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Beating Court of Honors Scripts Doldroms


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Had a Scouter friend who is a Scoutmaster complain that his scouts do the same script over and over that Court of Honors were becoming boring for parents?  Do you find this the case in your troop?  If so, how do combat the doldroms and get the scouts to be a bit creative in developing new scripts each time?

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Take your PLC aside and ask them what's important to THEM in a CoH.   What should be impressed on the audience and award recipients?   Is it too long?  Do the participants treat it too casually?  Too seriously?   Not enough candles?    

Should the SM be more involved?   Is he/she TOO involved?  

 

I dare say there are many sample CoH scripts  to be found on the Net.  

 

Our Troop used to do a real nice candle CoH.  Darken the room.  Twelve candles on a tree branch candlelabra, three (We decided it should be four) separate, one alone.  The one alone is the "Spirit of Scouting" .  The three (four)  are the parts of the Scout Promise/Oath, the twelve are the Scout Law.   Our script says appropriate things about the Spirit of Scouting, living on, lighting our way since 1908, etc.  Light the Scout Promise, the Scout Law, say appropriate things about each. 

At the end of the CoH, (the candles stay lit thruout), the candles are extinguished slowly, appropriate things are said thruout. But the last candle stays lit , in our hearts, etc.  and it leaves the room before the flags are retrieved.  

Fortunately, this is done maybe every three or four months, so it does not get stale.   The Scouts doing the reading and lighting only need to be reminded to be alittle solemn.   Is it important to them?   That's the secret. 

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My old unit enlivened Eagle CoHs with a slide show regarding the Eagle over the years.  Early slides are typically greeted with "Aww." Funny slides a must.  Of course, if all modern technology is banned, there will be no slides.

 

The important thing for parents is their Scout alone center stage for long enough to get pictures.  No cattle calls.

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When I had an SPL, he would MC the COH.  Before that the PL's did the MC job on a rotation basis.  Opening flags and after an introduction of welcome, the MC would call out a PL and if he were to receive rank or awards, the MC would present to him.  He in turn would present to his patrol members.  Then the next PL, etc.  Some  of the older PL's would visit with the boy and might inquire on what the collection he did for the collections MB, etc.  It varied from one boy to another and no two COH's were the same.  Closed with the retirement of the flags.

 

Never did any candles, scripts, or such things.  Just a recognition of advancement/awards in front of the parents and then off to the treats that always accompanied the event.  No adults had a part in the COH.  At the last COH of the year, I would sometimes be invited up to give a State of the Troop "speech"/remarks.  Nothing fancy, everyone seemed satisfied with how it went.

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Get your PLC to reflect on e last CoH.

Ask what went well, what didn't go so well, and what they'd like to do differently.

Sometimes boys don't want to change a thing.

Other times they have real novel ideas.

Just get them in the habit of reflecting, one or two tweaks will come to the fore.

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I would ask the adult who is questioning this whether the COH is for the scouts or for the parents since the only rationale given for interfering with what the scouts do is boredom for parents. This isn't to suggest that none of the other suggestions are bad, in fact I typically remind scouts that they are in charge and they have the power and authority to use the plan that has been used by others before them or change it.

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A Court of Honor is by the boys, and for the boys; no one else.  They are the ones being honored and doing the honoring.  The adults are observers/guests of the boys and just need to learn to tolerate it.  We as leaders have seen the same things over and over dozens, even hundreds of times!  It doesn't mean everyone else has!  One of the reasons TV has "reruns"!

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Once again, I disagree.  We don't do separate COH events for scouts.

 

We recognize all of our boys' scouting accomplishment at our end-of-the-school-year school awards assembly.  We feel it is important to recognize our scouting achievements together with our athletic and scholastic awards.

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Get your PLC to reflect on e last CoH.

Ask what went well, what didn't go so well, and what they'd like to do differently.

Sometimes boys don't want to change a thing.

Other times they have real novel ideas.

Just get them in the habit of reflecting, one or two tweaks will come to the fore.

The SPL did this with our PLC after every Troop meeting and camp out. And I had a motto: if it's boring, change it. Scouting should be fun.

 

Barry

Edited by Eagledad
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It's a little corny, but our PLC tried bingo after one COH. They got prizes donated and it was a huge hit with the parents and siblings. Did pizza at another one. Their ideas for making them less boring.

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our scouts do the MCing and most of the talking....but they do the same script.... lighting candles for each rank even if no scouts are making that rank....

it's for them and done by them...

but I'd bet if pushed they are probably bored with it too.... see the sillyness in it.....but they are just doing what has always been done.... or doing what they think the adults expect.  even if given a choice, they wouldn't know any different and still assume this is what the adults want (& maybe they'd be right about that)

I'd love to see what would happen if the adults would leave the room.

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The biggest problem seems to be the inspirational story...I pushed for a John Wayne scout law speech ban after it was used 5 COH in a row. The Historian report was a bit of a snooze but the last guy added a few funny stories and that went over well. The more boys do the talking the better they did start to cheer and be silly and while it was inefficient it was good to seem them in good spirits.

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The biggest problem seems to be the inspirational story...I pushed for a John Wayne scout law speech ban after it was used 5 COH in a row. The Historian report was a bit of a snooze but the last guy added a few funny stories and that went over well. The more boys do the talking the better they did start to cheer and be silly and while it was inefficient it was good to seem them in good spirits.

 

My son took that out of the "usual" ECOH script when it was his turn. Instead, he re-arranged the script entirely to be funnier and more interactive. It became the script used for Eagles after that.

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