SteveMM

I actually got confirmation at our meeting last night. You're right. The binder does NOT go to national but rather stays with the council. Once national sends the credentials, Scouts get their binders back. The only issue right now is that it apparently is taking national forever to get credentials back to Scouts. Our Scoutmaster said he JUST heard back from national on a Scout who had his EBoR in late June! I'm hoping my son's doesn't take that long, but just to be sure, when we schedule his ECoH it will probably be in early October.

This is one I'm somewhat wrestling with as well. My son's ECoH is coming up in six or seven weeks. I'm a committee member, and I come to nearly every meeting. Generally I wear a class B, but I do don the class A for Courts of Honor and when we go on outings and campouts. Because of that, I'll probably wear my class A at my son's ECoH, since that's what I normally wear to Courts of Honor.

It's funny how some moms react to this stuff. My wife deals with our daughter's Girl Scouts career, and mostly leaves Boy Scouts to me. But, on the day of our son's project, she was very, very concerned. She pulled me aside and said, "I think you should have a talk with (our son) because he doesn't seem to be doing much work. He's just walking around." I observed him for a few minutes and reported back to the boss that he had workers spread out over 3-5 acres (no one really knows the size of the area) and was walking from spot to spot managing them, while also doing some of the work. She

Completely unrelated side note: The one other Scout doing his EBoR last night is 13 years old, and is in a troop that meets at an LDS church. I really wondered if he rushed to Eagle a bit because of LDS severing their ties with Scouts BSA. No way of knowing, but it would make sense. With that said, they were VERY impressed with his project. He collected 2,000 donated books for an organization and built a bookshelf to house them.

I think they said it would be sent to the national office in Texas for review, but not returned. It's entirely possible I misunderstood, though. My thought was that if they didn't return Scout binders, then they'd run out of room to store them eventually and would end up destroying them. This is why I wondered if I misunderstood.

Let's get the bragging out of the way: My son completed his Eagle BoR last night! They talked with him for at least 45 minutes, which was longer than I expected. He said he had an answer for everything, including the standard, "Which of the points of the Scout Law would you eliminate?" question. He said he would eliminate "clean" because, really, have you seen Boy Scouts at summer camp? That got a round of laughter that I actually heard from across the hall. Needless to say, I couldn't be more proud of the boy if I tried. Now, the question: They kept his Eagle Project binder, and

You were there at the same time as my son's group!

That's a great tradition. We do something similar. After all of the accolades about how great the new Eagle is, the Scoutmaster asks if anyone wants to tell a story about him. This usually turns into a gentle roast.

That's our troop. We stopped all popcorn sales several years ago. It was a waste of time.

Wow ... yeah, that adds several levels. It's a pain in the rear, but like Eagledad said, it's a good learning process. God knows he'll have paperwork to fill out later in life.

Our troop's best fundraiser is selling mulch in the early spring. We found a supplier that sells us several pallets. We mark them up, sell them, and deliver them. People love getting their mulch delivered to them. ALL of the profits go into the boys' Scout accounts.

It really is awful. It never seems to end. My son did his project in May, and hoped to get his EBoR before his group left for Philmont in early July. That was a pipe dream.

I'm not a lawyer and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I'm thinking that if BSA can prove that it made all reasonable attempts to create a "safe" atmosphere, then the lawsuit would be dismissed. However, with an adult not present, that goes out the window because the litigious types would see that as not a safe atmosphere.

The larger reason for this is the litigiousness of modern society, and has little to do with safety. While I think many kids would benefit from a well-designed program during which they go out in the woods without direct adult supervision, it would only take one broken leg before the lawsuits start.

I don't have any recollection of ever taking a shower at summer camp when I was a Scout. We swam every day in the lake, and I considered that enough. When my son went to his first camp, I joined the troop for the last two nights. I'm a Committee Member and enjoy camp, but can't take a full week away from work. When I arrived on Thursday, he was smudged with dirt and his clothes and bedding smelled just awful. In camps since then, he's increased the amount he showers every year. Last year I think he took a shower just about every night. With all of that said, and back to the original

I wouldn't take my experience as much of an indicator. We only lived there for two years (starting when I was five years old) and I never went to another YMCA again because there wasn't one near where we lived after that.

It must have been way before my time. I took swim lessons at a YMCA in Rhode Island in the mid 70s and we definitely wore clothes. ETA: After digging into that article I posted (duh) I realized the practice stopped in the early 1960s.

Okay, I thought this was a joke or a typo, but then I did a quick search, and found this: https://www.vocativ.com/culture/fun/fairly-recently-ymca-actually-required-swimmers-nude/index.html So, I learned something. Wow.

Our Council rep requires the boys come to him for a face-to-face meeting to discuss their proposed project as well. I liked it, even though the guy wanted to meet at his house, which is 30 minutes from ours. He had a lot of good advice for my son that he probably wouldn't have typed out in an email. I get what you're saying about having to do the face-to-face recommendation requests. I feel like the current generation is lacking in face-to-face skills, and anything that can be done to help that is a good thing. However, I do prefer our council follow the rules that are laid out by BSA

At the risk of reiterating what's already been posted, I'll just say don't worry about the ranks. Just enjoy Scouting and stay as active as you can. The ranks will come. This shouldn't be causing as much stress as it is. I'm going to assume that you didn't join Scouting just to get your Eagle. Remind yourself why you did join it.

I don't mind that "requirement" at all. It doesn't seem too out of line. Our district does the recommendation portion of it completely wrong. The requirements say the Scout has to provide names of people who are willing to provide a recommendation. Our district requires the Scout to go out and get written recommendations in sealed envelopes, then hand them to the district representative several weeks before his EBoR. It's ponderous, really, and rather annoying because it flies directly in the face of the guidelines on Scouting.org. Word is they're going to stop doing it that way soon.

Congrats to him, and that's a great project! My son has his EBoR a week from today, and I couldn't be more proud of him if I tried. Every time I hear about a Scout's Eagle Project, it reminds me that there is no one type. Every one is vastly different. My son's was doing trail clean up and definition (lining the edges of the trails with downed branches) plus mulching of nine stations on a ropes course at a local religious summer camp. It doesn't sound like a tough project, but the course was spread out over several acres, so management of the work was very hard. The course had gotte

Our troop did the Country Meats fundraiser and it went quite well. They were a fairly easy product to sell and were far better than the overpriced popcorn. It also turned out that all of us leaders ended up eating our fair share during meetings. 😀

While I wouldn't ask a Scout to demonstrate how to tie knots during a BoR, the example I gave (knowing the Oath and Law) is a piece of core Scout knowledge. It seems to me (and perhaps I'm dead wrong here) that while the BoR should not be testing a Scout, it can identify that a Scout hasn't actually learned basic things that they should know. It would be the same to me as if you asked a First Class candidate where they camped and they said they didn't, even though the camping nights had been signed off.

But, if a Scout can't remember all of the things "A Scout is" then how can he live by them?