Advancement experts help!

[yarrow]

Our committee has tried to tie down some of the advancement requirements.

 

Any of you out there advancement experts.

 

May we require a scout to participate in a fund-raisers to advance, as a part of "being active"?

 

Can we define the Leadership Project in Star and Life to be a minimum of hours?

 

Can we define "being active" to participation in a minimum number of activities per 6 month period before the requested advancement?

 

Must the evaluation of the Leadership project be done by the Scout Master or ASM before the Board or can it be done at the Board?

[David L. Perkins]

I was Advancement Chairman for our Troop for 9 years. But that was four years ago as the new Boy Scout Handbook was coming in.

 

I will give you my opinion on your questions as the only guidance I can offer.

 

1. A Scout should know he has a responsibility to provide service work as a benefit to his community. He also has a responsibility to cover his costs for his participation in a Troop and owes service time to his Sponsor Organization. However, advancement should only require attendance at meetings, campouts and other Troop activities that are designed for the Troop membership's benefit - for their development. "Being Active" is for his own benefit, and should not be designed for the Troop's benefit.

 

2. The benefit of the Leadership Project should be explained to the Scout as to why it is in "his" book for "him" to do. You could offer guidance if he asks but each project has to be weighed for it's own merits, shouldn't it?

 

3. It is easy for you to "judge the Scout" but our job is more to help the Scout learn how to "judge himself" and his own actions in relation to the Scout Oath, Scout Law, and Scout Slogan. Let these be our guide and his for his own benefit.

 

4. Since it has to be signed off, I believe the judgement is still the responsibility of whomever the Troop has assigned authority to for this sign-off upon completion. The Board has a responsibility to determine the "effects " the completed requirement has had on the development of the Scout. Did he gain the knowledge he should have from this activity? I have found that the amount the Scout has learned usually equals the "effort", not the time, he put in to it.

 

Hope this helps. I think sometimes we try too hard to judge the Scout when our real job is to help develop leaders who have learned they have a responsibility for themselves and others, not that they have learned how to live in a box designed by others.

I think your Troop and its' leadership is in a very healthy condition because you have taken the time and effort to ask these type questions.

 

[Mike Long]

1. Yes, all play and no work makes spoiled little boys that grow up to be spoiled little boys.

 

2.The service requirements ARE defined as 6 hours for Star and 6 hours for Life and 30 for Eagle (as told to me by my district advancement chair and council advancement chair) Scouts may combine several smaller projects to total out to the 6 required for Star and the 6 for Life. However Scouts may not "Bank" hours. The 6 for Life must be completed as a Star Scout and the 6 for Star must be completed as a first Class. All service hours must be approved by the Scoutmaster.

 

3. That is up to the individual Troop and have never recieved any real answer from anyone "In the Know" Many Troops in my area do have such requirements. We ask for 75% participation. Be very careful with your policy. It is very easy to create a policy that intends to get nintendo junkies active that ends up punishing Scouts who just so happen to be very active at school and church. There are some very good Scouts who can't hit the "magic nuber" of events to be considered active because they are out being Very Good Scouts. If you do feel the need to implement a policy be sure that it addresses this.

 

4.Seeing as all requirements must be signed off and completed before the B.O.R. I think that it would be handled by the Scoutmaster or the adult the your Troop has to handle it. This does not mean that the BOR should not discuss his leadership experiences. I think they should, the experience give a great insight as to the Scouts personal growth. If a Scout can tell me the responsbilities of his position, what worked and what did not and come up with a plan to improve his shortcomings, he did the requirement sucessfully.

[DFlah]

I think that Mike Long makes many good points, but remember you cannot add to or take away from the Scouting requirements. If you can the Scouting requirements you may have a group, but it is no longer Scouting, maybe Awanas or even Girl Scouts, but not Boy Scouts.

 

As for service project hours, Mike has already stated the service project hours are set forth in the Star and Life badges, Eagle however has no set requirement for hours. The Scout requirements provide that an individual create, plan and carry out a project, demonstrating service to the community and leadership. Generally a rule of thumb for our district is 40 hours, but that is not a requirement (see above). Then approval is received from the Scoutmaster (Scoutmaster's Conference), the Troop Committee (Committee Review) and the District Representative.

 

As for the leadership and attendance the Handbook requires leadership and your Scoutmaster can handle the attendance in his review. Remember your Scoutmaster is the main individual responsible for program. He is the one with the closest contact to the Scout and he is responsible for presnting the Scout at the Board of Review indicating his opinion that the Scout is ready for advancement.

 

Remember the Board of Review not only reviews the Scout but the effectiveness of the program. The Scoutmaster serves at the behest of the sponsoring organization and the committee. If the Scoutmaster is not doing the job, those groups are responsible for his/her removal.

[Mike Long]

The 30 hours that I stated as being the "magic number" for an Eagle project was given to me at a SMF class held by our council. Someone asked if there was a number that needed to be hit and the answer that came from those teaching the course (and several others in the crowd) was a resounding "30." Given who it came from and the matter-of-factness of the response led me to believe that it was a number mandated by the BSA itself. I think I need to find further verification on that one.

[jmcquillan]

Nowhere, to my knowledge, in Scouting, is the number of hours for an Eagle Project specified. I will tell you, though, that the 30-40 hours you have both indicated is quite low by 'rule of thumb' for troops in our area. The 'average' number of hours around these parts is more like 100 hours for the total project. That includes the time that the candidate spends getting his approvals, getting the project done, and writing his report. It also includes the time spent by any volunteers who help him with his project. In our troop, most projects run 100-150 hours total, but I've been witness to larger efforts.

[Mike Long]

This I find very interesting and is a personal pet peeve of mine. When I worked on my Eagle project I was told I needed to hit 100 hours. My project was huge and almost overwhelmed me (3000 hours.) I finished it and then I met some Eagles that spent a Saturday painting two park benches in less time than was required for Star or Life. It really bugged me to know that there were Eagles out there who intend to do only just enough to squeak by and that there were Scouters that were Ok with this. I guess it's fine as long as the project truly challenges the Scout's abilities but I though we were supposed to be the achievers who aimed high.

 

We ask our Eagle candidates to approach the project as if it were a business and to consider all aspects of it in their report and proposal. The boys who have used this method all said they learned much more about the way things really work in the working world. Of course the only way to measure the time spent is in man-hours. Our boys tend to hit the 100+ mark too.

 

I wonder where these numbers come from? If everyone has a different number it would seem to indicate that each area creates its own standard and personally I don't think that's a good idea.

[jmcquillan]

I couldn't agree more. There's really nothing magic about the 100+ hours that candidates spend on projects in our area. Our experience has shown that a candidate working on all elements of a project usually takes at least this long to gather the information requried, get approvals, plan, perform, and report. Experience also shows that anything substantially less than the 100 or so hours results in a project that does not allow sufficient time for the candidate to show his planning and leadership skills. And THAT is what it's all about, isn't it? The whole purpose of the project is not to do work. That's only a part of the process. The real purpose is to have the candidate challenge himself in such a way that he can actually practice the skills we hope he's learned and provide real evidence to that effect. Of course, we've had candidates come forward with project proposals that looked like they would take 3000 hours to complete. We've never let those go forward. To those candidates, we've offered extensive counselling on the merits of choosing and planning a project that is both achievable and acceptable within the guidelines published. And having a project ACHIEVABLE is key to it's success. It can be very disheartening to a candidate to realize too late that he's bittne of more than he can chew. Thus, we counsel when necessary. The flip side, of course, is the candidate who comes forward with a proposal for a 30-40 hour, all inclusive, project. At that time we counsel with regard to time necessary to prove ability, skills, planning, and leadership.

 

I suppose if you broke it down, there are projects where the actual 'working' part of the project may only take 40-50 hours, for all participants and volunteers. But the approvals, planning, record keeping, and reporting can take quite a while when done correctly. And those parts are just as important in providing evidence of skills, planning, and leadership as the 'working' part.

 

The longest I've ever allowed a Scout to plan for was 300 hours. That project was the construction of a canoe landing on a local major river. It involved meeting with local, state, and federal agencies, public meetings, and document production as well as the 'normal' parts we thin of in a project. The result...? The candidate went on to a full scholarship at MIT, and became a very good Environmental Engineer. Talk about your pride in the product!!! We still can;t stop talking about that fellow.

 

[Mike Long]

Somebody must have turned around the pulpit cause we are all preaching to the Choir!

 

I'll be the first to tell a boy he's reaching for too much in a project. If you are wondering, I built a 1.5 mile nature trail in a local city park and it took me 1 year. I now have 9 Life Scouts looking for projects. The problem is that a few of them took my example to heart and stated their intent to do massive projects like mine. I was extremely flattered but after a frank and open discussion of what it tanks to pull something that big off successfuly they all backed down to reasonable sized projects.

 

I do believe that all the planning and prep work that goes into a project is probably the most important aspect of an Eagle project. Anyone can do grunt work but the "pre-flight" is where the Scout realizes all the work that must be done in order to get anything done. All of them are amazed at the amount of work that goes on that they normally never see. Package that experience with good old fashioned dirty nail and blister work and the boy is well on his way to a bright future.

 

One thing that our committe asks each Scout of his project is "Do you believe that his project will truly challenge your abilities?" if the answer is yes then we ask "Exactly how will it challenge you and what do you hope to learn?"

If a Scout responds with a "No" to the first question the project needs to be reconsidered.

[slontwovvy]

In the past five years, our troop has had 11 Eagles, and we've only had one do a project under three hundred hours (175 hours). Although our troop is a bit abnormal in our parts because we earn our Eagle rank, we've found that most projects go between 30-100 hours.