Troop Advancement Wall Chart

[gbern 10]

Anyone know what happened to the Troop Advancement Wall Chart? Can find one for the Cubs and Venturers but none for Boy Scouts.

Anyone know where one can be found.

[htc1992eaglescout47553 10]

To the best of my knowledge, there is a wall chart for Troops/Teams to use. Contact your local council and check if they have one. If not, have them special order one.

[KoreaScouter 13]

You can still get them; if your council service center doesn't have any, you can get them from the catalog.

 

A couple cautions on those things. First, they only fit about 45 Scouts...if your troop is larger than that, you'll need two. Second, you can't get all the MBs on them if a Scout has more than 36, and that's with all the Palms filled in, too. Third, they're a great graphic reference, but somebody's gotta keep it up. When your NSP moves to permanent patrols, Scouts move away, or new Scouts transfer in, it'll start getting ratty-looking unless you strip it and start over completely -- serious arts/crafts project.

 

It'd be great if there were some sort of Excel-type spreadsheet you could print out and pop in there under the column headings, and it'd all match up -- TroopMaster, are you listening?

 

KS

[ozemu 10]

KS I did just that. I dont need as many places for badges but it is a really useful tool. Inter patrol transfers are just a cut and paste. Colours are easy too. Trouble is - how many have an A3 printer? I think thats what you guys might need.

 

Now Ive just bought a new PC that is Linux based (my protest against microsoft) and I have to do a new one in Open Office - Calc. Is this how Mac users feel?

 

Welcome to the forum gbern(This message has been edited by ozemu)

[LauraT7 13]

you can get one in the BSA catalogue

 

if you take any poster to most educational supply stores - the ones teachers use - you can often get them to laminate the poster - then it becomes a wipe off board. Not quite as slick as a whiteboard - but that's good - at least you can make changes without having to re-do the whole poster.

[OXCOPS 10]

When I was a boy scout about a decade ago, we had an ASM who was BIG into woodwork. He was retired and enjoyed making wooden furniture, etc.

 

He started with a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood (turned sideways). He then took small half-inch strips of wood and made a "grid" on it. Each block that was formed was about a 2 inch square. It was just big enough to hold a merit badge patch. Down the entire left side, were spots to place a strip of wood where he carved the scouters name on it. That way, each scouter has his own row of "blocks" on the board. There were about 50 or so blocks per row. The entire thing was stained a very nice walnut color then coated with a gloss clear coat.

 

He then got strips of plexiglass that were 1-inch tall and ran the entire section of merit badge blocks next to each scouters name. That plexiglass was screwed down to the board, even with the bottom edge of each scouters row of blocks.

 

What he would do was, place the scouters name in a slot on the left side. For every merit badge that scouter earned, he received one for his unifom and one for the wall board. At the presentation ceremony, each scouter got to get up in front of everyone and go place hs merit badge in a slot next to his name. The merit badge was placed behind the small strip of plexiglass (which did not fully cover the block) so it would not fall out, but still remain visible.

 

Right before I left, the ASM made name places with a place to put a rank patch. That way, the younger (or new) scouts could visually look at that board and see all the merit badges the older scouts had earned and then see that they were at a higher rank. It sort of put into perspective that if you want to succeed in scouting and advance in rank, there was work to be done. It gave the younger scouts something to strive for.

 

On the remaining space on the right hand side of the board, he hung a very decorative handmade design of the scout logo.

 

OX(This message has been edited by OXCOPS)

[acco40 95]

A little off topic but ...

 

I was contemplating making some sort of wall chart record of troop advancement but a few parents objected with the comments that it would make the boys who had not earned as many MBs and advanced in rank feel bad. To be honest, I was surprised. This "self esteem" kick that has been drummed into everyone's head has gone overboard.

[nldscout 18]

ACCO,

 

I would make it anyway. Its just like posting the wall chart. It gives them something to aim for, "Beat the Older Guys". PC has to stop somewhere, besides it isn't the boy that will feel bad, its the parents, most of the time the boys are cool with charts like this

[OXCOPS 10]

acco,

 

I noticed that our adult leaders wanted to keep that mindset from ever getting into the heads of boys. The started the moment the wall board went up by pitching it as a tool to congratulate the older scouts for their accomplishments, while at the same time allow the younger scouts to see that it is possible to achieve success.

 

When you tell a tenderfoot that he has to earn "X" number of merit badges, etc. to become an Eagle scout, that number sounds like an impossibility. But, when they can see the awards earned by the star and life scouts in his own troop, ans see just how close they are, it allows them to get a feeling that they can do it too.

 

It is all in how it is presented. The adults must be mindful not to let it become a source of negativity within the troop, but rather a source of inspiration for each scout.

 

OX