Star to Life

[Stayhome12000]

Just realized based on when the Troop BOR dates fell, my son is short on days (4 days short of 6 months from Star to Life). How is that going to affect him going forward? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Sentinel947]

If it's the troops error, it shouldn't effect him the slightest. Ideally your troop should have BORs on a as needed basis, not scheduled for handful of specific times throughout the year. Overall your son should be fine.

 

Keep us updated on the situation. Thanks for posting here! Feel free to comment anywhere else in the forum.

 

Sentinel947

[EagleScout441]

My Troop does BoRs the 2 meetings prior to Courts of Honor and anytime if requested by a Scout. i.e. I did my Life BoR two months prior to the closest CoH simply by requesting it.

When is the closest Troop CoH following the six month Life requirement?

[Stosh]

Start working on the next rank, the troop will catch up.

[qwazse]

Every troop is different. But most that keep to a schedule have monthly BOR's. So, although 4 days late for this one he'll be 26 days ahead of schedule. How old is the boy?

[Stayhome12000]

My son has already completed his Star BOR at the Troop level but based on the dates of the monthly scheduled Troop BOR, it was 4 days shy of 6 month mark. Just how the dates fell. He earned his Life, but we were plugging numbers into a Eagle Checker spreadsheet and receive an 'ERROR message' on 'At Least 6 months as a Star Scout' - 4 days short. Should that have been addressed by the adults conducting the BOR?

 

He is Life now working towards Eagle. Is this issue going to cause a problem since he will have the 6 months needed for Life to Eagle and will easily meet that requirement? He just turned 17 so more than enough time, but obviously dates are already recorded with the council office based on when he completed his Life BOR.

[qwazse]

The general rule is we don't let adult errors get in the way of a boy's success. They should have waited four days. They didn't. They boy's scout spirit did not change in those four days (assuming mom's word is good ).

 

The SM or CC should talk to the council registrar about modifying the date of the Life BOR. There may be no more paperwork necessary than writing the correct date on the Eagle application then explaining the discrepancy when you turn the form in, but it is a whole lot easier if the error is rectified now. (Basically someone at your council HQ should cross-check every date on the Eagle App with council records, and every discrepancy slows them down.)

[topshot]

I'm curious how often most Troops hold elections. We just started to look at this Star to Life time issue in depth. We have elections only twice a year (2nd Mon of May and Nov). This means the May-Nov Scouts will always be short 3 days (which seems stupid to me since Nov-May span is actually fewer days). They can wait for the next monthly BoR to get advanced, but they also must have some type of position or special SM project to cover the extra days (assuming they aren't re-elected into another one that counts). To me this seems rather unfair.

 

Maybe our Eagles have been lucky to not have been Star during the May-Nov cycle or it just got dismissed as Troop error at their EBOR. I figure we should fix it so it's never an issue, but don't see how to do it simply. Yearly elections definitely won't work. So what are you doing to get around this issue?

[qwazse]

I'm curious how often most Troops hold elections. We just started to look at this Star to Life time issue in depth. We have elections only twice a year (2nd Mon of May and Nov). This means the May-Nov Scouts will always be short 3 days (which seems stupid to me since Nov-May span is actually fewer days). They can wait for the next monthly BoR to get advanced, but they also must have some type of position or special SM project to cover the extra days (assuming they aren't re-elected into another one that counts). To me this seems rather unfair.

 

Maybe our Eagles have been lucky to not have been Star during the May-Nov cycle or it just got dismissed as Troop error at their EBOR. I figure we should fix it so it's never an issue, but don't see how to do it simply. Yearly elections definitely won't work. So what are you doing to get around this issue?

'Bout twice a year seems to be the norm. Most boys are already in leadership by the time they make star, so their POR is jus a continuation of what they already are doing.

[T2Eagle]

I'm curious how often most Troops hold elections. We just started to look at this Star to Life time issue in depth. We have elections only twice a year (2nd Mon of May and Nov). This means the May-Nov Scouts will always be short 3 days (which seems stupid to me since Nov-May span is actually fewer days). They can wait for the next monthly BoR to get advanced, but they also must have some type of position or special SM project to cover the extra days (assuming they aren't re-elected into another one that counts). To me this seems rather unfair.

 

Maybe our Eagles have been lucky to not have been Star during the May-Nov cycle or it just got dismissed as Troop error at their EBOR. I figure we should fix it so it's never an issue, but don't see how to do it simply. Yearly elections definitely won't work. So what are you doing to get around this issue?

In part because we ran into a similar issue as the OP we always make the effective date of the new POR at least six months after the last one even if it means a day or two later than the election. We use the election day as the start date for the new PORs. On paper there are occasionally two people holding the same position for a couple of days but there's no rule against that and this just makes for clean bookkeeping.

[Fehler]

Make your elections on a meeting near the end of the month, and have terms start officially the first of the next month. Gives time for office transitions, as needed.

[qwazse]

Gotta ask. How many of you have a scout who goes without a POR for more than a month once he gets to 1st class? I understand boys may back off for sports season, but ours usually pick up another responsibility as soon as the season ends. Even before we had the crew, there were plenty of jobs to do.

 

We NEVER worry about timing elections. EVER.

[Eagle92]

One thing I liked about the old Leadership Corps program, being a member of it could be used for a POR without specifically assigned duties. Grant you, LC I grew up in did have some folks with assigned positions, Instructor. ASPL, etc, but some folks had no assigned duteies, but were expected to g'git 'er doner" when told to do it.