Eagle Project/Board of Review

[JollyMon]

I am the district rep on an upcoming Eagle Board of Review. Upon reviewing the Scout's write-up of his service project, I find that he spent 126 total hours on the project. Of those, 70 hours (55.5%) were his and 30 hours (23.8%) were his dad's. He got three Scouts or friends to contribute 25 hours (almost 20%) and his Scoutmaster to contribute 1 hour. Our general rule of thumb is that the candidate should spend no more than 25% of the hours himself; otherwise, it is hard to fulfill the leadership requirement. Here with close to 80% of the time spent by Scout and Dad, I have serious concerns about moving forward with the Board of Review. I welcome any thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

[purcelce]

These are my opinions and only mine.

 

Jolly welcome to the forums.

 

1. throw out your rules of thumb, percentages, and other bean counting.

 

2. Bottom line: Did he show leadership? If yes, have him prove it.

 

Yes, I do have experience. I've sat on Eagle project approvals(was in charge of the process for about 3 months),and I currently sit on Dist Eagle BOR's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

I agree with Purcelce. Toss the rule of thumb in the trash!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

A blessed Christmas to all

[Lisabob]

Did this scout know about this "rule of thumb" prior to starting work on this project? If not, it seems a little unfair to expect him to have lived up to it, even though I understand what your concerns are. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to just ask him how/why it turned out that he and his dad did most of the work.

 

Admittedly I have limited experience with Eagle projects, but I can imagine a variety of ways that this boy might have demonstrated leadership even though only 26 of the 126 hours of work came from outside sources. Others with more experience might disagree though.

 

[JollyMon]

I appreciate both replies, and I'd like to continue the discussion. How would he prove leadership here? Let's say I ask leadership questions fairly and squarely and I get back responses like "I tried to get others but the dates didn't work out;" or "I did provide leadership to my dad by telling him what to do;" or "I didn't get more people involved because this was a great chance for my dad and I to work together."

 

Rules of thumb are only that, but they do serve to help uphold some level of consistency in the project review and Board process. So, help me out some more on this. What kinds of questions would you ask under these circumstances? What responses would you receive as positive and what responses would cause you to have doubts about the Scout's leadership on the project?

 

Thanks again for everyone's input.

[JollyMon]

Yes, if the Troop folks have done their jobs, the Scout is given a handout from the Council Advancement Committee concerning the project review process. The guidelines that I discussed above are part of that material.

Thanks.

[jr56]

Yes, you need to question the candidate on how he demonstrated leadership and organizational skills to accomplish the project. His answers will determine whether or not he passes. Every boy must be treated individually, since every boys level of ability is so different. Having preset guidelines as to who does what percentage of the work is adding to requirements, which is strictly against national advancement procedure. If you keep following this procedure, and a scout decides to challenge it, you're going to get shot down very quickly by council, regional, or national.

[Oak Tree]

Ah yes, the famous "adding to the requirements" discussion. Despite the fact that JollyMon has indicated from the start that he's not adding to the requirements, a bunch of people jump in to tell him he can't add to the requirements.

 

Interpreting a requirement is not adding to it. Now, if he'd said, "We have a hard and fast rule that no more than 25% of the work can be done by the Scout", that would be adding to the requirement. Saying that we expect other people to do most of the work because in order to demonstrate leadership you actually need to lead people, that's not adding. That's just saying what leadership is. Or at least a typical interpretation of it.

 

I agree, I'd be concerned about this project. I'd like to go back to the proposal and see what the Scout anticipated in terms of getting others to help out. Was this how it was planned from the beginning? If not, what went wrong? If it was, and it was approved, then there must have been some other aspects of leadership involved.

 

I'd start by asking him how he showed leadership, and follow up in depth on each of his responses.

 

Oak Tree

[SueM]

I might be misunderstanding your thought process here but -shouldn't- the amount of time spent on the project lean towards the boy putting more hours into it then others, since he can and should also include all the time that he's spent researching the project, or possibly soliciting donations of materials, planning etc. before the project is started??

 

Sue M.

 

[John-in-KC]

Adding to SueM's comment...

 

Not to mention driving time by Mom or Dad for the Scout during the prep/approval period. That counts too.

 

Of course, some Troop Committees do operate on the Forrest Gump method (stupid is as stupid does) instead of the 8 Scouting methods.

 

 

[Lynda J]

I have been on our District Advancement committee for the past 3 years. You can not alter or add requirements for any Rank Advancement.

By setting % requirements you are adding quirements a boy has to meet for Eagle. There is nothing anywhere in the requirements for Eagle that says anything about breaking down work done on a project by %'s of the amount of work done by anyone.

As far as showing leadership. Did he work the group benifiting from the project and work out the plans for the project? Did he have to get donations of materials or have to earn money to pay for material? Did he arrange for others to help him on the project? Did he oversee the work on the project through it completion? If the answer to these questions is YES then he showed leadership.

[Venividi]

>As far as showing leadership. Did he work the group benifiting from the project and work out the plans for the project? Did he have to get donations of materials or have to earn money to pay for material? Did he arrange for others to help him on the project? Did he oversee the work on the project through it completion? If the answer to these questions is YES then he showed leadership.

 

I am not so sure. Jollymon is correct to have reservations, and to investigate further. There can be a potential for some good discussions at the BOR to explore further. There may be good reason why planning and personal preparation by the scout took half the project, but that won't be known unless questioned at the BOR. Or perhaps the scout spent the bulk of his hours not on planning and preparation, but on the implementation phase of the project, doing the work himself. Again, that won't be known without asking.

 

It is fair to not make a decision (about whether leadership was demonstrated during the project) until the end of the BOR. It is not fair to sweep the atypical data under the rug without questioning it.

 

Each troop has its own standards. My experience is that when you hold high standards, the scouts will meet your expectations. When you have minimal standards, the scouts will meet your expectations.

 

Venividi

[scoutldr]

Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't all questions about the project be asked by the District Advancement Chair before the BOR is scheduled? The BOR is too late to be bringing this up.

[evmori]

Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't all questions about the project be asked by the District Advancement Chair before the BOR is scheduled? The BOR is too late to be bringing this up.

 

While this would be nice, some of the board members might not have had anything to do with the approval. All the Eagle boards I have sat on were approved by the advancement chair.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

A blessed New Year to all

[Lynda J]

There may be a year or more from the time that an Eagle Project is approved by the District Advancement Committee until the time that a Scout has his BOR. This depends on how fast the Scout completes the project and how agressive he is about coming back for his BOR. In that time there could be a new AC. The same people that sit on the approval committee may not sit on the BOR.

 

I would think that with a committee setting the amount of time a boy can contribute to the project over how much others do and he is turned down on that. In a appeal that committees decission would in all probability be over turned.