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I would argue that you didn't invest spend money for a requirement. You invested in your scout learning to swim. This is also a break-down of the patrol method. The PL, with guidance of leaders in the troop should have made it a priority to help their buddy master those skills. But back to the OP ... it astounds me that someone thinks it's more important to placate parents by saying falsely that his scouts are first class. There's no shame in having a troop full of tenderfoot scouts. @ScoutTrainer, get in touch with your district advancement chair. I disagree with @walk in the woods. It is demoralizing to boys in neighboring troops (and they will get to know one another) when they hear that other scouts are skating by. Word should make it to the SM that future Eagle boards of review will be held at a local pool.

Thanks @Longhaired_Mac! Some machinations from my spin factory: Stay friends with those larger scouts who might have a spare sash or two. Out of deference to uniform purists, I no longer call them belts (from which one should not hang a sash). I call them sash-racks. Steeler's country ... we don't countenance duplicity... the pastor may take the pulpit in suit and tie if he wears his suit to his game. (E.g., I was brought up that it was disrespectful to wear a jersey unless you were on the team.) Otherwise, the plate might be a little light if gives a sermon without the jersey, especially if afterwards he's dashing to the mustard palace for a home game. Of course there's a price to pay. Our city has been nominated worst dressed! So, if you're pleasing national, uniform precisely. If you want to tell me what kind of scout or arrowman you are, improvise a little. Love the bead graphic! Thanks for digging it up!

Just wondering, has O/A been invited to present anything at the world jamboree?

Capitalizing on indulgence? How strange. https://beerandbrewing.com/beer-pairings-for-girl-scout-cookies-2016-update/

Fight tooth and nail to block any attempt at banning. Do not get his name put in any list without substantial accusation of an actionable offence. Go on record with a written (hard copy) letter to your council's director of field service and scout executive stating the accusations and evidence as you understand it. State your conclusion that this scout continues to remain worthy of BSA membership, and that lacking any evidence to the contrary, the accused will remain a welcome member/guest at any of your unit's activities. Give the scout a copy. That's the best you can do.

I love this kid! Can we please clone him? When will we scouters learn that our job is provisioning lunch/tent/ignition/construction/craft/soldering/chemistry kits in the process of making good on the promise of scouting, and the scout's job is cashing in on that promise and chasing blue cards and signatures in his/her own good time?

I think the changes came with venturing. They were integral to my first VLST instruction. I agree and disagree. My real-world experience is with venturers who, because they had PoRs in both units, spent consecutive years in leadership positions and took their good old time with rank advancement. With youth that dedicated, there's nothing to argue about. Something less esoteric would (e.g., too busy having fun to wrap up one requirement) slow the earning of awards concurrently. In the cases where there could be overlap, I would rather those ambitious youth get both awards and then spend the rest of their career as marked men and women in both Boy Scout and Sea Scout circles.

Actually, please do double dip on everything except the service project! Thus, his time as media specialist counts as PoR toward Life Rank, and if he plans activities as a result of that position, that same time can be applied toward the leadership requirements of a Sea Scout rank. He doesn't have to serve six months as media specialist for Life or Eagle and then serve as an activity chair for Ordinary just because those positions overlap. He can certainly have his Skipper fill the role of SM. Depending on the Ship's experience, he might find himself more responsible for the administration of his own advancement. (For example, he might have to explain blue cards to the skipper!) But, that's not a bad thing.

We switch back to our old CO (be it ever so humble) for precisely this reason.

The Discovery award and First Class rank are like apples and oranges. Although they may be useful benchmarks when finding out which members should be honored, neither in itself would automatically confer the other. Case in point, boy scouts of any rank (even Eagle), have to go through Pathfinder before they could earn Discovery as there's very little on the trail to first class that would count toward those requirements. Now, there may be female venturers who have demonstrated mastery of First Class skills. However, she may not have bothered to earn Discovery. Could her experience (including positions of responsibility held) in her crew count in a newly adopted troop? National advancement team has been tight-lipped on that one. It's not on any syllabus that I know of. Therefore, I would say no boots-on-the-ground are prepared to handle that one.

It's a sad state of affairs when our first instinct is to think that it's all about controlling the scout. The MB application is about the scout maintaining control of his advancement. This bit is about making sure the troop is accountable when a scout completes a MB. If he never gets awarded a badge, he has, in his section of the blue card, proof that the unit received the record of his advancement. Scoutmasters go AWOL never to return and their shoe-box of unit copies of blue go with them (as my brother's did in the 50s). Councils loose records. Foreign agents hack electronic storage. If the scout has done all his work, and doesn't have the counselor's signature, then that's his next-to-last step ... making sure the counselor has a record of his accomplishment (the right half of the card). Then the scout may stash the card in his vault until one day (hopefully soon after that final exchange with the counselor) as he mulls over his collections of other cards and memorabilia he notices, "Oh, the SM's signature is not on that card. The unit doesn't know I earned that badge! No wonder my bling bag at the last court of honor felt a little light!" The boy, shows the SM the card -- never letting it out of his sight. SM sings that he received it, returns the scout's section to the boy, and takes the unit portion to the advancement chair for prompt ordering. Standard triplicate record-keeping. Just follow the instructions on the card!

There is language in the GTA about the exceptional case when the SM has evidence that the counselor approved the badge without confirming the scout had demonstrable skills.

Read the MB application. The 2nd signature on the scout's portion (i.e. the portion that should never leave his possession) is to attest that the scout "... has given me his completed application ..." for the badge. The scout's section of the the blue card is his reciept that The counselor has a record of the boy completing the badge (one that says the SM did talk to the boy before working with the counselor), and The troop has a record (attested to by the SM's second signature) of the boy turning in his paperwork. THERE IS NO LANGUAGE ANYWHERE ON THE BLUE CARD THAT AN SM MAY DENY A BLUE CARD.

No girls in our feeder pack. Not expecting any to sign on as AoL's. Like I said, prepared for anything. Nothing's there. Haven't paid much to other packs in the district. We've never really had crossovers from there.

Prepared isn't quite the word for it. Working for smiles, I'm always prepared for anything. But is our CO prepared to support the launching of a BSA4G unit? That's the wrong question. Are the youth and moms/older sisters with integrity ready to be launched? Occasionally people are asking about it, but nobody is introducing me to those 5 girls and 1 female ASM. If there's no demand, all other questions are moot. I'm not even hearing, "I know this one girl ..." I wrote that up and sent to our CC. He's planning on meeting with the COR and UC, at the district's request, but unless I am misreading the tea leaves, our community has no demand for BSA4G.

@krikkitbot, were you at a session or seminar of NOAC that discussed this?

National Jambo will still set you back a chunk of change. Especially if you also apply and get approved as an ASM or sign up as staff. I give young scouts a very simple strategy: Make yourself useful to your folks to the tune of $100/month. Work on Personal Management MB. Put that cash into savings. Then, by the time an opportunity like this rolls around, you can jump on it. Or, maybe you might pass, but you'll still have a couple of grand for whatever big-ticket item you'd like. If your son isn't really interested in the whole massive convention thing, and just wants to check out SBR, he should consider joining a contingent bound for the summer programs that they have there. For example, I know a some crews' appetite was sated by Venturingfest.

All y'all mighty happy toxophilites?

Stay positive. If your scout really wants to go to the World Jamboree but is too young now, start making a plan to save for South Korea in 2023.

My brother would always ask me to note the locations of any black walnut trees I came across. I made it a point never to tell him.

... Memorize the directions to the next campout ...

@oldbuzzard, asking for a rule violates my rule #1. But it might be necessary. Common sense suggests that the SPL or his Assistant should take sweep. When I guard a canoe trip, I do so from the rear. If a boat drifts behind without their buddy boat, we have words. We train our backpacking scouts to stop at intersections. If a scout has to fall behind (e.g. a boot is broken) a couple of SMs hike with him and the rest of the group has to leave trail signs. There have been occasions that the lead group takes the wrong trail. We don't follow-them, we wait. Or, of we think they'll get to the destination regardless, we leave our own signs in case they decide to backtrack. So many parents don't have patience for this, but to me this is what scouting is really all about.

We made some gains but had some cancel ... Still room for 35 youth in our area.

Thanks for being our guy on the inside. O/A Chiefs tried to be in the vanguard in the nineties by honoring female Explorers. But their advisors at the time closed that loophole. That's when all of the a-program-for-Boy-Scouting claptrap became dogma. I'm glad to hear that attitudes have shifted. But I suspect some of that is due to those who wanted to exclude girls without saying so moving on to other organization. We can only hope the program along with the people in it engages today's girls (and their brothers).

Knowing what you're doing means you'd have certified guards in your company and their training and advice would spare you wasting time with strangers on the internet! If you do have them, and you are just getting a second opinion, well thanks for the conversation. Lot's of packs canoe out to islands for family campouts. They don't go swimming. No big deal. This is not about lawyers. This is about forestalling death.