Are Life Scouts ready for Eagle process?

[gwd-scouter 11]

Pack - there is a BIG difference in your District Advancement guy and ours and the process. Ours meets with the candidate during monthly roundtable meetings to go over the proposed project - after all the other signatures are secured. He will make suggestions about things to include or perhaps rewording for clarification.

 

Now, the stuff you posted about Council. It's been a year since our last Eagle Scout so things may have changed. I was able to simply fax his application to the office and the registrar called to tell me everything was fine. Then he had his BOR, got his signature from District Advancement person, mailed the app to the Council Office where I assume the SE signed it and sent it to National. Eagle Scout got his credentials about six weeks later.

 

Your description of Council records, however, is completely in line with my experiences over the years - a disaster. When I fax the Eagle app, I also fax a copy of the Scout's advancement record from Troop Master. So far, I haven't had any problems.

 

But, as I said, it's been a year. Perhaps Patrick's process will not go as easily.

[packsaddle 753]

Yes, some of these things have popped up within the last year. The Eagle application thing is the most recent. I don't know why we even have to fax something to them. Are they aware of email? Think abou it. You have all the records on Troopmaster. It's a computer file. They make you PRINT a piece of paper and FAX that to another piece of paper over a phone line. Does the adjective, 'moronic', come to mind? How many $million did they spend feathering their new offices?

I admit, I have a negative attitude toward them. I started off with a positive attitude but they have persuaded me to the dark side. I have said before, if we could just keep the camp, the rest of the council could vanish and we'd be better off for it.

 

Part of the problem, I think, surrounds their lousy records. I think they are aware of this and now rely on the troops to keep the 'official' records. Thus, the troops must do all the leg work for council people who have nothing more than the power to say 'NO'. The other part of the problem, IMHO, is that people who mostly care about bean counting want to control the process by making others count the beans for them, changing the rules from time to time on how to count them. This should not be necessary. Bean counters who can't even count beans correctly should just go away.

[Scouter&mom 10]

I have tried to post this three times now, so if it doesn't go this time, I guess it doesn't need to be said.

 

Last night on the way to my son's EBOR while he was in a pensive mood, I asked him if he felt like the things he learned leading up to his project had prepared him for the actual process of getting his project approved and applying for Eagle Scout. His answer was yes and no. He felt prepared for leading the Scouts (and even the adults that helped with his project), somewhat prepared for the estimating and construction (because he felt confident in the adults that he had asked for help there), but in NO WAY prepared to deal with the politics and adults not doing what they said they would do. Troop politics held up fund raising efforts and the District Advancement Chair held project book for over six weeks, at least three times promising "I am going to approve project, but I want to include some comments, so I will get it to Scout by Monday." Council had to finally call and get a verbal okay, then my son pick up his book from Advancement Chair after project was done, so that he could complete it. This was the kind of thing he felt like he wasn't prepared for and I can't imagine a younger boy being prepared either.

 

And yes, this was a very hard time to step back and let him run the show.

 

[NEPAScouter 10]

asm 411 wrote:

How many times have I read "A scout can not fail a BOR." Well that is unless it is an EBOR - "..he is asked to return and told the reasons for his failure to qualify." Shouldn't he have a regular board of review, wouldn't his feedback be of value to the troop? Then some sort of official review of requirements or is this event just badly named?

 

Hi asm,

 

My understanding of *all* BORs (not just Eagle) is that there is always the possibility that a scout could be told to return for a followup BOR. And in all those cases, the scout must be told the reasons and what he needs to do to improve himself for the followup BOR before he can advance to the next rank. Doesn't sound like EBOR is different in that regard. I know in my troop this sometimes happens for second class, first class, etc.