HOW LONG DOES A SCOUT HAVE TO COMPLETE A MERIT BADGE ?

[caddmommy 10]

I NEED SOME INSIGHT HERE.

 

I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BLUE CARDS AND MERIT BADGES.

 

MY SON TRANSFERRED INTO A TROOP BEFORE ALL HIS PARTIALS WERE COMPLETED. WHEN TALKING TO THE ADVANCEMENT COORDINATOR OF HIS NEW TROOP, I WAS TOLD THAT FOR A MERIT BADGE BLUE CARD TO BE CURRENT, THE SCOUT MUST WORK ON IT AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR.

 

MERIT BADGE COUNSLORS AT CAMP HAVE TOLD ME (AND THIS IS WHAT I ALWAYS THOUGHT) THAT IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW LONG OR WHEN HE WORKS ON IT. HE HAS UNTIL HIS 18TH BIRTHDAY TO COMPLETE ANY MERIT BADGE. THE ONLY EXCEPTION IS IF THE BADGE REQUIREMENTS CHANGE BEFORE HE COMPLETES IT.

 

ALSO, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PARTIAL ARE STARTED IN ANOTHER TROOP FROM A DIFFERENT COUNSEL.

 

THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP.

[KoreaScouter 13]

A Scout has until his 18th birthday to complete any MB. There are many myths and rumors floating around that you have a year, but that's just not true. There's also no one-year minimum, although several badges (Personal Fitness, Family Life, Camping, Backpacking, Hiking, and others) have individual requirements that can take as long as three months to complete.

 

KS

[mk9750 11]

caddmommy,

 

Welcome to the forum! You'll find many wise answers to questions here, if you listen carefully. A number of people in these forums are very knowledgable about Scouting, and you won't often go wrong turning here for answers to your questions.

 

As KS says, 1 year limit is a myth. Scouts may work on MBs at any time they are Boy Scouts. Partials may be carried from one Council to another.

 

One additional bit of advice though. All MB Counselors have the responsiblity to assure that a Scout who completes a MB has actually completed all of the requirements. In the case of partials, he may do this by accepting the information on the card, or he may verify completion in his own way.

 

When a Scout brings me a partial, unless I know exactly who the original Counselor was and am comfortable with how he does MBs, I will usually pick one or two of the more important requirements and review them with the Scout. Not usually a full blown redo, but just to get the sense the the Scout actually did the requirement. Only once did I have to do a complete redo of all the requirements. A Scout brought to me a blue card for Personal Management but said he couldn't remember doing any specific requirment. We started over.

 

BTW, did you know your caps locks are on?

 

Mark

[bt01 10]

I believe till your 18th birthday. The scout should check the requirements for the badge because the requirment smay change.

[eagle90 125]

Regarding partials started in another council, that should be no problem. We attend a Summer Camp outside our own council and have scouts get partials many times and they are completed back home in our own council.

 

 

[caddmommy 10]

It's not so much the MB being started in another counsel as they were started while in another troop in another counsel.

[evmori 11]

Short answer - until he finishes or turns 18, whichever comes 1st.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[acco40 95]

Ditto to mk9750. He is correct about age (until 18), counselor discretion (he may not accept any of the partials, that is his/her perogative) and about "screaming" etiquette. Also, not all councils use "blue cards."

[Bob White 20]

Acco40, I just want to clarify what you said about blue cards. You meant blue cards are to be used in all troops but not all council service centers collect them for record keeping, instead they record MB on the standard Advancement Record form, right?

 

Bob White

[rlculver415 10]

Bob White ---

 

While I can't answer for Acco40, I do know of a summer camp that does not use blue cards - a very bad thing, in my opinion. Not all troops attending a camp are from the local council, after all. Our adult leaders literally had to corral the MB counselors from leaving camp until they issued blue cards to our boys. Unfortunately, the Fishing counselor got away early and a few boys had to redo most of that badge. (Our local MB counselor gave them credit for one requirement only.)

 

Rumor from the local council members up there was that since the council didn't use blue cards, neither did the troops. Since that was secondhand to me, I don't really know if that was true.

[acco40 95]

I was told that some councils do not use "blue cards" for MBs by my roundtable staff. Not that they don't use a generic equivalent. I don't recall seeing exactly what they use in place of the "blue cards." I gathered that the same information may have been contained but it was in a different format (and not even blue!).

 

Sorry, I can't answer your question with any specifics.

[packsaddle 753]

We have had a considerable number of boys who (frustrated with other troops) have quit Scouts for a while and joined back again into our troop. It has been my pleasure to inform them that the partials they are carrying may, indeed, be completed at any time until age 18. These guys have become outstanding leaders in our troop, our gain was someone else's loss.

Other troops in the area have 6-month or 1-year limits and I try to make it known to everyone that this is not regulation. They don't seem to care. One SM even retests his scouts on each MB and refuses to pass them if they don't meet HIS standards.

I don't see the type of form as a problem unless it contributes to poor record-keeping, a big problem in BSA.

[eisely 13]

Until a few years ago, I too had believed the myth that a partial expired after six months. While I have never been confronted with a partial for any merit badges I counsel, I agree that MB counselors are wise to at least go over the previously completed requirements with a boy to see how much might have stuck.

[eisely 13]

Another point about blue cards...

 

In preparing an eagle packet our local district requires that all MB earned be listed showing the date of completion and the name of the MB counselor. If a MB was earned at camp, one lists only the name of the camp. I don't see this as an additional requirement, but just documenting more completely what was done. The point is, be sure to keep all the completed blue cards even after the MB is sewn on the sash. You may still need them down the road.

[JCYoung 10]

eisely, You don't know how right you are. When submitting my paperwork for Eagle, Counsel did not have one of the Merit badges listed on file and I was lucky that my Mom (being the great keeper of things) had the blue card placed in a photo album she was making for me about my Scouting days.