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When do you tell a Scout no on advancement???


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We have a young man in our troop who is there only because his father has promised him a new car if he gets Eagle. He has no interest in the goings on in the Troop. He is disruptive and will not perform his assigned duties on camp outs. Yet he some how earns his merit badges????. He walks around with a shirt, jacket or pull over over his Scout shirt. He only owns a scout shirt, no pants. Never in 4 years have we ever seen him in a Full uniform. His Dad is pushing for a BOR for his Life rank. I personally do not know how he even got this far. I (CC) as well other committee members and scout leaders do not believe he is Eagle material, let alone even being a Scout to begin with. The SM has been approached and knows our feelings. We have asked him to consider turning him down for advancement at the boys next SM conference. The SPL is in agreement also. (One of small problems I have is that the SPL is my son.) Maybe it will shake the kid up enough to straighten up. If the boy's father request a conference with the Committee we will gladly oblige and voice our concerns. He has been talked to on several occasions about his son's attitude already. So any advice here?

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As a Scoutmaster I have on a couple occasions had a Scoutmaster's Conference with parents when it was clear that their boy no longer wanted to be in Boy Scouts. Maybe that is what is needed here.

 

If he is disruptive to the troop I would be inclined to drop him from the charter.

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1) Bring your friendly unit commissioner in on this, as well as your COR.

 

2) Yet he some how earns his merit badges???? The Scoutmaster is the gatekeeper. The Scoutmaster is the one person who authorizes him to begin a Merit Badge. So, if (as you imply) he's getting MBs magically, that one falls on the SM's shoulders. He should do his responsibility: Assign the youth to MB Counselors.

 

3) Did he hold his POR to the satisfaction of his SPLs and the SM, or did folks let him hold the patch and count time? If the latter, that's again on the SM. One of the SM key jobs is to be a mentor to the youth leadership: ACP&P and Requirements #33215, for better or worse, give you the authority to remove a Scout from POR and *rewind* his tenure in leadership.

 

4) I re-iterate: Invite your UC in. Talk about how your unit does advancement. Let him describe what right looks like. Reconcile your system to Scoutings.

 

5) As far as this young man is concerned, he may be the one you have to let through, at least to Life, if your systems and controls really are out of whack. Let him serve as an example to your Scouters of what right does not look like.

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What does Eagle material mean? I imagine that of the 2 million Eagles there are a number that are troublesome. There was one at Camp Shands over the summer that got his Eagle revoked.

 

Likewise there are a ton of Life Scouts that age out and become valuable members of society.

 

Dad should not dangle a car to a kid just because of a badge.

 

If the disruptions impact the troop you do have the position to not recharter him. Its a tough action to take, but like a drivers license, being a member of an organization is a privilege not a right.

 

Does the kid have any interests that the Troop can leverage?

 

Good luck with this one.

 

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Ok,

In reading some of the posts, I have seen the reference to having an Eagle rank revoked. I have never heard of that. Can you please give some examples of how and when that type of action would take place?

 

Thank everyone for educating this very inexperienced Scouter!!!!

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Crossramwedge,

 

I read into your situation that there is an underlying issue of the committee and the SM are not on the same page. Perhaps the SM cannot bring himself to say "no" to a scout, even when that may be the best thing for him and for the troop. If the other scouts see a scout being given advancement rather than earning it, the message they are receiving is that advancement is a joke.

 

Advice: sit down with the scoutmaster and the COR rep (if you are fortunate enough to have an involved chartering organization), and lay out expectations for advancement. If the SM still insists on signing off on scout spirit when it is obvious that it is lacking, then the BOR should review with the scout what he needs to do to gain the approval for the rank advancement. Document this in a letter to the scout, and schedule a new BOR when he has completed them.

 

Secondary advice: If the SM hears what the committee wants with respect to standards, but insists that breathing and the correct number of MB's are the only real standards for advancement, then you need to either take the difficult step of searching for a new SM, or else continue on with the low standards.

 

Third advice: I caution you not to refer to any scout as not being Eagle material. Any scout can be Eagle material, if properly motivated. It appears that this scout is not currently motivated, and does not have to be, because of the currently low standards that have been established.

 

Good Luck

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Crossramwedge -

 

My experience is that kids who do not want to be in Scouts, but are there because mom & dad are forcing them to be there are consistently unruly and disruptive. I highly recommend he be asked to either shape up or ship out. This may seem harsh, but his disruptive behavior affects everyone, especially the other Scouts. He may also be a bully to other Scouts when no adults are looking.

 

After Scouts like this have left our Troop it's like the sun coming out after a dark night - everyone is relieved and the Scouts are much happier. We were amazed at the difference after a couple very disruptive kids who hated Scouting (but mom and dad would not let them quit) finally left.

 

The Scoutmaster needs to call him out when he is disruptive and suspend him from Troop activities. He may get the message, but likely he will be relived and will continue his behavior just so he will get kicked out. That way he and his dad can rationalize and blame the mean old Scoutmaster. But what really matters for the Troop is that he's gone!

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Crossramwedge,

 

Greetings!

 

Eagle Scout is a high accomplishments and achievement that I applaud. Any potential Scout should only achieve Eagle Scout if he has met all of the existing requirements (nothing more, nothing less).

 

Now after some Scouts do achieve Eagle Scout, as eghiglie pointed out, I say most all Eagle Scout soar and just a few fall from the nest. They will know what kind of Eagle Scouts they are, and how their personal character was displayed when taking the easy road on the Scouting trail.

 

A candidate does not have to be signed off favorably by any Board of Review. A candidate can receive a "Youth interviewed who are not advancing". If the entire board is not in agreement that a Scout is ready for the next rank. It is unfortunate, but if a Scout demonstrates apathy or disdain towards Scouting to a board, the committee may not be in complete agreement to advance the youth.

 

I guess I mean. An adult leader cannot stop or stonewall a Scout from advancing. An adult leader can expect all Scouts to meet the same advancement requirements. For this Scout you've commented about; don't treat him special, but treat him fairly. Either he will be eligible for advancement or he won't.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

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Yah, I think SM224 and NealonWheels give solid advice, eh?

 

The issue isn't rank advancement. The issue is behavior and being a good member. Best not to get 'em mixed up. Lots of times we try to use the advancement program for everything, when really it's just meant to be 1/8 of the program which helps the lads with goal-setting and learning.

 

I'd say the lad's next SM Conference and BOR should have nothing to do with advancement. It should have to do with behavior and character and with why he's there, and why you should keep him on the charter.

 

Move advancement off the agenda for dad and everybody else. Da issue is behavior and membership right now. Don't use advancement for somethin' it wasn't designed for.

 

Beavah

 

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You are welcome to adopt Green Bar Bill's philosophy on membership in your Troop. We have.

 

"The real price of membership in this Troop will be unfailing regular attendance at its meetings and outings, and steady progress in all the things that make a Scout "Prepared." If we put our own time into the activities of this Troop, we shall expect you to do your part with equal faithfulness."

 

We do not have 100% attendance, but we have very good attendance. When boys miss events, it is because of other activity conflicts - sports, band, etc. which is fine. If you adopt this standard, the SM can discuss it with the Scout in question and the Scout can decide if he wants to get with the program and be in your Troop

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Advancement for Star, Life and Eagle is about more than merit badges, It is also about "being active" in the troop and "serving actively" in a POR. If the Scout is not doing these things now, he needs to receive the message that he needs to do these things to advance. Period. Once the Scout receives the message, it is up to him to live up to all of the advancement requirements if he hopes to advance.

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Another possible angle is through the BOR's responsibility to ensure all the requirements have been met for the rank. One of the requirements is showing proper Scout Spirit. The SM may be reluctant to establish and hold to a standard for signing the book, but the Troop Committee (through the BOR) can do so.

This is not a power play - it's the TC doing its job of quality control check of the SM's program through the BOR process. When the BOR discovers some weaknesses in the program, they are supposed to feed that information back to the SM so he can appropriately adjust.

If the BOR discovered a scout met his 5-mile map&compass requirement by tagging along at the back of a crowd, never touched a compass or looked at a map, and admitted he didn't have a clue how they worked, it would be fully appropriate to decide the requirement hadn't been met and Johnny needed a little more work before rescheduling the BOR. BOR/TC would chat with SM about improving the map&compass portion of his advancement program so Johnny (and all scouts) can successfully meet the requirements.

Same concept holds true for Scout Spirit. If TC has disagreement over the standards being used to sign off on the requirement, it's time to meet with SM to come to an agreement.

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I know what you mean. I have a troop where my step son attends where the father is paying his son $50.00 per merit badge and $100.00 for Star, $200.00 for Life and $400.00 for Eagle. This "scout" is a royal PIA, and does pretty much the same things as your scout: improper uniform, changes at the church when he gets there, won't wear it when the troop is fund-raising (even though he is the ONLY one that doesn't have it on). I sure wish that the SM would do something, since the other scouts are seeing this and are starting to rebel as well.

 

Pete

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