Your troop traditions for your Eagles

[moosetracker]

Just got back from an eagle ceremony for someone from our troop. Got me to thinking about our traditions, and was wondering about some of yours..

 

Our troop:

1) Has a Plaque in the hall of our charter organaization with the name of Eagle and the year they became an eagle since the troop was founded (1930)

 

2) Retires the troop flag and hands it to the Eagle scout.

 

3) Gives the Eagle scout the frame for the Eagle certificate with the spot that displays the Eagle pin and a second pin for the frame.

 

4) Creates a slide show with music showing the scout in pictures from when he was a tiger scout (or whenever he started) through to his eagle project. This is presented at the ceremony then the scout gets to keep the slide show.

 

Does your troop have anything they do as tradition?

[NickP412]

We also have a plaque in our charter's hall. It's pretty cool that you guys retire your troop flag but with the size of our troop and our funds it would be to costly for us to do that. So aside from the plaque ....umm....I believe thats all we do, I dont recall anything els.

[Oak Tree]

We do number 1 and we typically do number 4 from your list, depending on what type of ceremony the Scout wants. I don't think we have anything else that's really a troop tradition for the Eagles.

[Eagle92]

In addition to the plaque, we also do table decorations. The base has a point of the Scout Law cut into it, and a place to insert a 12" or 18" FDL The FDL has an Eagle Badge with the Eagle's name and year on one side, and the troop's custom patch onthe other. We use them for the receptions at COHs and ECOHs.

 

 

 

[sbemis1]

The troop does:

1 - Name on the plaque

2 - Frame with patches, mb, badges

3 - Really nice ECOH

 

Retiring the flag would be too expensive for them also.

[Abel Magwitch]

When our troop has an Eagle, our tradition has been to ask the Scout who he would like to present him with the Eagle. What person does that Scout look to with esteem or had made an impact on the Scout personally. We have had principals, teachers, Grandpa's. That person hands the Eagle badge to the boy's mother to pin on.

 

 

I remember long ago, one of our Eagles wanted Neil Armstrong to present him his Eagle. Though Mr. Armstrong could not make it, he sent a beautiful autographed pic as well as some other one of a kind things for the Scout.

 

That's our tradition.

 

[moosetracker]

Never thought of the retiring of the flag as that expensive. (I am talking the Troops American Flag, not the Troops Troop flag.. Maybe that's the confusion.) We may someday have a glicth should any Eagles want to have a co-ceremony..We get an average of two Eagles a year, with some years 1 and some 3. I think of the Frame for the Eagle certificate with second pin as the expensive item, and that is what we present as the Troops "gift" where the expense for retireing the flag is not even thought of. It just is a nice part of the ceremony and it assures us the troop will never have a ratty looking flag..

 

We have the parents plan the Eagle ceremony, although we will have a group of parents who have had Eagles come over and work with the parents to help them with the timeline and where to find info on different ceremonies, and how to pull parts & pieces from ceremonies to make it your own.

 

Do any of you have a person or group that organize it for the Eagle and their family? I thought that would be nice too, because some parents are over whelmed, even with the help. But we do get a variety of ceremonies our way, so it is alway interesting to see the differences.. They are always held in different places (none of our Eagles yet want's it held where the week to week meeting takes place). Different speakers, variety of other items, Like either the 100 scouts.. or poetry, or the boys of each rank standing near their rank and running the Eagle up the ladder etc..

 

 

[Horizon]

Our Troop has around 5 Eagles per year. This year will be a bumper crop of 10+ it appears (including my son once he finishes Personal Management and Family Life - finished his project just recently).

 

The Troop provides and hosts the COH at our Charter, with food and cake.

The script is a standard one (Google "Voice of the of the Eagle COH" and you should be able to find it online)

The Troop invites the Mayor and City Council. We get one of them usually.

The Troop has a plaque that needs updating badly so that I can talk to our newish COR about having it in the meeting hall.

Our Troop photographer puts together a slide show of photos going as far back as possible.

 

For the future:

I want to encourage Eagles to have Challenge coins.

[moosetracker]

Horizon - Explain the challenge coin?.. Is this challenging someone else in the troop to complete their Eagle?.. I have heard of something along this line with brothers, where the brother passes down a hat, of neckerchief or something, and challenges the younger brother. My son didn't have a brother. This could be interesting.

 

 

[prof]

Horizon,

I love the idea of the challenge coin!

Prof

[Horizon]

Challenge Coins are just that - the Eagle calls a younger Scout up to the stage and gives him a coin. The Scout is then to earn HIS Eagle and pass it on someday.

 

At my Troop growing up, there were coins that had gone through several generations. There were others that were orphaned as well.

 

 

[SR540Beaver]

We unfortunately don't have many Eagle traditions or they are lost. Our Troop is 45 years old and has close to 160 Eagles over that time. When I first came to the troop in 2005, we had individual Eagle ceremonies planned by the boy and his family, often at the venue of their choice. Since we typically run around 60 boys on our roster and we currently have about 20 boys sitting on Life, it was determined that the ECOH would be done as part of the regular COH's and there would be multiple Eagles presented at them. Any personalization of the event is done at a table provided for the boy at the reception following the COH. I don't like it as I think a boy who has attained Eagle deserves to have his horn tooted a little more than that. But then, I'm not the SM who would have to attend all of those multiple ECOH's on top of all his other responsibilities throughout the year.

 

I understood the reasoning behind the policy, but I didn't care for it at the time it was made. Now that my son is a project away from earning Eagle, I like it even less.

[jhankins]

As a DE, I would get one of the Eagle coins engraved for every ECOH I was invited to. The council rep in charge of recording the info would give me the boy's BOR date, and I'd have that engraved on the coin with "Once an Eagle Always an Eagle, [Date], from the XX District"

 

The best story I've heard so far -- one young man took his coin with him to boot camp, and he wrote a letter home for the Scoutmaster to pass on a thank you -- he was the only recruit to have a challenge coin already!

[desertrat77]

When I was a scout, the sole tradition our troop had for new Eagles was the presentation of a new folding Buck knife, #112, a popular model in the late '70s. It always an off-the-self item, and it wasn't engraved, and nothing particularly special about it, but it was considered a very cool incentive by the scouts in our troop.

 

Modern day, something I saw a couple years ago, was a family member passing his Eagle medal on to the new Eagle (his nephew). Very powerful. The new Eagle also got a current Eagle kit, but he'll always wear his uncle's Eagle medal with pride, if he chooses to do so.

[scoutmaster52]

1) We have the Plaque in the hall.

2) They are presented with a sweatshirt with an embroided Eagle Scout Medal.

3) The most previous Eagle Scout gives the Eagle Scout Promise.

4) Personalized Ceremony.

5) Letters from the President, the Sec Defense, the Sec Commerce and Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs.

6 A 5 year subscriplion to NESA.