Krampus

How are EBOHs set up in general or how are they supposed to be set up? In my old district there was a district level volunteer staff that conducted them 3 weeks nights a month and unit committees were not part of it. I was told in my new district it is conducted by the Unit Committee and includes a district representative.

 

It depends. I think there are a few threads where this was discussed before, but I can tell you how mine are done.

 

The unit is responsible for working with the candidate to get everything lined up. When we are ready to have them we contact the district rep and he comes and sits in on the EBOR. There are usually 2-3 adults from our unit, including our Eagle coordinator or advancement chair. Usually nor more than 4-5 people including the district chair.

 

Due to the large volume of Scouts in my district, they could not do a centralized EBOR on a set night during the month. There are just too many kids to review.

We normally have non-politicians speak to fulfill the requirements in S-FC. They are usually public figures of sorts in that they may work for the government (appointed, not elected) or are members of the military. When they speak on citizenship they have always been quite good.

 

This last year I made the mistake of allowing on ASM suggest a local politician. He was given the scope of the discussion and told what needed to be covered. He took 30 minutes (we had requested 45-60) and he spoke mostly about legislation he had introduced rather than about citizenship. VERY disappointing. He couldn't have given it any less attention had the room been on fire.

 

One of my Scouts noted as he left for the evening, "Maybe he would have stayed longer if there were TV cameras around."

Reddit.

...and Instagram, some Twitter and Snapchat.

 

Boards like this would never get used.

Pick a softest that has a backup. Some do. Some don't.

 

Ask before your buy. Make sure your data is backed up to more than one location.

I just popped my head back in to say thank you for the expressions of support. We held a vigil for the young man last night and his remembrance service is tomorrow night.

 

I have be honored with the task of delivering his eulogy. While I am finding the words relatively easy to come by, getting them on paper has been difficult.

 

Thank you again.

It's my sad duty to report we lost one of our Scouts tonight. The other is in serious condition.

 

I appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Not sure I'll be around here much for a while. We've got a family in need of love and support.

 

Hug your kids. Hug your grand kids. Remember what's important.

I just learned two of my Scouts were in an accident on the way to an OA event. One of them is non-responsive.

 

Please include them in your prayers.

A chapter on requirements and why working them honestly and completely is important for character development at ANY age...including adults.

Not true.  The requirements were available, but not the leader guides or handbooks.  Those weren't available until May.

 

So the requirements were available but the "how to" guide books were not available until May last year? So folks had all summer to plan how to attack the requirements during 2015-2016 with a September start date?

Respectfully, I have to ask how many of you Boy Scout leaders who are chiming in on this discussion have served as a Den Leader under the new requirements that were implemented a year ago?  First off, the handbooks and leaders guides became available to us just weeks before the new program started on June 1st, 2015.  So we had no time to prepare lesson plans, build events into our annual program plan, schedule summer events to complete requirements, etc.  So for this past year, I won't fault any leaders who struggled to complete the requirements.

The handbooks may have just been released in June last year, but weren't the requirements posted earlier?

 

BTW, the new Boy Scout Handbooks were made available in late January. Our new Scouts showed up then too. Imagine scrambling to put together the new First Year program AND train the Scouts who would be teaching it. We can commiserate, trust me.

 

Second, unless you've studied the requirements, frankly I'm afraid a lot of you don't know what you are talking about.  In their infinite wisdom, the way some of the new requirements were written by national, a kid can't complete them as written if they miss the den meeting where the requirement was covered.

Again, no different that the ranks requirements for Boy Scouts, or merit badges, or PORs or anything else in Scouting. There is always conflict. Miss summer camp and you will have a heck of a time making First Class in 12-14 months.

 

I think our point was that, even though the requirement is difficult, you at least TRY IT before you give up and count it as done. No one is faulting a DL for trying. It was NOT trying and awarding it that is the issue...and always will be.

 

Third, in at least one of the requirements the BSA sets the precedence that "you may skip this requirement."  (Bear Elective Adventure:  Critter Care, requirement 4).  Why is it okay to skip some requirements but not others?  I don't know why they didn't write this as "complete x of the following" instead.

Because it is BSA and they are rarely clear in any given directions or requirements. Isn't the word "elective" meaning that they did not have to do it?

 

Fourth, by no stretch are the new requirements balanced and equal.  I am quite convinced that the Bear requirements are much more difficult than the Webelos requirements.  How does that make any sense?  Webelos is supposed to be harder, yet it isn't.

It was that way when I was a DL too. Bear just seemed, well, a Bear! Webelos was like falling off a log; maybe because it was more like Boy Scouts and I understood that better.

 

I'm not going to pass through some kid who missed half the meetings and didn't put in the effort, but if a kid was sick the day we did the Cub Scout Carnival and the requirement states "Help younger Cub Scouts take part in one of the events at the Cub Scout carnival," you're saying we shouldn't let that boy advance?  This isn't Boy Scouts, this is Cub Scouts, and these new requirements are a mess when it comes to things that can't be done at home, at least as the requirement is written.  Which puts Cub Scout leaders on a slippery slope - if we have to alter half of the requirements to make them achievable if a kid is sick and misses a meeting, then where do the modifications stop?

Agreed. You don't punish him for being sick. You MAY want to have him do something as an alternative so that he at least does something for the requirement. That is within the purview of the leader.

 

Help younger Cub Scouts take part in one of the events at the Cub Scout carnival 

I can completely understand the attitude of "Do Your Best" when it comes to these requirements, because that's the position the BSA left us in.  It's unfortunate, because I suspect many of our local units are taking liberties with the camping requirements, which I think shouldn't be skipped, modified, or otherwise changed.  Like I said, the BSA put us on a slippery slope, and a good technical editor (someone with experience in Scouting and writing requirements) could have alleviated most of the problems.

Liberties can be taken BUT they are usually the exception than the rule. Also, while we might slightly revise the requirement, we ask the Scout to attempt (and usually complete) the requirement nonetheless.

@@Eagledad, I hear yeh on the lads being afraid about peein'.   I recall once when a new scout took a dump just a little ways outside of his tent in the middle of the night because he was afraid to go into da stinky latrine in the dark.   Someone else who was an early riser discovered it by the "steppin' in it" method .   Could have been one of those "make a Big Deal out of bad behavior" moments, eh?  Happily the PL told the silly Beavah fellow to shut up and go clean off his shoes, and then took the lad aside and handled it like a champ.

 

I cannot say I blame the kid given the state of some of our latrines in our council camps. Texas heat + pit latrine + last week of a 6 week camp + no wind = Well, I will leave it to your imagination.

 

As to the latrines at night, having nearly stepped on a Copperhead while taking in shower in one of those lovely pit latrines/shower stalls, I have sympathy for the lad.

Interesting, my Bobcat pin is one of my favorites.   A simple but very cool looking award.   I was doggone proud of it, still am.

 

 

My kid still has all his CS ranks in a special place on his wall in his room.

 

All those other patches, pins, badges and bling? They are in a huge box that he's long since forgotten. But his ranks and a few special awards (historic trail awards which few folks ever earn) are prominently displayed in his room.

 

Side Note: Driving to school this AM I brought up this thread. My son is pretty smart, if I do say so myself, so I wanted his opinion. He said that he would absolutely remember getting something for nothing. He remembered a patch he got for a lock-in that he had to leave because he got sick....but he got the patch anyway. He was a TIGER!!! He's 17 now and he STILL remembers that event, the patch and that he didn't earn it. Go figure, when you don't treat kids like they're stupid they turn out not to be.

You know, all of this fussing about "preparing kids for Boy Scouts" is just a little ridiculous.

A good church camp or a week visiting cousins can have the same effect.

The thing that really prepares boys for troop life: aging.

 

If it's gonna be a fun learning opportunity for you and your Cub Scouts, support it. If so,etching else happens to serve better, support that.

 

^^^^^

THIS!!!

 

My first year as SM we went to camp just 2 hours away from home. ALL the boys had been to day camp every year since they were able to. Many more had gone away to other camps (YMCA) during the summer before crossing in to Boy Scouts, so every boy had been away at least once, all of them had more time at day camps than @@Stosh could ever have.

 

The results? Out of 45 kids that went to summer camp that year, ALL OF THEM got severely home sick! Day camp familiarity did not help one bit.

 

@@Jackdaws, the way to make the weekend camps work is to 1) make sure you know your costs up front, 2) make sure you get your volunteer pool aligned up front, 3) do your homework as to what the kids want in terms of games/activities, and 4) look at your local calendars (school, religious, community, natural vacation times, etc.) to make sure you are avoiding natural low attendance times. For example, our council learned long ago that the first two weeks in June the vast majority of Scouting families are on family vacation. They moved camp to the last part of June and attendance rose 80%!!!!

Lighten up @@Krampus I gave up a long time ago reporting personal attacks on the forum and other un-scout-like activity, all it doesn't do any good.

 

LOL, I don't mind the personal attacks. I give as good as I get. I'd just prefer that the censorship be equal. Aren't we all equal? Can't we use any bathroom we want now? 

Yah, what do yeh think BSA councils are, eh?

 

A bit different I think @@Beavah. As a 501 ©(3) association, BSA is the parent association to which councils belong. They too are non-profits, much like the AMA is the head medical association to which all their state associations belong...each being also a non-profit.

 

HOWEVER -- and this is where my knowledge gets foggy -- AMA does not "charter" sub-organizations to belong to their state organizations, like units are part of BSA. That's where things get funky I think.

Without digging up 3 year old threads I thought it was the consensus of this community that the program year ended on May 31st and that was it. If you were not done, you were not done and time to move on to the next rank.

 

In my area we begin in late August or early September, but usually we have summer activities going on from June-August. The official "Scouting Year" beings in late August with school. Rank work runs from then through late February when we have B&G...this is when ranks are awarded. If kids are not done by then -- and I don't recall more than 5 Scouts EVER being affected by this, and when they were it was usually due to parental neglect or incompetence -- we let the kids "walk" but they continued to work on the rank through the rest of the spring and summer. If not done by the last activity of the summer (usually late July or early August) THEN we pulled the plug and they moved up without rank.

 

But in all my years in the Pack, the five or so kids that never got rank were usually due to mom and/or dad not spending time enough to get the work done. It was spelled out for them, all they had to do was read, spend time and report back. Nada. Though the family could always manage 4-5 vacations a year or mom/dad several "parent getaways" during the year. Go figure.

 

Stosh, you mention the bling and the program.

 

When I came back to scouting after a long break, I was dumbfounded at how many geegaws the cub program had added over the years.   Perform a simple task--here's a patch, pin, loop, bead!

 

Exactly!! Most of the kids in my Den focused on the rank. That was a clear, understood goal. All that other stuff was just noise. We avoided all the "meeting patches" or theme patches or event patches. 

 

Because nothing teaches character and honesty in a six year old like not giving him a patch because he joined in November instead of October.

 

Fine. I'll never convince a bunch of graybeard drill sergeants that there are fundamental differences between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Then back to the original topic, what to give the boys? Nothing. Anything you give them is an undeserved participant ribbon, and shame on you for even making the suggestion that these boys deserve such a hallow gesture.

 

You talk about honesty. Where is the honesty in giving a kid a patch he did not earn? Where is the honesty in doing 66% of the requirements but STILL getting the award? Since when is 66% a passing grade at anything? And when do you stop giving out stuff for partial effort? Is doing half of Webelos okay? Can I do 25% of the AOL or do I need to do 50% to get my patch?

 

As was said earlier, the "do" in Do Your Best means you actually have to TRY to "do" EVERY requirement. When you "do" 2 or 3 you clearly have not done your best. Let's not lower our standards that low.

 

@@SR540Beaver, please don't censor an entire post for one line you find objectionable or personal. And while you're at it, isn't calling folks "a bunch of graybeard drill sergeants" a personal attack? Let's be equal in our censorship at least, please.

Print you old certificate. Photoshop in the current date. Add two years to the valid through date. Done.

If I understand what you're asking, it's about situations like Beav described where you have a CO and a separate "Friends of"... corporation that owns assets like a boat or a bus.

 

How that would work is that they are actually separate legal entities, neither is a subsidiary of the other, and they exist for different reasons, it just happens that both provide a benefit to a scout unit.  The CO is the same as it ever is. Let's use as an example a church that charters a troop; it controls the troop, owns the troop stuff, etc.  The "Friends of" corporation is its own entity, it doesn't have a charter with BSA, it owns its own assets --- importantly these assets are not subject to either the BSA or CO control.  The "Friends of" entity then magnanimously lets the troop use its assets.  The "Friends of" corp probably has a board of directors that looks remarkably similar to the troop committee.

 

It's worth noting that this is an entirely different situation than a "Friends of" set up specifically to charter a unit.  It's also worth noting that none of this has anything to do with getting an EIN or setting up a bank account.

So the Friends Of org is not associated with the church or Scouting? It's it's own entity with bylaws and charter? So they control the funds and gear of a troop and loan it to them to use? The troop, chartered by the church, essentially has no assets? They borrow from the Friends Of org?

I do not understand why councils want to do that, it can't help but keep attendance down. I'm on my Council's Jamboree committee, and the very first decision we made was to not have any side trips, grand tours, etc. We're charging the cost of getting ready, the cost of traveling there and back, and the cost of attending, and that's it.

 

If anyone is interested in going and has a council that is turning it into the Grand Tour of Scouting, you might want to call around to other local councils, or even reach out across the country to find someone who will let you join their contingent and travel with them. There is no rule that you have to only go with your own council.

I suspect councils do it (make jamboree pricey) for a few reasons. It's their shindig so they want a nice one. It's seen as a must-do event even though it's over-hyped. Most council big wigs couldn't do a normal high adventure camp so the biggest plop-camp ever is more their speed.

 

We tried getting another, cheaper council spot in 2010. That proved more difficult (due to time needed to research and make contacts) it was easier to get World Cup tix. In the end my scout simply made the thrifty decision that a week at Disney for the family was the better bargain. Smart kid.

 

Of course I could have given him both (because he did his best...sorry thread mixing ). But he would have never learn a valuable lesson...one he keeps with him today.

Cub. Scouts.

Do Your Best.

Why is this so hard to understand? This is a separate program from Boy Scouts.

  

If there is no Do, there is no Do Your Best.

 

Exactly!!! If they did 2 of 3 requirements they didn't Do what was required.

 

So do you award all awards if only 66% of the work is done? When does this stop? Webelos? AOL?

 

I won't even mention the fact that BSA EXPECTS you to DO all the requirements...not just 66%.

Sorry to have hijacked the thread. Thanks Krampus and Beavah for the questions. I do know of at least one unit that has a non-profit Friends of X partner but is chartered by a church.

 

I don't really see the difference between a unit that has incorporated in order to meet the post-9/11 money-laundering rules and a unit that has all its finances under someone's SSN. In both cases the entity running the program is separate from the one responsible for filing the taxes.

 

I am sure an attorney would know the issues. It just sounds funny having a non-profit entity that is part of another non-profit charter organization. 

 

Oddly enough, when you need an attorney here to offer an opinion they are no where to be found. When you want them to stop offering opinions, they are everywhere. ;:

This is a good change.  I know it breaks the "no more no less" rule, but when I did hiking MB, we started with hikes less than 10 miles and then did progressively longer hikes before doing our 20.  So it was more like 7,9,11,13,15 then 20.

 

Also a little off topic, but one other thing to note is that if scouts started the merit badge under the old requirements, they are allowed to finish it with the old requirements (meaning no 15-miler).

 

Isn't there a time frame under which you can complete the badge using the old requirements? I know when they make Cooking required and then changed the requirements a few years later, you had a certain amount of time to complete the badge before you had to switch to the new requirements.

That the same thing as a "Friends of" organization, eh?  "Friends of" organizations are actually the chartered partner, and they're very rarely incorporated or have a separate tax status.  I think "Friends of" organizations are not a great idea.  I've found 'em to be pretty unstable.   Dependin' on da state, they can leave the parents fairly exposed to financial and other liabilities. 

 

Beavah

 

 

Right, the Friends Of is the charter holder. But in this case you have a unit that already has a CO and now wants to establish themselves as a non-profit chartered by a non-profit.

 

Sounds like some issues there. Are you a lawyer too?

They attempted the Tiger Badge.  Why is it such a big deal?

 

I expect them to have fun, and to come back next year proud of their achievements and ready for bigger challenges. 

 

Do.  Your.  Best.

 

 

If they did Requirement 1 and 3, but not Requirement 2 they did not Do Their Best to complete the badge.

 

Awarding something when not done is the big deal.

 

EDIT: If you cannot knock out Tiger in the time from September to May, 1) Your Den was not organized, and 2) your parents obviously didn't spend any time with their kids. I could do this in a few weekends with my kids. C'mon, must we dumb-down EVERYTHING?