Artifically delaying rank advancements

[mlg0171]

So Beavah makes a good point about artificial time hurdles to slow down boys who tore through the ranks fast. As he acknowledged, it is not clear that this is the reason for Kansascity53's situation (the scout may have been in for a long time, but had one Tenderfoot requirement holding him back), so I spun it off.

 

I came across a troop that uses only quarterly BOR's. If a scout finishes a rank one week after a BOR, he's on hold for three months till the next one. This quarterly system is meant to slow the scouts down because they were advancing faster than the adults preferred. I thought this artificial hurdle was treating the symptom instead of the problem.

 

Our troop has a policy that inadvertently controls T-2-1 advancement in a more natural way. (It's intended purpose is to encourage long term retention of the skills and knowledge learned in T-2-1.)

 

Because most of the T-2-1 requirements are skill/knowledge based, and we want scouts to retain the skill/knowledge, we will not teach a scout and sign his book on the same day. We will teach a skill today or we will test a skill today, but not both. We want them to learn the skill/knowledge for longer than ten minutes. I can teach a knot today, but I want to see it next week or whenever.

 

So when a scout comes to me and says, "I want to do xyz requirement" I ask "great, are you ready to be tested, OR would you like me to teach it to you?" If I teach him today, I encourage him to go home, practice, and demonstrate it next week.

 

This system also happens to keep the advancement on a more natural pace and teaches the boys to take responsibility to practice/study at home between meetings.

 

The troop I came across seemed to be racing through the requirements, then artificially holding the scouts back when they saw the consequences.

[gwd-scouter]

MLG - You bring up an interesting point about scheduled BORs. A couple of our new ASMs went to training a few weekends ago and came back asking why we don't have regularly scheduled BORs (their trainer said that's the way to go). I explained that we schedule a BOR when a Scout is ready. Yes, scheduling conflicts can arise and, yes, it would be much easier for the adults conducting the BORs to put something more regular on their calendars, but that means a Scout may have to wait for three months until the next BOR comes up. Not fair to the Scout in my opinion.

 

Maybe it's not such a big deal for the guy going from Tenderfoot to 2nd Class, but consider the guy going from 1st Class to Star to Life to Eagle. Since his time as active in his new rank cannot begin until he has his BOR for the previous rank, making him wait for months isn't right.

 

As I said, this is my opinion and how we do it in our Troop. The newly trained leaders I mentioned above understood and agreed and in our case we will continue to schedule BORs when needed.

 

 

[Bob White]

The BSA advancement procedure is to present recognitions as soon as possible after they are erned, for instance ..the next meeting. This is true of all recognitions, merit badges, renaks, POR etc.

 

You can hold the pocket certificates for the Court of Honor.

 

 

[Stosh]

Every time, at any time, I do a SM conference, I immediately notify the ASM - Advancement to get a BOR together for the boy. It's no big deal, plenty of volunteers around and once a few boys have done their BOR we're ready to consider a COH. I don't see the importance of any major ordeal and regulated format for such a simple process for the boys. They finished the requirements, wrap up the details and move on with life.

 

Stosh

[mlg0171]

At the SM conference, our SM instructs the scout to call the CC and schedule a BOR. Puts the responsibility on the scout.

[ccjj]

I am the advancement chair for our troop and I do attend most of the troop meetings. As soon as a Scout has his SM conference, he usually comes and asks me when he can have a BoR. If I have enough committee members at that meeting, he can have it that night. If not, I let him know that at our next meeting, he will have it. That gives me time to call some other committee members and ask them to come to next weeks troop meeting.

 

ccjj

[Gold Winger]

I got rid of BORs at troop meeting when I became advancemnet guy in my son's troop. I believed that Scout was better served by being at the meeting. A troop meeting isn't supposed to be one stop shopping for all things Scouting.

 

Add to that the BORs were only happening the week before the COH and you have the mess. As someone else pointed out, you're making the boy wait too long before he could start the clock for his next rank.

 

We started having BORs secheduled on every second Sunday based on need. If a Scout told me that he was ready, I'd schedule the BOR. I only had to cancel once in three years because of not having any available committee members. That surprised the heck out of me because I had around 15 folks that I could call on for BORs.

 

Only once did I had a parent whine about his son having to come out on a Sunday because the boy had something more important to do. Funeral? Visit gramma? Nope. Sports. I pointed out that all of the other Scouts had managed to make it.

 

 

[Stosh]

Participate in a Scoutmaster conference.

Complete your board of review.

 

It may be a personal preference, but there is nothing in the requirements that indicate a scout needs to set up the SM conference or the BOR. Both of these items are adult specific and the logistics need to be set up by those running it. The scout does not run the show... Expecting the scout to set these kinds of things up gives me a feeling of adding to the requirement.

 

Just my 2-cents worth, your milage may vary.

 

Stosh

 

 

 

[Gold Winger]

Since I didn't check everyone's book every week, the only way that I would know if a Scout had completed his requirements is if he told me.

 

Since so much of adavancement is adult driven today "We gotta get these boys through this so they can be tenderfoot before summer camp!" I don't have any heartache asking them to come see me to arrange a BOR.

 

Now, if boys were dilligently working on stuff on their own and had to hunt down an ASM or Instructor to show them that they had done X, Y or Z then maybe I'd think about asking the ASMs or Instructors to take note of when a boy has finished and to tell me.

 

Ya gotta give the boys something to do in this process.

[Gunny2862]

Well,

since an adult has to sign off on the requirements - we take the time to look at the page and point out what is coming up campoutwise to help them get the next requirement and to point out things they can read and practice on their own to keep advancing in between campouts. While doing this it is relatively easy to see when a boy has completed his requirements for a rank and send him to the SM to set up a conference.

 

Other than a Scout who just isn't getting the character part of the program, and who should be getting more adult association therefore, I can't imagine why one would artificially slow advancements on purpose.

[Venividi]

Looks like Stosh, GoldWinger, and Gunny all have differing processes for scheduling conferences, and those processes work for the boys in their respective troops. Vive le difference!