Eagle Coach - fact and fiction

[RememberSchiff]

I must have missed the memo(s) on this, but last January some minor changes occurred with the Eagle Project workbook. One note there is an "Eagle Coach" which is a role as opposed to the Eagle Advisor which is a position? The Eagle Coach role, depending on what one reads or hears, starts AFTER the project proposal has been approved or BEFORE. The Eagle candidate is NOT required to have an Eagle Advisor or have anyone serve in the role as Eagle Coach if he so desires (old school is still possible )

 

So some polling questions

[qwazse]

I'll have to ask our Eagle advisor before I make an informed vote. Maybe he knows he's a coach or not? I'm confused. Missed one too many roundtables I guess.

[Basementdweller]

I did not have an eagle coach or mentor or buddy when I did mine......I had a half a dozen paged ditto packet I followed.....When I had a question I went to the scoutmaster....

 

 

While this isn't PC or the soft warm and fuzzy they want the BSA to be...........Do away with them......or have a hand full of experts per district to answer the question....

 

 

We don't need someone chasing an Eagle along making sure he is making progress.

 

[skeptic]

I did not have an eagle coach or mentor or buddy when I did mine......I had a half a dozen paged ditto packet I followed.....When I had a question I went to the scoutmaster....

 

 

While this isn't PC or the soft warm and fuzzy they want the BSA to be...........Do away with them......or have a hand full of experts per district to answer the question....

 

 

We don't need someone chasing an Eagle along making sure he is making progress.

Sure we do Base; that way they are less likely to make a mistake and learn from it the hard way. And, if something goes wrong, then they have someone else to blame. Remember that in today's society in this country children are not allowed to experience negative events or feelings, as they might grow up emotionally damaged.

[RememberSchiff]

I did not have an eagle coach or mentor or buddy when I did mine......I had a half a dozen paged ditto packet I followed.....When I had a question I went to the scoutmaster....

 

 

While this isn't PC or the soft warm and fuzzy they want the BSA to be...........Do away with them......or have a hand full of experts per district to answer the question....

 

 

We don't need someone chasing an Eagle along making sure he is making progress.

Agree. Back in the day, a scout flew solo on the Eagle project, as soaring Eagles-to-be should. In my case, I did mine over a summer only to get rejected by the Troop Committee. They agreed that I did some hard and helpful work but the project itself did not qualify and I should have checked with them first. You will have to start over. Hard lesson learned.

[Bando]

I did not have an eagle coach or mentor or buddy when I did mine......I had a half a dozen paged ditto packet I followed.....When I had a question I went to the scoutmaster....

 

 

While this isn't PC or the soft warm and fuzzy they want the BSA to be...........Do away with them......or have a hand full of experts per district to answer the question....

 

 

We don't need someone chasing an Eagle along making sure he is making progress.

It's not as much chasing after their progress as making sure they're doing things correctly and safely.

 

For the number of Eagle candidates I've seen just go ahead and do a project without going through the proper approval process, then get ticked because they have to do another project, or who messed up the complicated paperwork because they didn't read through things carefully enough, it seems to me having an adult look things over and explain the process is an important, if not mandatory part of becoming an Eagle Scout in 2013. Having someone in your troop with contacts at the council to sort out any paperwork snafus, who has read and worked with the material over and over and over again, and knows the best ways to navigate that horribly convoluted Eagle packet, is an invaluable thing for your scouts.

 

"Hard lessons" are great and all, but the "back in the day" Eagle process no longer exists. There's no need to throw teenagers to the wolves for paperwork, technicalities, and BSA "cover-our-ass" legalities.

[Basementdweller]

Well if you stupid enough to start a project before it has hall the proper approvals...................Well what can ya say, ya got what ya deserved.

 

 

So what your saying is your SPL who has run the troop program for a number of months can't read the pamphlet and get it figured out.

[King Ding Dong]

Well if you stupid enough to start a project before it has hall the proper approvals...................Well what can ya say, ya got what ya deserved.

 

 

So what your saying is your SPL who has run the troop program for a number of months can't read the pamphlet and get it figured out.

The reading skills of your average 11 year old Life Scout aren't what they used to be.

[Bando]

Well if you stupid enough to start a project before it has hall the proper approvals...................Well what can ya say, ya got what ya deserved.

 

 

So what your saying is your SPL who has run the troop program for a number of months can't read the pamphlet and get it figured out.

If only the world was an ideal place, the kind of place where kids carefully read a confusing pamphlet, where adults used one period instead of thirteen, and the difference between "your" and "you're" was easily understood.

[Twocubdad]

If reading the pamphlet included the information you need to complete the process, you would have a point, Base. But how much of the real, actual approval is left up to the local districts and councils to implement. Hell, the process here has changed two or three times SINCE the new workbook came out.

 

We have long had a couple ASMs and myself who work with the Scouts on their Eagle projects. Before the new workbook came our, ours was a council that had a two page checklist of required touch points proposal were required to contain -- one of which was a copy of the completed checklist cross referenced with the page numbers where each item could be found. One of my ASMs is a black belt Six-Sigma instructor and he thought the process was insane.

 

Now that the proposal process has been streamlined, we don't have to focus so much on paperwork and BS. One of my ASMs is a draftsman and helps the boys with the plans for their projects (typically earning Drafting MB along the way). For a number of reasons (mostly tradition) our guys tend to do projects which include some sort of construction, so there is a fair bit of ejamacation the scouts need. -- when in your Scout career are you taught to build a picnic table or lay brick for a fire ring?

[Basementdweller]

Well if you stupid enough to start a project before it has hall the proper approvals...................Well what can ya say, ya got what ya deserved.

 

 

So what your saying is your SPL who has run the troop program for a number of months can't read the pamphlet and get it figured out.

My eyes aren't as good as they used to be.............posting on the small screen of a smart phone is tough........Auto correct works ok, but isn't perfect.

 

Luv ya to bando.....

[Bando]

If reading the pamphlet included the information you need to complete the process, you would have a point, Base. But how much of the real, actual approval is left up to the local districts and councils to implement. Hell, the process here has changed two or three times SINCE the new workbook came out.

 

We have long had a couple ASMs and myself who work with the Scouts on their Eagle projects. Before the new workbook came our, ours was a council that had a two page checklist of required touch points proposal were required to contain -- one of which was a copy of the completed checklist cross referenced with the page numbers where each item could be found. One of my ASMs is a black belt Six-Sigma instructor and he thought the process was insane.

 

Now that the proposal process has been streamlined, we don't have to focus so much on paperwork and BS. One of my ASMs is a draftsman and helps the boys with the plans for their projects (typically earning Drafting MB along the way). For a number of reasons (mostly tradition) our guys tend to do projects which include some sort of construction, so there is a fair bit of ejamacation the scouts need. -- when in your Scout career are you taught to build a picnic table or lay brick for a fire ring?

Exactly. I'd say about 75% of what my troop's Eagle Coordinator does is expediting paperwork back and forth from the council, navigating approval processes, and meticulously going over every little part of that packet to make sure the kid did things correctly so it doesn't get bogged down or rejected once it gets to the outside folks. It's better that these things are done correctly, and the process as it exists today makes it very hard for a teenager to do that without some difficulty. It's more streamlined than it used to be, but it still leaves many opportunities for snags and hitches.

 

There's nothing in the Eagle requirements that says a scout can't or shouldn't get help from an adult. We're not there to do everything for them, but we're not there to sit on our hands and watch them screw up and waste their time just to teach some twisted life lesson. If they ask, and they often do, we help.

[Basementdweller]

If reading the pamphlet included the information you need to complete the process, you would have a point, Base. But how much of the real, actual approval is left up to the local districts and councils to implement. Hell, the process here has changed two or three times SINCE the new workbook came out.

 

We have long had a couple ASMs and myself who work with the Scouts on their Eagle projects. Before the new workbook came our, ours was a council that had a two page checklist of required touch points proposal were required to contain -- one of which was a copy of the completed checklist cross referenced with the page numbers where each item could be found. One of my ASMs is a black belt Six-Sigma instructor and he thought the process was insane.

 

Now that the proposal process has been streamlined, we don't have to focus so much on paperwork and BS. One of my ASMs is a draftsman and helps the boys with the plans for their projects (typically earning Drafting MB along the way). For a number of reasons (mostly tradition) our guys tend to do projects which include some sort of construction, so there is a fair bit of ejamacation the scouts need. -- when in your Scout career are you taught to build a picnic table or lay brick for a fire ring?

So Bando how many Eagles a year does your troop produce???

[RememberSchiff]

If reading the pamphlet included the information you need to complete the process, you would have a point, Base. But how much of the real, actual approval is left up to the local districts and councils to implement. Hell, the process here has changed two or three times SINCE the new workbook came out.

 

We have long had a couple ASMs and myself who work with the Scouts on their Eagle projects. Before the new workbook came our, ours was a council that had a two page checklist of required touch points proposal were required to contain -- one of which was a copy of the completed checklist cross referenced with the page numbers where each item could be found. One of my ASMs is a black belt Six-Sigma instructor and he thought the process was insane.

 

Now that the proposal process has been streamlined, we don't have to focus so much on paperwork and BS. One of my ASMs is a draftsman and helps the boys with the plans for their projects (typically earning Drafting MB along the way). For a number of reasons (mostly tradition) our guys tend to do projects which include some sort of construction, so there is a fair bit of ejamacation the scouts need. -- when in your Scout career are you taught to build a picnic table or lay brick for a fire ring?

Twisted life lessons? Like being prepared, using a checklist, managing time, backup plans...Our scouts mail their own paperwork to Council, in some cases this was the first time they have used the US Mail.

[Eagledad]

Interesting discussion. Our scouts are responsible for taking care of paper work and getting it to council. They are responsible telling the SM the date they set their BOR. We did not realize how challeging that was until we had a 16 year old transfer who only needed 6 badges to finish. He showed up one meeting with his dad to ask why the scouts were responsible for paperwork and taking care of BOR instead of the adults like his previous troop. No one had ever asked that before, so I was caught off guard. But I simply said we expect our Eagles to act like adults. That was a satisfactory answer for dad, so we help the scout get started and he did fine. I'm not sure if that was the reason, but the scout told us later that he was glad he got the Eagle in our troop instead of his previous one. That scout was a local hero a year later when revived an infant found at the bottom of a pool. My thoughts on Eagle coaches is district should train unit leaders the process the district and council expects. The biggest problems I've seen with eagle applications in our district is the confusion (ignorance) of unit leaders with district and council Eagle committees. Its ok to point the scouts in a direction and wait for questions, but when the coach becomes a crutch, they went to far. Barry