriately balanced and non emotional. Good grief! The CC's MOTHER IS DYING and you have a problem with him thinking that takes priority over your son's Eagle Board of Review. I know that if I were that CC and I related that circumstance to my wife, she would ask me "Why do you bother with these people? They think only of themselves." I haven't seen anything in your update which would lead me to think that the committee is acting in any way other than proper. They have a tough decision to make. It most likely looks

Hello Daddy-O: I put a brief response on another board and was referred to this one. A few thoughts. As others have said, what Scouting is trying to do is different from what the boys see and from what many adults see. We participate in a movement which attempts to improve the citizenship, character and fitness of youth. We use means like youth leadership, ideals, independence, etc. as means to achieve our objectives. It turns out that living in the outdoors is a particularly effective means toward improving and enhancing independence, leadership in youth and to have

Hello Daddy-O, I tried to spin off a separate thread but the system won't let me. You say that your son "loves Scouts" but doesn't enjoy the outdoors. You are asking how to find an adult led, advancement Troop. Before trying to give you an appropriately respectful answer, may I ask what it is that you son loves? Maybe we can help you find it.

Hello Eagle 1977, A Wood Badge from Thursday through Saturday does nothing to satisfy the needs of highly observant orthodox Jews who, as I understand matters, cannot do "work" from sundown Friday evening through sundown Saturday PM. Fixing food, putting up camp, etc. I believe counts as work. At one time and possibly currently, the Northeast Region offered what was called the "Religious Observant Wood Badge." It was a week long course but lasted in duration I believe 9 or 10 days since there were no activities from Friday to Saturday to meet the needs of the highly observant

With the idea of providing light rather than heat, I wanted to relate some experiences in trying to provide appropriate religious services for the participants in a Regional Wood Badge Course Director's development conference: 1) We were told that the bishop of one Catholic diocese, which covered an entire state, was totally adamant that everybody in his diocese WOULD attend Mass every Sunday -- no exceptions. There would be no allowances, no waivers, no nothing. So the people in his diocese had little wiggle room. 2) Another year, we had planned to have a priest to say Ma