moosetracker

All I can say is "YIKES!!!!" Did anyone think about having to write that out?? and How big is your shoulder patch going to be to host that name on it? Any room left for a design on that patch?

Since your council is asking for more then what National request of references, you could always contact the head of your Eagle board for clarification (the same guy you need to contact to setup the appointment to meet with the eagle board.) But I would take it as letters from the same references as on the application, six references is difficult enough for a young man, to not have these letters from the same source would be asking you to get individual 9 references. That would seem a little brutal. Religious reference could be your parents, or a person that you have discussed religion with and who knows your views on the subject. Just make sure you think about what your views are on the subject, and can answer the question How does reverent apply to you? It is an Eagle board question suggested by National to ask. Our Eagle board does ask it, and some boys get tripped up by it. We have one now, who attended a Catholic HS, has his religious reference as his Theology Teacher. But, hit the board during the cross-roads in his life that he is questioning what he was brought up to believe and what he really does believe, and really mangled the question. We are now all crossing our fingers for him.

Our troop seems to get someone in position then cling to them desprately, whether good or bad for the program. They have just put into place voting all positions in for a year at the end of the school year. But, first you need someone to step up and run against someone in the position. Or it is just going to be window dressing. With the Committee Chair, the acting one wanted to leave and offered to train someone for a year. After that year, he left the position and it was empty for 6 months, come the time to recharter no one was in the position. I told them to look right up until the day they had to recharter, but as a last ditch they could put me as the CC. I did a good job while there, but I was not a good choice as I had already planned to leave the troop when the school (and troop) broke for summer. (Seeing my son was now an adult leader and not a scout). So I was a 6 month temporary fill.. Not a good choice at all. (Also we already had a SM that was a dud, so running a committee to support him wasn't going to be easy or fun.) Basically the troop wasn't FUN any more for me, so it was time to leave. The majority of the time my son was in (at least til he got eagle at 16) this was a very active (and fun) troop with alot of active parents. At one point we had an equal amount of TRAINED leaders to the amount of boys in the troop. But the children aged out, and we would welcome and entice and welcome crossover parents to join the adult leaders, but got years of uncommitted parents. The program has slid downhill ever since. We were in hopes a young 21 yo would take SM, but he had a family emergancy around election time. Parents of the troop keep telling my husband they wish he was SM, but the lack of "fun" in this troop is burning him out. A few years ago he would have done good, now he is unsure he could work up the entusiasm again to turn the program around. He is starting to talk of looking for a new troop to be apart of. I see some merit to the plan IF you have alot of well trained enthusiatic Adult leaders with many itching for a chance to be in the head positions.. Other troops who struggle to fill the positions, could not have forced retirement every two or three years. They would be forcing someone out with no replacement to fill the hole.

Boomer - I must have done a cross-post. Yours wasn't there when I started writing. As Lisabob said not a bad idea.. But, I would suggest you stipulate the do a critique.. Usually from school kids learn they have to have both positive & negative.. If they love it, they still need to push for how to improve, if they hated it, they still must come up with something positive to say (Other then "Yeah I'm done!")... Also critique reminds them to think before they write. You don't want to have an adult MB read the book to see that Johnny wrote. "Don't do the MB with Mr. T.. He stinks!"..

I suppose if I signed up to be a meritbadge counselor for "Troop only". I could also avoid the issue of getting scouts too young to take the MB.. And just have an agreement with our troop as to what to look for in a young scout. But, although always an option, I thought that much more of an issue. Take my son trying to locate a meritbadge consoler for horsemenship. There were 4 counsilors in our district all "Troop Only".. Long story short, I came to not like the Troop only.. At least age.. Means not this year, but come see me in two or three years and we'll talk. "Troop Only" may mean "never" if it is a MB with a limited number of Consilors. Without doing troop only, and without it being an Eagle Required MB, you have SM signing the blue card, without any knowledge of what skills a boy needs to learn the badge. I don't expect one SM with all the other things he has to oversee to learn every MB out their and know them enough to match skill level with scout. Personally I would prefer the MBC set the limits they are comfortable with rather then hide behind "Troop Only" to make sure they have scouts they are able to work with.

I would personnally prefer to ditch the uniform.. I was just on the committee. The SM of our troop asked all of us to be in uniform at troop meetings.. I reluctantly joined the group not to be out of place. I have now taken on a district position. If I attended without the uniform, I would be the odd duck of the crowd. If not for wanting to blend in rather then stand out, I would definatly ditch my uniform.. So, I would not call it an ego booster for me. I put it on as late as I possibly can, usually taking it on a hanger, until I fear I will not get another bathroom to duck into to change. Not that I am ashamed to be in the BSA or anything, It is just not comfortable, don't like button downs and while others look good in it, I can't say the same with me..

Still it is within the Counselors rights to work within their comfort zone. Same as a Venturing crew still has an option to be all male, all female or co-ed. It is based on (maybe somewhat the scouts), but alot of times on the perseption of the Adult advisors and the Charter Org. what they are comfortable with, or their religion allows. Same as a BSA Unit that only has male adult leaders, and don't allow female adult leaders. It is based on what they are comfortable with, or their religion, or their perspective.. All of these from one point of view may be discrimatory.. From another it is allowing units to work within their comfort zone. The same policy holds true of a Merit badge Consoler. He can set the conditions based on his personal comfort zone. I recently found out that the requirements to join Boy Scouts was changed from being 11, or 5th grade or AOL.. Now the condition of AOL has an amendment of the boy must at least be 10 YO.. I know my son didn't make age or grade, and only moved from Cubs to Boy scouts on his AOL.. Had he not, his buddies would have moved on and he would have been without a pack or troop for 6 months.. So is this age discrimatory??.. I think it would have embarrassed my son at the time, but to truth, he was struggling harder then the others to fit in when he joined up. I don't have issue with the policy change. I have not yet done so, but I teach the Computers MB.. The older ones have a great time with it. The younger ones, look at me like a deer in the headlights, and usually drift away never to be seen again after a meeting or two. Is it them? Is it me? Don't know, but I am getting the distinct impression they may have enjoyed it a few years later, but I ended up scaring them away from re-taking it when they got older. Maybe it would not be a bad thing for me personally to set an age limit, or question them about their expierience with computers to see if they have a better grasp them most kids their age. I hope before I do I can find someone who does great with that age group for that subject so I can then just suggest they will have a better time with so&so for the counsilor.

It may be discrimatory, it may not. What if you were a counselor for Horsemanship, but your insurance did not allow anyone to ride your horses until age 14? What if you had worked with younger and older boys and found that you personally could bring a subject to life for the older boys, but just couldn't bring a complex subject (like Nuclear Science) to life for the younger ones. This may be a personal flaw on their part. But tell me how many people in your district will even try to teach something like Nuclear Science at all?? Remember Counsilors are not all trained professional teachers. Some are going to have strengths and weaknesses that it would be best for the boys if they did acknowledge them and set up stipulations based on them. BSA still welcomes them flaws and all, if under the right circumstances they make excellent MB counsilors. Now if your troop has a good supply of counselors on a subject and are upset that Mr. _________ will not teach the younger scouts you can direct your scouts to other MB counsilors and not use them. Is this discrimatory? Maybe. Do you have the right to do so.. Sure do!!

The SM can have a heavy say in the matter, if they see someone who goes on events and has a good relationship with the youth of the troop. So, if you have an suggestion that would help, but either the COR, or the committee should have a say in the matter. That's the problem with our troop, the outing SM. I wouldn't say he didn't care. But, thought he was doing us a favor, by finding a new SM for us. Walked into the committee and said "I'm leaving, You want the position.. No? You want it. ? Great.. I got you your new SM.." Our COR had recently passed away, and for some reason our CC didn't stand up. (I think he was also thinking about stepping down soon.) Probably some of us at the table should have said something, but how do you on a minutes notice figure out what to say about this not being the right way to pick a SM, without the guy who grabed the position taking it personnally? So we got someone who doesn't work well with the scouts, and finds silly excuses to cancel the events (after little prep work..) because it's an inconvience for him. So work with the COR & Committee, but definately let those who are still involved once you step down, have a say in who to ask. That way, if they make the wrong choice the finger is not pointed at you. They have to take the blame. But, yes do it soon, giving them plenty of time to figure out the right way they want to decide on the new SM. They don't need to feel pressured into making a quick, emergency decision.

I know counselors do have the right to make conditions for how they will teach the MB. Whether it be age, or taught in a group (one person likes to teach Citizen & World that way, so she can have them take on roles at a United Nations).. Or two scouts at a time, or individually (with parent or someone for the two deep Youth Protection).. That is their right. The scout though (as long as the troop has not set up rules), can just take it with a different MB Counselor if they really want to, and don't meet the individual Counselors' requirements. We always stress to the boys, when calling a MB Counselor to set up an appointment. To ask if they may take the MB with them. Not to just inform them they are taking the MB with them. Because the MB Counselor has a right to refuse. It could be conditions they set up, like age. Could be they are counseling their quota of scouts. Could be a family situation that is demanding their full attention at this period of time.

Our troop didn't limit by age, outside of camp(but SM would advise).. But, they did have something with the Citizenship. Seemed they had (Community first before can work on Nation, before can work on World.) My son came into the troop from a different troop, so already killed that progression rule. He had Nation without the Community.. They were shocked some troop allowed him to do that.. (One of those troop rules that over time, was forgotten it was a troop rule, so everyone assumed it was a BSA rule).. Now camp did put out "recommendations" for each MB.. Certain ones not before a certain rank. Others not before an age. I think 1 or two had a prereq of another MB before taking this MB.. They also listed an MB suggestion list for first year scouts. We did follow their "recommendations" as a troop. We felt they did it so they didn't have someone over their head slowing down the rest of the group to complete the MB.. We felt it was common curtesy to help the camp deliver their program by following the guidelines they suggested.

My husband and I are on the District committee, we don't live in the district.. Other then the expense of gas and travel time to get to what is a "central" meeting place for everyone in the district, there is no issue. My husband is still attached to the troop we joined that was in the district, but even that might end soon. He is thinking about a new troop, and it may or may not be in this district. Were kindof located where there is the district we live in and two other districts about a 30 minute drive away.

I guess we then disagree on the meaning of routine labor then. There is routine, and there is routine. Thank goodness my council agrees with me. You would kill half (maybe more of the Eagle projects that are acceptable.) Mowing the lawn I would agree would be under that rule. So would things like publishing the church bulletion, or Service at a Soup Kitchen, or cleaning the stalls at an animal shelter. These are things that are routinely done by someone weekly or monthly.. They are jobs that are so routine that the job should go to an employee or someone who is a permanent volunteer. But for those items that need refurbishing once every 10 or 20 years, those have always been passed and approved by EBOR's and for good reason. Once done, yes it may need to be redone 10 years down the road by some other volunteers. But you have not taken a job away from someone else by doing this project, and the organization will not be floundering for someone to pick up the job the minute you step down on completion of your Eagle project. Clearing overgrown trails has to be the most popular type of project scouts do.

Lots of Eagle projects are routine maintenance. Which are perfectly fine, as long as it is for an non-profit organization. In my troop I think about half are routine. Here are some of them. Clearing walking paths. Redoing signage for the towns 40+ graveyards. Painting Fire hydrants. Redoing footbridges over a swampy area. Painting a very Large old classroom with coat closet. (Room was about 3 or 4 normal classrooms with old high ceilings.) Routine Maintenance doesn't make the project unacceptable. It still benifits the community. To the original question.. As long as it doesn't benefit the troop, the project is acceptable. One boy did an eagle project that involved the room we met in. The project came out nice, but to truth, while making it the way the church wanted, it kindof hurt how the troop used it. they took down room dividers and made one big room. The small rooms helped keep parents quiet if they wanted to talk, or each patrol could divide into one of the 3 rooms. There were other parts of the project like build 5 or 6 large rolling cabinets (that the troop did not use, so no benifit to them.) So the project was tied to something the scouts used, but it really didn't benefit them.. As someone stated if it majorly benefits the CO, but minorly benefits the troop. That is fine too. Just shouldn't majorly benefit the Troop.

I was hopeful, my husband has been itching to get his hands on a Boys life from late 1957. He was told there was an article in it about the Jamboree from August 1957 that his father ran in Germany, while stationed over there in the Army. I guess when the Jamboree started his mother was pregnant with him, and 4 day over due.. They had all sorts of line feeds out from the Base to where the Jamboree was held to notify his father when she went into Labor. Since he was in charge of the Jamboree, he had to be there with a way to leave at a moments notice. Anyway, no luck on finding the article for him. They had the American National Jamboree and the World Jamboree in England. in the Sept - Dec 1957 magazines. But nothing about a Jamboree in Germany.. I called and told him. He called his mother. His mother then said it probably wouldn't be in the American "Boy's Life" but the one for that country.. (May not even be called "Boy's Life").. So forget it.. If it is in an out-of-country magazine, how do you find, when you can't translate anyway..?

At least with our council as long as you stay in the council, they will not change your membership number when you move from a boy scout to an adult leader. Your number is your number for life (as long as you stay in the same council for life..(ha, ha))..

I too would ask for the donations to go elsewhere. Also I guess the question is, if this is a camp you attend yearly, or where you trying out a new camp. If a camp you attend yearly and this is a "new" thing, I guess I would have expected someone to inform the adult leaders, so they could inform the scouts. If a different camp then normal, the normal campers may just know the routine, you did not. I think it is important to "expect" that donations will be asked so that you go in with the correct amount you want to donate. Kids can feel obligated to donate, and find they only have a $5 or $10 bill as the lowest denominator, so feel forced to offer that up, when they really only would have given $1. It's kind of hard to ask neighbors for change, or work out something with pulling money mid-service. If it was Sunday night I am guessing this was like the first or second night at camp, so boys hadn't had much time to break down the large denominations Mom & Dad gave them at the beginning of camp. wouldn't be so bad if it was the last night of camp, then all you would get is leftover change (if that).

Just remember BSA has been around before the ice age, let alone computers. And it is slow (and clunky) getting into the computer age. They are better building fires then clicking keyboards. I know this Member ID info to be true, seems our district (probably the whole council) numbers are not all over the board.. they used only two groups of numbers. So it is like a council gets a block of numbers, when they are used up they go back to National for another block of numbers. Only one guy has a number outside these two blocks.. Maybe someone who insisted they use his number from a previous council? Schiff - I know your feeling.. They should do better with these records.. And knowing that it is their records that are wrong 95% of the time, they should take your word for it. Thank goodness they do better tracking the boys records! But I think they always had a better system for how the records get to the registrar, they just never got a good system for how to record the courses. Even so, we will pull the boys records for the unit each year to do an Audit. We usually find two or three things missing. Better to do this yearly, then to have issues as the boy is almost 18 and narrowly crossing the finish line for his Eagle. Even this is set up better for the boys. Registrar can print all boys for the unit, in one report they never could do that for the Adult leaders. It was pulling it one person at a time.. So the person in question had to make the request. We couldn't go in and ask the registrar to do 20 seperate reports, one for each of our adult leaders every year.

We have 2 camps in our council also with the same variation. The patrol cooking is the plus side of the one camp. The food was healthier, they had a chance to learn more about cooking, some even worked on the cooking merit badge (before they could earn it there, until the meritbadge changed to have different methods of cooking home, backpack, & normal camping.).. The one with the dining hall some years had decent food, other years it could be the pits, and was the butt of many a joke. The thing with our patrol cooking camp was it was patrol merit badge also. My son after going twice decided to do provisional the last two times the troop went to that camp because of this. It offered interesting merit badges, and they were set up for 1 a day, so there was potential to earn 5 rather then the 3 at the other camp with the dining hall.. But.. most times he ended up doing the basic same merit badges over and over and over again, because the other kids in the patrol didn't have their swimming, or first aide or whatever. They had neat ones like horseback riding or water skiing that the other camp didn't offer, but the other boys never went for those. The troop really only went to this camp when they had alot of new younger scouts and needed to "bond".. It's interest only lasted for two years, then if there were more boys in the troop who the camp was no longer "new" for, they voted for the other camp, because they came to the same conclusion as my son.

That may be going on with one guy I looked up. I had his Member ID # and put it in. It pops up, multiple people on this number.. Say What???? I can see multiple people by last name/ town / state.. but Member ID is "suppose" to be unique! I should see what happens with the one guy in our district that I found had multiple Membership numbers. Is all his training under one training number, or mixed between numbers? He could be totally trained when registering for troop, and not trained at all for Crew when he goes to register, even though he took everything. That will be because the info is resting in his Troop's number.

CHLees3rd - Then I wonder what happen to our dates for woodbadge. Mine & my husband dated 12/01/07. First off we are in climate that you don't hold your outdoor courses in December. Boys might camp then, but not everyone wanting to take training are such die-hards. Second we did not take woodbadge in the same year, our son was too small to both leave him for the weekend.. Third, our son would have been 17 in 12/01/07 so he would have been old enough, to leave alone. We think we took it about 2003 & 2004. Schiff this may be that our Council did take our word for it. They lost records and asked for replacements. I just gathered all training on everyone and handed them the whole package, I never knew what was lost and what wasn't.. But still the lost records were earlier the 2007.. I have no clue over these dates. I think my husband had taken woodbadge, but I had not yet the first time they lost them. Both of us had taken it the 2nd time they lost them, but the two lost times were not too far apart from each other. No more then a year or so..

Your probably correct Schiff.. Which was in my first comment "normally they just take your word", because my council I know has. But as we have seen on this forum each council is different. I do know someone on this forum is one of the pilot councils needing Required training this year. Their council is not just taking the word. They are upset people did not keep their training cards, and are doing alot of work looking for who would have kept the paperwork on the courses of the past courses etc.. They aren't just taking their word for it, and sticking it in the computer, they are reseaching for Proof. So each council is different.

You probably paid good money (or your unit did) for Woodbadge too.. for Woodbadge, have you completed your tickets? I am unsure if it is logged until then, I a stated I think my completion date might be more in line with ticket completion (or date of beading).. I would suggest starting with your Training Chair for complaints about "missing items". Mostly the council takes your word for it as a scout. But those are two big ticket items. Luckily big ticket enough though that I would think you would have someone vouch for you if need be.

JHankins - There is a report that shows ALL training for everyone in the district, including the YPT and electives like Woodbadge & Hazardous Weather? By, pull by position, do you mean the Registrar must first pull all SM, then all CM, then all CC.. etc, (thankfully the Committee jobs aren't detailed) or can it be pulled by district, it is just grouped by position & not by Unit? I know of the trained & untrained. I had heard I could get a report on the untrained of the courses requires for their position that they have taken (all but YPT) so it is similar to the trained report, just not complete. I did not hear there was one to give me ALL training. But if the registrar needs to print off about (estimate) 15 seprate reports, there may be a reason he is not telling me about it. What is the report called, so I can mention it to him by name. The info from BSA is helping with those who showed trained but don't have all the courses listed that trained requires, because someone deemed them "to old to show", so I am left with trained people with incomplete (or no) required course lists. If the council were smart they should set a policy for how to inform the registrar of missing courses. I think the registrar hearing seprately from 2,000 individual people may put him/her on overload, not to mention the posibility of missing some pieces of paper. It might be better for each unit to elect someone to gather the info on each person in the unit, and send in the info as a group.

The June-july Training update, mentioned it. But, since the update just came out, and they stated it as future weeks, and know how National is with deadlines. I was shocked when my husband said it was in the site.. The update stated: In the coming weeks a new Training Validation feature will be added to the Training section of My Scouting. This feature will enable MyScouting users with a member ID to look-up individual training record history. This feature will include an option for Youth Protection training taken in the past two years as well as an All Training search. It will be ok to check the training for leaders of your unit, so you can get your unit organized for the required training. If you have the charter info for you unit you would have the member ID's of your unit. For District, I hope for an eventual report of all the training that can be sent to Excel.. Getting the training info for the entire district this way would be ridiculous. Also I found some strange things on mine, like I seemed to have taken youth protection 4 times between 11/02 and 11/03.. then only in the past 2 months.. No WAY, my YPT was more on the every 2 year cycle.. Other things are listed twice, same course number, taken on the same date.. Woodbadge date looks wrong too, but it could be completion date, rather then date of the training course.