As a Scoutmaster, I have also been in this position. After taking over as scoutmaster, the "older scouts" who had been there before me started thinning out. A number of them were 14 year old life scouts. One boy after being elected Spl made only half of the meetings and less of the other activities. After one year he showed up even less( at one point he even was dropped from the roster). Along comes age 17 and he decides( with the push of the former scoutmaster) that he wants his Eagle.
I sat down with the CC, the Eagle COH Chairman and the DE to discuss the situation. We came to the following conclusions:
1. The boy had served his time as SPL as Life and was signed off for his POR
2. He had "activly" served six months as a life scout.
3. As far as scout spirit we judged the boy by his actions in his life not just Scouting.( The boy was an EMT and a jr. member of his volunteer fire dept., though not an explorer)
The end of the story was that the other scouts in the Troop decided that there must be a better judge of Active. Within the PL council it was decided that the active part had to be tied to the leadership position. Their thought was how doese one show leadership if the leader is not present. Now if the POR holder does not meet a % of activities, he can be removed by the PL council.