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Policy for a BOR


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The answer to your last question is no. The BOR (with the possible exception of Eagle) is a troop function. One of the purposes of a BOR is to see how the youth views how the troop is doing. That cannot be done via another troop. In the case of an extremely small troop, I could see times where a Scouter from another unit may be asked to sit in (I know it's not by the book, but I said a very small unit who may not have 3 committee members available), but the BOR must be as fully unit based as possible.

 

80 kids and quarterly BORs make absolutely no sense whatsoever, either from the boys' view nor from the committee's. You say you are on the committee, at the next committee meeting, push for a monthly schedule (on demand would be better, but one step at a time). With 80 kids, you certainly should have enough committee people to set up some sort of rotating schedule.

 

One final question, does the Scoutmaster only do SM Conferences once a quarter as well?

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With a troop of 80 kids, wow. That means it would take a total of 10 board of review hours if half the scouts are ready to advance. Even more if younger boys need multiple BORs at once for T-2-1. I assume they do multiple reviews concurrently.

 

Surely with a troop that size, there must be enough committee members to be able to have a rotating schedule where 3 could be on call for needed BORs at every weekly scout meeting. The scout would just need to request the BOR a week ahead of time.

 

molscouter asks a good question about SM conferences.

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Scoutmaster conferences are held at the troop meeting nights usually during patrol corners or directly after the meeting SM conferences can be scheduled as needed (just ask the SM when you are ready) since it is on the troop meeting night.

 

The BORs are made up from any non-ASM parent from the troop, not just Troop Committee Chairs. Our quarterly BORs usually do have 2 or 3 rooms going. I know there were about 20 boys who had BORs on June, Day X as I was one of the reviewers.

 

I like the idea of monthly BORs or just having them on the night of the regular meeting. Many parents stay for the meeting so it wouldn't be a problem to get 3 adults to be Reviewers. I will suggest it to the committee but many on the committee don't like to interfere with the status quo. I can see them objecting to it on the grounds that it is less efficient and will involve more bookkeeping, paperwork.

 

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Paperwork and bookkeeping? It doesn't really require that much time, even on a weekly basis.

 

Sounds like one of those troops that only awards advancements, including merit badges, at courts of honor, rather than as soon as possible after it was earned (per advancement policy).

 

I always get the question "Well, what do we give them at the court of honor then?"

 

Here's what my troop did when I was a kid, and I think it worked well for both immediate recognition AND making courts of honor still meaningful...

 

1) at the next meeting after having earned the recognition, give the scout his patch for rank, merit badge, whatever other item he might have earned; for merit badges also give him his portion of the blue card.

 

2)At the court of honor, give out the pocket certificates for ranks and merit badges, and for ranks present the mother's (parent's) pin to the boy to present to his parent.

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OK so you have a lot of adults. As long as they are registered committee members (not just parents) they could sit on a BOR. This is definitely something worth pursuing with your committee.

 

One thing I would say is that you might want to think a little in advance about when those BORS will take place. Some troops do them before/after meetings in order to minimize distraction during meetings. Some do them during meetings because people are too busy to get there early or stay late. Some have a separate day of the week set aside for BORS. Some hold them on PLC night.

 

Personally, I don't like doing BORS during the meeting. It takes the boys away from their program, making it harder for whoever is running the program that night (people filtering in & out). With the higher ranks, it also means we're removing the boys who are probably the leaders, role models, and instructors from the meeting. But that's just me, and for some troops the chaos of BORs during the meeting doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

 

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Too much paperwork?

 

I'm with nolesrule, eh? That's just silly. How hard is it for an advancement chair to file one piece of paper a month?

 

I think you've got da outlines of a good plan, eh? If you've got that many adults and the adults tend to hang around at meetings anyways, put 'em to work doin' BORs to keep 'em out of the kids' hair at the meetings.

 

Try to move it to once a month so that your sticks-in-the-mud can get used to da idea, but then I'd go all the way to "on demand" (once a week) eh? You've got da people for it.

 

Beavah

 

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Listen to a woman's suggestion? Funny.

 

Last week and this week we are having multiple Boards of Review for Tenderfoot for 12 new Scouts. It certainly was lively last week and I expect the same this Monday.

 

One problem we have is that almost all of the new adults signed up as ASMs. Not a huge problem to have, but I was hoping for more Committee folks. A few of those new ASMs have already taken some training and are eager to finish with Outdoor Leader Skills in the fall. Others haven't done any training yet and don't seem likely to do so. Talked with our Troop Committee Chair and she is going to call all of the new leaders and some other parents as well and ask them personally to take on some of our open Committee positions (especially those that don't seem inclined to do the ASM training). I'm thrilled that she is going to do this. Since our Troop has grown so much we will need some extra folks to do BORs.

 

We don't have regularly scheduled BORs. When a guy needs one, it usually only takes a week for our Advancement Chair to line up some folks. However, one benefit I see of having regularly scheduled BORs is that it can give a guy a deadline to finish requirements.

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80 scouts with only quarterly BORs? Something sounds off here. If the troop is as described that would mean about 25-30 BORs in a single night. During a troop meeting one board might be able to handle 4 reviews. They would need about 8 boards with 24 adults (with no SM or ASMa). I have a hard time buying that.

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Quarterly BORs are a mass production in my son's troop. They are held on a non-meeting night and usually have 9 adult Reviewers (3 inquisition rooms, not including the waiting area) for the actual BORs.

 

I really like the idea of BORs scheduled more often during the meetings but wouldn't it take away from Patrol Corners time? I'm just trying to think of objections that might be raised so I could have solutions to rebuttals.

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"inquisition rooms" ? Whoa! Sounds like torture time to me!

 

BOR's are friendly 10-15 minute chats, not inquisitions!

 

If held on meeting nights, after the official meeting is over, they should not interfere with anything.

 

 

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One comment you made in your opening post struck me as strange. You stated - "My son is eligible for a Palm on June, Day X+7. It has to be exactly a minimum of 3 months between Eagle Palms and his last one was on March, Day X +7. The Scoutmaster is already complaining about the one my son will need in September, Day X+7"

 

You also stated your son has many years to go until he reaches 18 years of age.

 

Does he really need to cut it to EXACTLY 3 months in order to get all of his Palms in by his 18th birthday? Scouting is about more than just bling, and he already has the badges.

 

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"I really like the idea of BORs scheduled more often during the meetings but wouldn't it take away from Patrol Corners time? I'm just trying to think of objections that might be raised so I could have solutions to rebuttals. "

 

At 10-15 minutes a pop plus 5 minutes in between, sure you could get get 4-6 in during a single meeting, but odds are you wouldn't need that many on a weekly basis. If the requests are made ahead of time and there are less than 4, you can optimally schedule them for minimal impact on a meeting's activities. Alternately, you could also hold one either immediately before or immediately after the meeting if the demand happens to be high during a particular week.

 

If you think about it, there are probably 50-80 potential days to hold a board of review on a troop's calendar without having to add special board of review nights. 42-51 meetings, 5 days of summer camp, 9-12 committee meetings, 8-11 campouts (numbers vary between year-round and those that take off the summer except for camp. I didn't even include PLC meeting nights. Even if you remove campouts and summer camp due to lack of committee members, that's still a heck of a lot of potential dates.

 

 

As for the Day X+7 stuff, I would consider it an unreasonable expectation for them to have to accomodate X+7 if it doesn't fall on a night where meetings are already being held. But that doesn't preclude any day in the X+8 through X+13 range being reasonable requests if there is a troop meeting or committee meeting (or even a campout or summer camp that 3 committee members are attending) in that time frame.

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Why wouldn't your troop committee listen to a suggestion? Unless it is completely out of my lane, I volunteer to get my suggestions off the ground.

 

In your shoes, I would suggest at a Committee meeting that I would be more than happy to help organize three adults to sign up to do BORs at every meeting. If there are no BORs to do, then we can sit around and shoot the breeze with each other in the adult space. If after three months (school months), the new system isn't working, go back to the quarterly thing.

 

 

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Inquisition? No one expects the inquisition!

 

Are there BOR's held at the local police precinct?

 

It sounds like there are a lot of registered leaders. Enough, probably, to hold 2-3 BOR's on meeting nights either during the meeting or right after the meeting. These BOR's for rank should only last 10-15 minutes!

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