cdroberts94

are things they must do at home, well...it's not sitting well with me at all.>> can see the value in some of the MBU events presented when they are in settings like some of you have described. That doesn't address the issue of large groups of boys with one counselor. Under those circumstances how does that counselor get feedback from EACH boy to be sure he understands and/or has fulfilled the requirement. Discuss in the requirements doesn't equal listen to some guy talk about it. It involves two way dialogue.

Our district merit badge list has been a mess for years - various people have taken it over and tried to fix it but before they have any noticeable succcess it's passed on to someone else.

I am the troop advancement chair and _I_ get no response from the District Advancement Chair. Maybe he doesn't know the answer to these questions I post either - ha ha!

We have a very motivated young scout who is striving to get ALL of the merit badges so he will definitely have to reach out beyond the troop level in the coming years.

The former advancement chair told us a story about a scout from our troop who had two badges not accepted at the Eagle board of review because the date on the front of the card (next to the unit leader signature) didn't jive with the dates on the back. In both cases a scout needed to have X number of days working on the badge to have completed the requirements and there wasn't enough time between the dates. My guess is that the scout did what I have seen numerous times - the scout started the badge without that approval (because no one thought it was important) and when he was finished handed it to the scoutmaster to sign and the scoutmaster dated it that day.

Fortunately for that scout they were not Eagle badges but I have tried to drill into the scouts that they must have the card signed by the SM before they start. The problem is that the Scoutmaster is always so busy it's hard for them to find a time to do that and then it goes right out of their heads.

I mention this, though, because The Blancmange makes a very good point about the Camping Merit badge. I would guess that most boys use nights from before that official approval for the merit badge.

I feel like I stir up a hornets nest every time I post here but I THANK YOU ALL for your very thoughtful feedback.

ScoutNut, What I meant by how to handle it in the future is what to advise a merit badge counselor who asks if he is allowed to sign off on a badge that was started before he became a counselor. Hes willing to do it but hes new to the process and doesnt want to do something that might create a problem down the road on an important Eagle merit badge. So he asked if he could and I thought maybe someone here would have a source he could go to for an answer.

We have had huge growth recently in our lower ranks and are fortunate to have a lot of new adults willing and eager to work with boys on these important badges. Now that YPT training is mandatory we have had to remove some counselors who did not follow through with keeping that training up to date. Others counselors choose to move on once their kids graduate and are no longer interested in being counselors. And as someone mentioned, sometimes they start things in camp and dont complete them until they get back (my son still has just one drawing to do for drafting which he did four years ago. Our troop didnt have a drafting counselor so he put it aside for later!)

And I will admit that our troop has been guilty at times of allowing and even encouraging a merit badge counselor to start a MB with a large group at a scout meeting. The scouts were then responsible for continuing the work and finishing up the badge with the counselor on an individual basis. That is what happened with this scout. He was young and enthusiastic, but then probably realized that the badge was a little much for someone his age and put it aside figuring he had lots of time. A more seasoned MB counselor may have had no problem looking over his work and taking it from there, but the new guy wants to make sure he doesnt make any mistakes.

This is a long complicated story ... scout starts working on a merit badge. Gets permission and dated blue card from the unit leader and does the 13 weeks of expenses and the rest of that requirement for Personal Management along with some other requirments. He writes it all out and saves it but never goes back and meets with the counselor so nothing is signed off on the blue card. The original counselor is no longer active with the troop, and now that the scout is older he has decided to continue the badge with another counselor. The new counselor is unsure if he is allowed to accept the data since it was done before he officially became a merit badge counselor. Scout is willing to start all over, but for the future we're wondering how to handle it. (Just so you know, the scout has been told by his parent that the lesson in all of this is to get things signed off and not just put them aside 'til he's older.)

Carole

An interesting addition to my post above - upon further comparison of the Florida scout's Troopmaster report and Scoutnet, Troopmaster shows him earning only two awards since he left us (actually two years ago). Both were merit badges and the first was shortly after he left, and the other has no date. Neither of these badges appears on Scoutnet. If troops are using Scoutnet, I'm not sure we can blame council for those things being missing. I know there have been problems in the past with things not getting entered from paper reports but now all troops have the ability to check to make sure things are recorded and correct them before kids are sent off with missing or incomplete records.

Here's my two cents ... it depends on the council and it depends on what THEY were given. We had a military scout transfer here from CA. Nothing was ever transfered to our council. The scout was able to provide his book which showed Tenderfoot, First Class, Second Class, and Star and most of his merit badge cards. He was missing the blue card for Communications, but had the pocket card. I called the council and they had very little - I believe they said they had his Star rank and nothing else but a couple of merit badges. They suggested I contact the troop and gave me the number of the scoutmaster and committee chair. I figured the mother knew them best so I asked her to follow up. A YEAR later we finally got a blue card signed by the Scoutmaster with the words Troop Records written across the name of the Counselor and the date on the front for "qualified to begin working for merit badge" as April of this year. I just wanted to pull my hair out.

Troopmaster would not allow me to put any date in without the Scout date and he did not have any date for that. Our scoutmaster finally said to estimate since Scout isn't really a rank anyway, but the boy then remembered that he got it at summer camp and was able to come up with a date.

Meanwhile, we had another military scout who left us for a year and a half in Florida. I just checked him on Scoutnet and just about everything is showing up except one badge his Troopmaster form shows, and of course all his blue cards are still back in Florida in storage - ARG! But at least it's not an Eagle badge and all the ranks are there.

And I won't even start about the boys who earn Scout, but the shop won't give me a badge without an advancement report but they are not in the system yet to do it on Scoutnet so I hand write them and try and rememeber to put them in Scoutnet when they finally do show up on there.

My aplogies, infoscouter. I work very hard as Advancement Chair and I know that every single commmittee position is important to our troop. I'm just bummed to lose two really great guys from the BOR.

I'm not looking to admonish anyone - in fact, if it is "legal" to use unregistered people it would sure make my life easier trying to find enough people to sit on the board. We have about 10 BOR a year and with many of our MCs traveling for their job, it can get tricky. Two of my best ones just got promoted to ASM.

I recently saw the newsletter of another local troop and it said that every boy who was going up for a Board of Review needed to bring a parent to serve on another scout's board of review. I can't believe that every parent in that troop is a registered Troop Committee member (the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures states "This board of review is made up of at least three and not more than six members of the troop committee.") I went looking online for an official policy, or definition of Committee Member, and could not find one. So my question is am I interpreting it correctly that the BOR members need to have paid registrations with BSA (and cannot be a Scoutmaster or ASM)?

Thanks,

Carole

Buffalo Skipper, I found that handy spiral on my last trip to the scout store. Since all I needed was the requirements, the $3.99 price tag was much more appealing to me than buying a new book.

Carole

We received a directive from district that if a Scout had started work toward a rank before January 1, 2010, using requirements that were current before January 1, 2010, he could complete that rank only using the old requirements. Any progress toward a rank that was begun after January 1, 2010, must use the new requirements.

I found nice copies of the requirements at this website http://www.bsahandbook.org/ and was able to copy them so they can be glued into their older books. I realized it did not effect that many boys - the biggest bunch was life scout.

Carole

Thanks for all the advice. We have a committee meeting this evening and we will need to discuss this and it will be good to go in with some possible solutions.

Carole

With the addition of new requirements to some of the ranks, how do you all go about adding them to books? Do you just write them in? Photocopy a new book and tape the copy over the old page in the book?

Carole

Troop Advancement Chair

Are there "official" requirements for the bugler position? I seem to remember when my son did it reading that they had to be working on or have completed the bugling merit badge but I can't find anything online saying that except for a manual for one troop. I guess maybe I read that way back and thought it reflected an official position.

Carole

We had a group of 7 boys show up for their first Boy Scout meeting this week. They all bridged at the Blue and Gold last week. However, one did not earn his Arrow of Light; he just joined cub scouts last fall. He, of course, came along with all of his friends and I don't think anyone thought about the fact that he is not yet 11 and has not finished 5th grade. I didn't even notice until I was inputting his application in Troopmaster. He turns 11 March 13 so he can be official very soon, but I wonder how other troops handle situations like this. I can see this happening more frequently with the push in our council (maybe in others) to move boys on to Boy Scouts by Feb.

Carole

I want to thank you guys for this thread. I am taking over as Advancement Chair for our Boy Scout Troop so I came here to do some research on other things. Ironically, though, my own son wants to be the troop bugler and we didn't want to send his expensive trumpet on trips. Thank you for the wealth of information.

Who collects forms at JSN? Who checks them for accuracy and chases down parents who haven't paid when district is breathing down your neck to have them in? Who hands them into council? Who keeps the unit copy of the form? Who handles any new scouts that come in later? Who handles rechartering in your pack? Does anyone have a rule book (or cheat sheet) for membership chair and advancement chair? If a pack has both has anyone had success with both using Packmaster?

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Carole

Thanks for the feedback. The next group of Webelos after this one will be too large, as was the one before these guys, to be matching so I am leaning toward giving the old ones to this group. They are getting them for free so they shouldn't complain, right? I guess I just wonder why they changed them in the first place - like maybe they didn't lay flat or something?!?

Carole

Hi, I'm new to the job of advancement chair for our pack. I was handed down a box of stuff, including neckerchiefs. As part of our graduation ceremony, each scout is given their new neckerchief. Among the neckerchiefs are two types - one has a rectangular Webelo symbol on them, the other has the newer "cutout" shape. There are enough of the old style to use with the group that is moving up, but should I use them up or just retire them and get more of the newer style?

Any thoughts????

Thanks,

Carole

Thank you for your replies. The den leader says she didn't read it that way but will do whatever. I've put in an e-mail to our district commissioner just to get some "authority". I told the den leader that since the arrow points get sewed on under the badge it really didn't make sense to put them on the uniform before the badge. I think she was just excited that they did all that stuff on their camping trip and wanted to give the boys instant rewards.

Carole

Can a wolf earn arrow points before they earn their wolf badge? The den leader seems to think so. The bear book specifically forbids getting arrow points before finishing the bear badge, but the Wolf book doesn't. How do you all handle it?

Carole

Awards chair

bbng,

To her credit, the den leader who was so late did offer to go pick up her awards, and I would have had her do that if I had already gone down there. The lateness was more of a problem because it did not leave me time to sort out the whole Leave No Trace question.

Along with that den leader we have another dad who goes down that way frequently, and both have offered to pick up things as needed. Since it took me 45 minutes to get down there yesterday, I will probably take them up on that on lighter months. With 100 awards this time around, and since I needed stuff for myself, I definitely wanted to go myself. I was also able to talk to the people in registration about a problem with my boy scout, who was graduated on without his Arrow of Light being recorded. Ans since my daughter was in preschool I was able to get all that done in peace (yeah!)

I found out yesterday that none of the kids actually got the LNT patch last year. The store was out of them. So the den leaders can have a pow wow before the meeting tonight to decide what they want to do.

The reason I was concerned about the budget is that my husband had made a comment about most of our money going to awards, but when I reminded him about that the other night he said not to worry - the pack has plenty of money. Even the committee chair seemed unconcerned with the cost of the badges - she said if getting lots of awards motivates them in scouting, then she saw no problem with repeating awards. But discussing it as a committee is still important for me to be part of and my husband will just have to stay home with the kids next month so I can go (he says I take better notes than him anyway!)

I am really appreciating all of your replies. After reviewing all the posts here, talking with my husband who is a den leader, and receiving an e-mail from our committee chair who I think only got bits and pieces of the issue from her husband who took the message for her to call me, I purchased all 15 awards and will give them to the den leaders tomorrow to give at their discretion. One has already e-mailed me that she had not reviewed the requirements and is talking about setting up a pack service project so so far it's a positive outcome.

bbng, The former awards chair "graduated" last May and had done it for years. Her husband was the cubmaster so they took on a lot themselves, and had to divest a lot of equipment and jobs. Shortly after all this was done he had a heart attack, and after recovering from that the wife went back to work full time. So I went into this with minimal training and had 100 awards submitted in the last week. I don't even mind learning this stuff and doing it since we'll be with scouts another three years, but I just need clarification which I will need to get at the next committee meeting.

anarchist,

Actually we do have our own store, and I was able to draw from it quite a bit, but one of our boys is graduating in October and is a very motivated scout aside from large numbers of certain awards from camp, I also had quite a few obscure ones to pick up. We have plenty of the rank badges on hand, but our council will not give out the cards until we've turned in our report. I have a box full of neckerchiefs, patches, and assorted other equipment as well.

I'm intrigued by your tackle box. I looked at them the last time I was at Walmart and actually bought a small flat case type one for the advancement stuff and cards. The pins, beltloops are all in a 45 drawer box, but it's not exactly portable. Does the tackle box hold you everything you have or is it just like a first aid kit?

Carole

Mark,

Thank you for posting the advancement chair information. No one gave me that. I thought my whole job was going to be keeping track on the computer and picking up awards, yet I was handed all the registration files, charting stuff, stuff for the Pinewood Derby, etc. I haven't even had a chance to attend a pack committee meeting, yet I have to go buy all the awards today for presentation tomorrow. I don't even know if I have a budget. The den leaders and Pack Committee Chair are all working parents, and two of the dens were way past the deadline for submitting their awards (One was e-mailed to me at 2 am yesterday morning.) I'll be happy if I just get all the awards all put on cards and signed and not miss anyone.

Carole