Eagle Rank - and give leadership to others

[Eamonn]

I had the great honor to be part of an Eagle Scout Rank Board of Review, last night.

How I got there is a long story that has to do with the Advancement Chair and the building of a new house.

Seven Scouts completed the Eagle Board of Review.I can put my hand on my heart and say that all seven of them are terrific Scouts and all are worthy of the rank of Eagle Scout. I also thought that the other members of the board were outstanding and really understood why they were there and what they were there for. To be very honest one of them is the fellow who was the Camp Director at the Camp when I first came over to the USA, back in 1977. Now retired from teaching. I hold this man in such high esteem it is beyond words.He did a wonderful job of setting the tone for this board.

One thing that did and is troubling me is the "Give leadership to others..." part of the project. All the projects were good a couple were outstanding, but only a couple of them really made the point of showing leadership to others. It seemed that end result was far bigger then how they reached it.

I think that maybe this is our fault. We as a District need to do a better job of explaining this to the Scout when he brings his project to be approved. Most of the projects involved some sort of construction and most of the Lads had their Dad's working with them. It could be that "Dad" only sees getting the job done.

Any ideas how the district can do a better job of getting this message across?

Or am I reading too much into this?

Eamonn

[dozer]

Scouting has tried to involve the parent in all of a scouts projects from Tiger. It could be that the parents think the Eagle project is like any of the other activities the scout has been involved in.

 

Our first Eagle project were conducted completely by the family of the scout, approvals and all, and I being on second shift,was not around to see the problem develope. So it was refused and we redid portions of it with the troop involved, and it passed.

 

The home troop has to inform all life scouts , and their parents as to the rules of the requirement before work or planning begins. My 13 year old is alresdy bouncing ideas off me as to what his project will be, It's not my project.

[LPC_Thumper]

Congrats on sitting on the Board. They are a wonderful event. As a chairman of a Board, let me tell you what my district does. We hold a semi-annual meeting (during roundtable actually) where we invite any interested parties (knowing full well that most of the times parents are either going to come or are going to shove their sons to it).

 

The agenda of this workshop is to look at packets over the past six months of what worked. We talk about what software programs seem to work, we talk about importing pictures into Word and how to label them.

 

We talk about what a project is supposed to be. We talk about what leadership is. We spend about an hour and let our scouts know what we are looking for. Some have very creative ideas.

 

We lay it all out. Then we give them a handout. Perhaps you've heard of it? It's called "Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook" in case you were wondering.

 

Hope this helps, good luck, and happy scouting!

 

[dan]

What is give leadership to others?

I have never been involved with a Eagle BOR.

 

I took this to mean that during the Eagle project the Eagle candidate becomes a supervisor or foreman, directing others when work needs to be done and offering suggestions or help when something is not going well.

I have been a helper at 9 Eagle projects and have only really saw 2 scouts really do what I thought was a good job of directing and not doing.

Am I correct on give leadership to others?

A few adults feel that I am a lazy person because I do not jump in when something needs to be done during these projects, I usually go ask the scout a question to try to get them to direct someone (me) to do the task, most other adults just jump in and do it. But after being there for about 6 hours, I also start jumping in and doing, just to get it done.

How about the council saying no work to be done on a Eagle project, unless directed by the scout?

[Eamonn]

Thanks Thumper,

you have hit on a lot of good ideas.

Sometimes I can't see the trees for the forest.I have of course seen and thought that I was familiar with the Eagle Scout material and yet somehow I think that I skipped over the words: Leadership Service.

I still think that as a District we need to do a better job of getting the word out that it is a Leadership Service Project. In fact I have got to start calling it by that name and get away from just calling it an Eagle Project.

Who says that you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Thanks.

Eamonn

[LPC_Thumper]

The way I introduce the topic of their project is to ask the canidate to read the cover page of their service project. Almost always (you know that sage advice about "Never say Always"?) The have included either the cover, or have stuck the workbook somewhere in the packet they turn in. Once they have read the title, I ask them, "Tell me how you showed leadership during this service project."

 

When you stand back and let the boys rise to the occasion you are very rarely disappointed by what they will do. Because you as an adult are an authority figure, they won't pick up the tasks unless you let them.

 

I find that the hardest part of scouting. I also find that the most rewarding part as well. My SM let me lead. He had more of an impact than he ever knew, simply because he stayed out of our way and let us figure out what we were doing. We were safe, because when our inexperienced guesses were going to lead us to harm, he shut us down. He wouldn't solve the problem, he'd just tell us what we couldnt' do and why.

[Eagle69]

The first place this needs to be caught is at the Troop level when reviewing the project and if it gets by there then the district/council needs to catch it. Providing leadership is an important part of the Eagle Project and is what distinguishes it from the other service projects they had to do for lower ranks. It is always fun to watch a kid that is used to adults telling him what to do, have adults stand around and look at him and ask what do you want us to do. As noted above lots of times we know what needs to be done and could go ahead and do it, but that defeats the purpose of project.