Time Requirements

[Beavah]

I have to admit somethin'.

 

I don't get troops where the time requirements come into play for advancement.

 

Yah, yah, I know we put in da time requirements as a last-ditch stop against the parents and kids who want to get through the race to Eagle as quickly and easily as possible, and that every troop has to deal with a few of those.

 

But honestly, I've just never seen a strong troop where boys were ever waitin' on time in position for ranks or merit badges.

 

My favorite silly thing is the 3 outings / 7 "activities" requirement for First Class. How in the world a lad could ever really earn First Class with only 3 campouts to his credit is just beyond me. Even makin' allowances for urban Scoutreach units that don't get out much.

 

Camping MB is another one of those. I just don't get counselors or units that regularly gift da badge to boys at the bare minimum number of days & nights. Yah, yah, sure a couple of boys will come to a troop from a family that does a lot of camping as a family, and where the boys start Boy Scouting with a whole lot of skills that most boys don't have. That's when the minimum time requirements should kick in, eh? And only then.

 

To my mind, lookin' at da 4- to 6- month POR requirements at all is just bass-ackwards scouting. The point of serving in a position of responsibility is service and responsibility. For a man of character, those things are their own reward, and yeh do 'em for as long as you need to because that's what being responsible means. Most boys need quite a bit longer than da minimum time to learn and internalize the lessons of character and service that come from those positions, eh?

 

To use advancement well as a method, yeh have to be focused on the boy's growth in skills and character and responsibility, eh? That takes as long as it takes - different amounts of times for each boy. Including different amounts of time in positions of responsibility.

 

Only when yeh have an outstanding lad, a real natural leader with generous spirit whose family has already succeeded completely at instilling adult-like responsibility and character should the time limits ever come into play.

 

So every discussion I see about da 6 month thing (or 5 months 10 days, can't we hold a BOR now??!) or other time requirements, I cringe a bit. Odds are that's a weak scouting unit that isn't really focused on da Aims.

 

Beavah

 

[scoutldr]

"For a man of character, those things are their own reward, and yeh do 'em for as long as you need to because that's what being responsible means."

 

Yeah, I agree and that's the way I was raised. Ya just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. But that's not the way today's kids (and their parents) are being raised. It's that "epidemic of narcissism" thing again.

 

The other problem I see, is that in mega-troops, there aren't enough POR to go around, therefore the 6 month limit..."times up, now Jimmy gets to do it"...Maybe we should let the democratic model have it's way and those who are successful get re-elected, grow into the job,...and get advanced. Wanna make rank? Get yourself elected. Everyone could be a Den Chief, i guess...

[Eagle92]

For me, if the BSA says you must have a minimum of X time since as Y rank in order to get Z rank, then that is the minimum requirement and must be met. If it is not met, thent he award cannot be earned.

 

If the BSA didn't feel that time requirements were necessary, they could always do away with tem as they did with the T-2-1 time requirements in 1989 or so.

 

 

As for your assesment, that has also been my expereuicne as well.

[NJCubScouter]

I find that the time requirements for Star, Life and Eagle rarely come into play, simply because it almost always takes longer than that for the Scouts to complete the rank requirements. For Star and Life, part of the reason is that many of the boys seem to finish up their requirements for the previous rank at summer camp, and our troop has BOR's at camp. Then there always seems to be a lull in advancement activity for a few months, first with the boys taking advantage of the rest of their summer vacation, and then in the fall the focus is on starting the year, getting settled in at school and in the troop, detailed planning for coming meetings, elections and reorganizing, etc. So by the time a boy is ready for their Star or Life BOR, it's the spring or following summer and the 4 or 6 months are past anyway. (I find that when there are exceptions, they are usually for Life. We have some boys who seem to build up a bunch of Eagle-required merit badges while going for Star so that by the time of their Star BOR, they only need one more for Life, so the time requirements do come into play now and then.) For Eagle, of course, it's the project. Since the project process begins after the Life BOR, in order for the time requirements to come into play, the Scout would have to go from project idea to completed, signed-off project and post-writeup, plus all remaining required MB's, plus any odds and ends like the life goals, in 6 months. I have never seen it happen in 6 years in our troop. I know a guy from another troop whose son did it in just about 6 months, but that was because he had to: He did not make Life until 6-and-a-half months before his 18th birthday, and I think he finished his Eagle requirements with a couple of weeks to spare, so in that case it was done in 6 months out of necessity.

 

But other than those rare instances, this just isn't a problem we seem to have.

[NJCubScouter]

Also, we never seem to have the problem of not enough POR's to go around for Scouts going for Star, Life and Eagle. The only elected positions are SPL and PL. For the rest, a boy can be appointed, or move on to a different position, at any time. Usually the ASPL's are the same for the entire year, but not always, and sometimes an ASPL is added during the year. We usually have two or three ASPL's. (Technically there is no limit on the number of ASPL's, but if you have too many, it is difficult for them to have enough to do.) And then you can have a couple of Troop Guides, and there is no limit to the number of Instructors. We have dual Quartermasters sometimes, though one might argue that that isn't a good idea. A troop can also have multiple JASM's, though we have not had more than one of those at a time recently.

 

Then there are the "Scoutmaster-created positions", whatever the exact terminology is. I am not sure how much use our Scoutmaster makes of that. I do know that the POR thing never seems to be an issue.

[Frank17]

We only seem to run into this problem when parent(s) start pushing the kids to advance faster. Most of the scouts are content to stay in scouts, attend outings and trips, and earn ranks / MBs as they come. It is only when Mom or Dad start questioning when that next rank is going to come that we get the requests for early rank advancement. I constantly stress to parents that scouting is a marathon, not a sprint, and that the goal of scouting is not to make Eagle rank, but is to instill into the boys the values of the Scout oath / law. Most say great, but when is my son going to get Eagle? Probably because most of the press BSA gets is about eagle scouts or eagle scout projects, and that is what people are familiar with.

[nolesrule]

Sometimes, but usually not the case, it's the scout that's self motivated. I zipped through Star and Life requirements while ASPL for a year. As for the merit badges, it was a combination of some fun easy ones and of course the merit badge mill summer camp... but even then I always chose what I wanted to take without any input from parents or pressure from parents.

 

But as I said above, that's typically not the case. Too often, either the parents or prgoram are hyper-focused on advancement.

 

 

Of course, once I hit Life, my focus changed, and I stayed Life right up to 3 months before my 18th birthday. Doesn't mean I wasn't active though.

[OldGreyEagle]

Didn't we go to the moon using equipment that barely met the minimum?

[gcnphkr]

The time requirements are also there to protect the youth from capricious scouters. I can easily see a SM preventing a scout from advancing because he "isn't Eagle material".

 

We are approaching "mega-troop" size with 68 scouts on the roster. We currently have 24 scouts needing PORs only 14 are currently in those positions. There are another six that are in PORs but do not need them. Of the ten that are not serving it is because they have not asked. I'll find a way to give them an opportunity to serve.

 

In general the POR time requirement is not an issue, I currently have 3 scouts who are just needing POR time. In two of the cases it is because the scouts have spent years avoiding PORs and now that their 18 birthdays are coming they suddenly need the positions.

 

The same is true with T21 scouts activity requirements. For the most part they are well past the activity requirement before they have finished the other requirements. It does happen on occasion, mostly on Second Class. I can't think of it happening with First Class. Remarkably, I have a scout who will be going on his first campout this weekend, he joined in May, and yes the camping requirements are preventing him from earning his Tenderfoot.

[NJCubScouter]

OGE asks:

 

Didn't we go to the moon using equipment that barely met the minimum?

 

Well, six times out of seven, anyway. The other time (the third time), they didn't make it there and they came very close to not making it back. I think there was a movie made about this.

 

But when it comes to the "philosophy of advancement", I think we are in agreement. The requirements are the requirements, and nobody should be adding to them on the local level.

[Mafaking]

 

"Didn't we go to the moon using equipment that barely met the minimum?"

 

You are thinking of the Titanic.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

I thought what sank the Titantic was a design flaw, that the compartments were not separated from each other so the water flowed over the top of each one to the next

 

Not that the material couldn't have been better however

[NJCubScouter]

I think the analogy between spacecraft and ships, and BSA advancement requirements, is starting to take on water... or to vent oxygen into space... or something...

[eghiglie]

Its not hard for a boy to find a PoR to meet the requirements. The requirement is the requirement and we at the local level shall not add or subtract.

 

Many times I've heard someone say "That boy will be a great Eagle".

 

I think the requirements provide a way of selection. Boys that take it lightly or get the mom's to do the merit badge work seem to have the hardest road to Eagle. Although I've never seen a boy fail a board of review, I have seen many boys have start over to get the project approved by Council.

 

 

[Beavah]

Didn't we go to the moon using equipment that barely met the minimum?

 

Yeh must be jokin'.

 

We went to the moon because a whole lot of well-educated engineers and workers who went way, way, way beyond the minimum in their own lives and in their service made commitments to each other and to their nation to get us there.

 

There's a reason that even 40 years late we still call the hardest of endeavors "rocket science."

 

Beavah