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Interesting observation - rank advancement


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Yes someone made the decision at the council level. Whether it was proper or not, it is done.  And National does indeed have a history of not penalizing youth for the mistakes of the adults, even when the youth should know better and there is plenty of time to rectify the situation.

But in this instance I hope and pray that National Sticks to their guns on this. Granting her Eagle  would be a disservice to every single girl who is currently pursuing Eagle by earning the awards as members of the BSA. 

But if BSA wants to give it to her, then they shoudl also give it to every female Sea Scout QM , Venturer Silver or Summit holder, and possibly Explorer Achievement and G.O.L.D. awards recipient.

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One thing I learned as a scoutmaster: get all the information before having an opinion. We don't have all the information. We can guess but won't help. Something else that has helped my sanity; r

Sure, why not 🙂 Competition is good, and probably more importantly, an informed notion of what various people and units might think are reasonable expectations, wouldn't be a bad thing. I'll

I think any attempts by BSA to legally squelch her so-called board of review would just give Ireland more gasoline to throw on her "BSA is systematically oppressing me" fire. If Ireland has no problem

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57 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

But in this instance I hope and pray that National Sticks to their guns on this. Granting her Eagle  would be a disservice to every single girl who is currently pursuing Eagle by earning the awards as members of the BSA. 

My point here is not the this Scout deserves to be the first female Eagle Scout.  My point is that all this posturing, rules, and artificial timelines is the wrong direction for the BSA.

On this forum, we constantly talk about how 1st Class is so much more important than Eagle.  Yet, there's no restriction on when we'll have the first female 1st Class Scout.  Now we've got this goofy timeline of when we'll have the first female Eagle Scout.  By National creating this timeline that are continuing to inflate the imprtance of this rank.  Eagle is now so special that we've created an indealized schedule of when we'll have Scouts receive the first one. 

Now we've got a whole class of girls that are racing to make this imposed deadline.  For what - to be part of the first class of female Eagle Scouts?  I'd argue that the BSA is doing a disservice to these girls.  If there was not a "class of firsts", many of these girls would probably say - "hey, I won't be first - so there'e no real rush here."  They'd enjoy the program more and get more out of it.

National should simply process the awards as they come in. If Ms. Ireland is the first one - what really is the big deal?  So she tweets about it, makes a press release, put's it on her resume, creates a plaque in her town square, gets herself recorded in Wikipedia.  So what?  The BSA should never acknowledge who the first one is.  There sould not be a press release about it.  Etc.  Just award the rank and move on.

And yes, for weird cases like Ms. Ireland you've got a Scout who finishes her Scouting career, goes off to college, and then gets a package in the mail a year later (Oct. 2020) with her Eagle award.  I guess that teaches here a lesson - but again, it seems to misguided one to me.  Just let the kid get her award and move on.

 

 

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You know my thoughts on advancement: it is not a race, but a journey. I think National made a good decision on stating the earliest they would recognize any group of female Eagles as I believe it would create more problems in the long term.

As for Ms. Ireland, I do not want to reward bad behavior, and that is exactly how she is acting: badly. She has gotten exactly what she has been fighting for, the opportunity to earn Eagle. Now she wants more, she wants work she has done prior to joining to count.

 

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A moderator reminder, lets limit our criticism to culpable adults and there are many in this case. Thanks.

IMHO, remedies for adult misbehavior and mistakes in the Advancement Method are long overdue. There are just too many ways to play the system. 

My $0.02

 

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24 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

A moderator reminder, lets limit our criticism to culpable adults and there are many in this case.

Would you happen to know if it is a common practice for Canada?  Or were the Canadian scouts just trying to mess with us?

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1 minute ago, David CO said:

Would you happen to know if it is a common practice for Canada?  Or were the Canadian scouts just trying to mess with us?

No I don't. Were there any ads like  "American girls,  your path to Eagle is through Canada. Keep Exploring and more in Canada..."  ?   :D

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In 2016, Paige Spears, then 14, of Winslow, ME achieved Scout Canada’s Chief Scout Award. Chief Scout is the highest rank in the Scouting section of Scouts Canada, making it equivalent to Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts or Gold Award in Girl Scouts. (No word if Ms. Spears is still a BSA member  - RS)

She holds dual American-Canadian citizenship through her mother. She is a member of the 1st Ketepec Scout Group of Grand Bay, New Brunswick. She participated in the Scouts Canada program as a visiting Scout with Winslow Boy Scout Troop 433/Venture Crew 443, where her stepfather, Chris Bernier, serves as Scoutmaster. Paige completed the requirements for Chief Scout in June. For her conservation service project, she constructed several bat houses and installed them at Camp Bomazeen in Belgrade, ME according to a news release from Bernier.

667418_628882-1st-Ketepec-with-LT-.jpg?f

More details at source:

https://www.centralmaine.com/2016/11/16/paige-spears-achieves-scout-canadas-chief-scout-award/

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4 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

n 2016, Paige Spears, then 14, of Winslow, ME achieved Scout Canada’s Chief Scout Award. Chief Scout is the highest rank in the Scouting section of Scouts Canada, making it equivalent to Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts or Gold Award in Girl Scouts. (No word if Ms. Spears is still a BSA member  - RS)

So Paige could get eagle by not doing much more than asking for it? She could squeeze in just before Sydney. Zing! Such poetic justice. But Paige likely is a bit more humble and probably doesn't care. More poetry.

To each his, or her, own.

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I remember reading in the advancement policy, that if a scout comes from another country, individual requirements can be reviewed and counted toward applicability to American requirements, but an Eagle rank would not be awarded.

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On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 4:14 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

Many point out that whomever granted her Life did it inappropriately as she is not a youth from another country but a US citizen. The key parts of that are "Youth from other countries who temporarily reside in the United States, or have moved here which she did neither. 

Is it your contention that the intent behind the GTA was to disadvantage US citizens? Or, was perhaps the language used simply not inclusive enough to consider all the potential variables (in other words, an oversight)?

Do you really think BSA set out to tell a US citizen that they are prohibited from some tools of advancement that we offer to Canadians?

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