bnelon44

John,

Watch/listen to the video on merit badges, your point is brought up and highlighted.

> why do we need presentations for advancement????

Because too many adult leaders add too many additional requirements to the process because they have their own idea of how the process should work and the boy is caught in the middle. Especially when he moves between units or states.

I always think about those things after the fact

:/

More advancement presentations were posted today by national at:

http://tinyurl.com/6sroyfy

The presentations, "Essentials of Merit Badge Counseling," & "Getting the

Most from Internet Advancement," are PowerPoint-based with script to be

used by District or Council trainers.

Also look under General Resources, "Advancement Educational

Presentations." A direct link is here:

http://tinyurl.com/bbxjndu

Nine presentations, with voiceover, cover Guide to Advancement topics:

merit badge program, BOR, appeals, service project, Eagle process, &

Judgment Calls. These nine presentations are for any audience. Anyone

may download and view them or present them to groups.

Newsletters are nice but not really official policy changes. The definitive sources are:

Guide to Advancement for all Advancement policies and procedures (there is an update expected next quarter, maybe sooner)

Guide to Safe Scouting for all safety policies related to unit activities

Boy Scout Requirements Book for all Boy Scout advancement requirements

Cub Scouts have their handbooks for advancement requirements, so do Venturers (they also have additional books)

Some points to bring up:

1) No one is taking the SM signature away

2) The intent of the blue card is to help facilitate the MB process

3) The ONLY authorized merit badge application is the blue card. Any other form must be specifically cleared by the National Advancement Committee

4) The SM assigns a MBC. If the Scout decides to go to anyone else, the process is that he circles back and clears it with the SM prior to meeting with the MBC

See the Guide to Advancement for details.

#3 is out of the troop

Also under YP guidelines you need to report the incident

"All persons involved in Scouting shall report to local authorities any good faith suspicion or belief that any child is or has been physically or sexually abused, physically or emotionally neglected, exposed to any form of violence or threat, exposed to any form of sexual exploitation including the possession, manufacture, or distribution of child pornography, online solicitation, enticement, or showing of obscene material. No person may abdicate this reporting responsibility to any other person.

Notify your Scout executive of this report, or of any violation of BSAs Youth Protection policies, so that he or she may take appropriate action for the safety of our Scouts, make appropriate notifications, and follow-up with investigating agencies."

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss01.aspx#a

For good or ill, if you read the IOLS syllabus you don't really see much mentioning of the Patrol Method. Also it specifically states that anyone showing proficiency in a skill taught in the course can skip that part of the course. So a test out is simply showing that you know the skills taught in the course. The Patrol Method is not one of them.

Sorry as was pointed out it comes from the BSA Jan 2013 Advancement Newsletter which will go online at scouting.org eventually. The current link to it is here:

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1109945141041-7/01-2013+Advancement+News.pdf

There is nothing new to the process with this verbiage change. It is meant to clarify the existing (and has been existing for decades) process.

And I think we have discussed this before. The national Advancement Team (who make these sorts of changes) consist of a lot of very experienced volunteer Scouters who have definitely been merit badge counselors, and have also signed of on many, many rank advancement requirements.

(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

A new version of the Application for Merit Badge,

No. 34124, commonly referred to as the blue card,

is being released later in January 2013. The

availability of the new card will vary locally, and the

old cards are still acceptable as councils exhaust their

inventories. The new version will remain the old familiar

blue and the change is a small one, but as it takes

effect it will make a significant difference in the process.

On the front side (first tri-fold portion) above the unit

leaders signature line, the statement with the word

qualified is being changed to: I have discussed this

merit badge with this Scout and recommended at least

one merit badge counselor. The wording change has

been made due to confusion over the interpretations of

qualified, approved, and approval, as applied to

when a Scout could begin work on a merit badge. With

the new statement, the unit leaders signature indicates

that he or she and the Scout have talked about the

Scouts desire to work on the merit badge and that a

merit badge counselor has been recommended.

The intent of the modification is to give the unit leader

the chance to offer counseling as to whether or not the

merit badge is a good choice for the Scout, based on

his abilities and any prerequisites. The terms qualified

or approved were never meant to indicate that the

Scout needed to pass some sort of prequalifying test

before pursuing a merit badge, or that the unit leader

had pass/fail authority to allowor to not allowthe

Scout to undertake work on a badge.

Other than this single change, the good old blue card

is the same as before. Unit leaders are requested to use

this new approach now. With release of the revised

Guide to Advancement 2013 during the first half of the

New Year, the practice will become mandated.

The course was developed for a previous Jamboree. Youth took it as well.

Future merit badges are listed here

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/merit-badge-calendar/

Disorganization seems to be the biggest complaint, along with not concentrating on what is important for the proper age group of Scouts

Good idea. I made the change, thanks

I am working on a new guide for my council and would appreciate review and feedback. The guide's intent is to communicate to unit leaders what is available to them for obtaining training records as well as updating them.

The draft of the guide is here:

http://bsatroop14.com/training/BSA-Training-Records-Explained.pdf

Talk to your district training chairman if you want to test out of IOLS

Eagle92

Trust me, your wrong. The top of the latter are reviewing the GTA. If you want names, and if national wants to give them to you, write to advancement.team@scouting.org

Believe it or not, these guides are not being written in a vacuum.

NJCubScouter

Comments and suggestions can be sent to:

advancement.team@scouting.org

If your troop doesn't have a current Boy Scout Requirements book they don't have the current requirements. You can't really blaim the BSA if the troop doesn't keep up.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

>But I am willing to bet a DEATH BY CHOCOLATE Dutch oven cake that the folks who wrote those policies know nothing about Sea Scouts, and how things are done in that program.

You'd lose the bet big time

It really all depends on how much you want to comment on your answers. I suppose you could get it done in 10min.

NJCubScouter,

It was a decade or something before the last advancement book was written. National received TONS of questions and TONS of appeals. Most of the problems were people didn't know the correct processes and policies. That is why a whole new rewrite, the GTA was published. Of course when you put out an entire rewrite, there will be questions and suggested improvements. That is the reason for the 2013 edition. Will there be a 2015 edition? Who knows, probably depends on need.

Rank requirements are not listed in the GTA. Requirements are in a separate publication for every program. For Boy Scouts, the definitive reference for requirements is the Boy Scout Requirements book, which is published on a yearly cycle.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

Sentinel947

You can't expect more than what is in the requirements. Eagle Scouts are those who have passed the requirements. One includes Scout Spirit however we need to remember we are not canonizing them, we are reviewing if they satisfied the requirements. If they have, they have earned the rank. You can't really expect more.

If you want to ask a question in this realm, the real question is what do you expect of your Scouting program and how it influences the boys. That is though a different question than what you asked.

>1) You stated the survey is computer adaptive based upon your answers, is that the case?

To a very limited extent, yes.

>2) I noticed none of the questions asked about Sea Scouts, where they left out again?

Not sure why, I'm not that privy to the development of the survey

>3) If computer adaptive,I left out a unit level leadership position, Mate or Skipper(don't ask, I didn't know I was registered with the ship until after the fact, and I never got a clear answer on the exact position. Would that affect why I had no questions on Sea Scouts?

I don't think there are specific Sea Scout questions.

>4) #3 is yes, should I redo, focusing on Sea Scouts to get those answers? From what I read of the G2A, the only thing the committee got right is that there are no alternatives for Sea Scout ranks. They completely missed the fact that Sea Scouts do have mandatory attendance requirements, 75% of unit functions if memory serves, for X amount of time. Also a Sea Scout BOR is very different from an BS BOR in that they can retest you for information.

There is no nationally mandated Sea Scout attendance requirement for all Sea Scouts. There is a rank requirement for attendance for all ranks above Apprentice, but that is particular to the rank and should be considered a rank requirement. So it wouldnt be in the GTA, just like the individual Boy Scout requirements for Boy Scout Ranks are not in the GTA.

There is no retesting for Bridge of Reviews, see GTA section 4.4.2.3 Conducting the Bridge of Review

What you can't do:

1) Add any additional requirements than what is published in the annual Boy Scout Requirement Book to obtain the rank of Eagle

2) Delay a Scout's advancement by adding requirements or refusing BORs or Scoutmaster Conferences if he has completed the requirements.

Beavah: The GTA came out in 2011, then next version is scheduled to come out the spring of 2013. So it is a 2 year cycle I guess

Eagle92: Took me 45 min