SaintCad

Not the boys fault so let him advance. Let me explain. All of this is coming from evilramsfan not knowing the rules and regulations. I had to look them up as a new scoutmaster when a scout complained that Eagle Scouts were always allowed to sign off on advancement and I shouldn't overturn that policy. The rule from National is that the person who signs off on rank advancements is the Scoutmaster OR those he/she designates. End of discussion. So the Scoutmaster needs to make it very clear who can sign off on what in a troop and if the Scoutmaster does not feel that it is appropriate for camp staff to sign off on advancements then they can make it a rule that advancements cannot be signed off at camp. But best practices would be to let every Scout going off to camp know what the rules are ahead of time and that they will need to show the skill to the satisfaction of the Scoutmaster/designee when they get back.

First of all, can you counsel your son? Maybe. I'd have to look up the actual rule but I believe the unit leader that opens up the blue card has the ultimate say in who the MBC is. Probably a non-issue in most cases but if I knew for a fact that there were an MBC that was not making the boys do the requirements, I would not allow any scout to work with them. Technically, I did invoke this rule when I invited a presenter to work on emergency preparedness with the boys. As part of it she did the first-aid rank advancement requirements and I signed off on those in their books and she did the First-Aid MB (she is an FA MBC) and for the boys that didn't have it, I gave them all a blue card and she signed off on them so I guess I assigned them a specific MBC. As a SM and if you came up to me to ask to work with your son on a MB, it would depend. If I felt you had the integrity to do the job (not to easy but not to hard either) andno other reasonable option were available I would say yes. If you were an unknown or a helicopter parent or if another MBC were available, I would say no. In actuality, I have been the MBC for my son in Environmental Science, but it was as part of a group and not individually. It is a bad practice to work with your son individually but depending on circumstances it may happen. I am an MBC for Astronomy and my son came back from camp needing 2 more requirements. There is no other MBC for astronomy in the troop. I will probably help him finish and sign it but understand that as SM, I NEVER work with my own son as an individual. I assigned an ASM that is his Scoutmaster that signs off of all of his advancement and other paperwork and does his Scoutmaster reviews. I would only work on a merit badge with my son with his blessing as pro-tem unit leader.

I'm a little confused here. Was the boy given accomodated requirements because of the disability and the SM is questioning if they were appropriate? Is the SM questioning that he met the requirements for tenderfoot-2nd class-1st class? Maybe but if that is not taken care at the scoutmaster conference or the BOR (and yes, a BOR can reject advancement if the boy has not met the requirements. It happened once in my troop because of a misunderstanding by the scoutmaster over whether a requirement was completed and was a miror issue corrected within a week. I heard about another troop where the boys were getting signoffs a little too easily [not doing the reqirements at all] by the SM and the BOR felt it was a quality control issue.) then too late now. Minor leadership position and TLT? Not an issue. It's either on the list or not and TLT is not a requirement. The only issue is bugler that is a POR for some but not all ranks. Is the difficulty in explaining how he lives the oath and law in his everyday life? Not required. He needs to DEMONSTRATE how he lives a scouts life. Can his parents, teachers and neighbors tell you how he lives the oath and law? If so, then he has met the requirement. "If we say no, his parents will likely be very angry and describe our decision as unfounded, biased, or based on ignorance, but I still don't think advancing him would be the right thing to do. We do meet with him within a few days and he will have a chance to prove himself.....but my gut says he won't convince us." I agree with the parents. A scout does not need to "justify" (your word) advancement. They either met the requirement or did not. Unfounded - Did he meet the requirements yes or no? If so, how can you deny the advancement? Biased - "If he did not have the disability". If you start out a sentence like that, be very careful of what you say next. Even if you are not biased against him because of his disability, you are biased in that you have prejudged whether or not he will meet your arbitrary requirements. based on ignorance - Yep. You are unaware yourself of what the requirements are. A scout does not have to explain anything to you. He has to demonstrate it and I gave you a variety of sources that can verify what he has done. Plus the fact that you included TLT as part of the leadership requirement shows you are unaware of the requirements.

One thing I found out in becoming a SM was that my troop had no concept of administration. Part of that was prior practices and part was that we have very few older more experienced scouts. For me the problem is that the Troop sees no problem with agreeing to an outing on Tuesday and with almost no planning expect it to happen on Saturday. There were never any sign-ups and they would go on outings not really knowing who was planned and what was not. And forget about any money management. My interpretation of a boy-led troop is to have the troop through the PLC develop a full annual plan. Second is to develop a system where a scout leading an activity, under the guidence of an adult mentor, addresses the issues such as cost, permission slips, deadlines, etc. Is it boy-led right this moment? Not even close but it is moving in that direction and is adult-guided. I think the big question in my process and this gets back to the OP is: how prepared are you to allow the boys to fail? How much guiding as opposed to doing do the adults do? Is there a learning/growing process at work to give the boys more responsibility?

I agree that the "get approval" is nebulous. If I were a pets MBC, I would interpret the "get approval" as getting the approval of the pet owner. Certainly I don't want some kid looking after my corgi if he has no clue how to feed it or clean up after it. I would also see the point of "get approval" meant the approval of the MBC after they ascertain that the Scout knows what is involved with taking care of the pet. I disagree that "get approval" means the approval of the SM because a Scout cannot begin to work on a merit badge until it is open. If that's the case then "get approval" would be redundant if it meant to get the approval of the SM. I would not have relented on this because you are right in that they need to coordinate with the MBC and not just view them as the person that signs the blue card. Also, I get the impression that the Scout was looking for an easy merit badge in interpreting a pet show and showing the pet to some friends. You didn't mention what evidence the Scout showed. If they showed proof that they truly did start taking care of the pet upon approval of the SM, I may allow it but if it is "I fed the dog." "What did you feed it?" "Food." "What brand?" "I don't know" "How many times a day did you feed it?" "Once" (N.B. a dog should be either freefed or fed twice a day. The scout would know or learn this as part of the approval process) Mom: "He fed the dog. Just sign the blue card." I can guaranty that either the Scout has to wait another 4 months, Mom needs to go MBC shopping, or the Scout ain't getting the merit badge.

There are really two issues in the OP. First, I don't think it is appropriate for a scout to start any merit badge without consulting the unit leader. In over 99% of the cases, it is really a non-issue but there was a case of a scout spend all of his time earning merit badges and not advancement requirements. The SM felt that given the Camporee setting, it would be more valuable for the Scout to work on First Class Trail skills instead so he denied permission to the scout to work on ANY merit badge during that weekend. As for the actual signing, I think that the unit leader should sign ahead of time but allow the Scout to change (and thus get a new blue card) if the opportunity arises at a camp or Jamboree because let's face it, if a certain merit badge is crtical to get a a specific outing, we have failed in having prepared the Scout.

We didn't do CERT but we do have a Troop Emergency Manager that does CPR training, First Aid MB and the BSA Emergency Preparedness program. We also got a county emergency manager out to talk to the Scouts and hopefully they will be invited to the next emergency drill. If you don't have CERT available, I would suggest the BSA Emergency Preparedness Award instead. Both youths and adults can earn it and in my experience there is a lot of pride in wearing the pin on the uniform.

But if every group has their own unit, isn't there a danger like what I see in a lot of cities of a lot of units with most of them very small and unhealthy?

Thanks Eagle92 for the update but I do have one question and it is not a knock on you but rather National having such a decentralized way of communicating important information. The question is how current is your information and did it come before or after my information? The reason I question it is that your quote mentions "This is Scouting" as a requirement which has been specifically taken out as of 2012 as a training requirement (it is now only recommended). The list I pulled off scouting.org confirms that This is Scouting is not required.

Under the guidlines, chartered organization own the scouting unit. In some cases, like the LDS Church, this is because Scouthing units are a fundamental part of their youth organization. I'm in a troop where our CO was an absentee owner for years and I know that many COs are somewhat involved but their units are not really part of the overall community of their CO. Many units get no support from the CO yet if the unit were to ever disband, the CO would own everything the Scouts worked hard for. But in addition to that, I'm reading the charter agreement and to be pedantic, my Troop is expected to be almost a youth group for the CO including promoting the CO's value system. Thank goodness my CO doesn't enforce it because most of my Scouts want to be Scouts and not part of the Church tht happens to be our CO. Yet at Scoutmaster I feel obligated to let the Church know that they have tremendous power over how we conduct business and who our leaders are. If the Church doesn't believe in divorce, they are within their rights to have me booted out and let's not even talk about my son who is contemplating studying Buddhism. Is it time to look for BSA to look at the relationship between chartering organizations and units? Should a unit be a member of BSA and if so, does the current structure allow for that or is that the unit is a part of the CO and the CO is part of BSA? Is it possible that the units should be owned by BSA and free to form associations with whatever community groups it wants? Would that help in communities that have many units yet only a few scouts in each unit because of all of the chartering organizations? My personal opinion is that BSA should allow any boy to be a Scout but I do recognize that BSA has always had a religious overtone. Do you think that moving away from COs (and let's be honest, most are churches) will allow atheists and homosexuals into Scouting? Do we even discuss if that is a bad thing (and obviously no one is advocating NAMBLA to be involved in Scouting)? Should we try to move back towards encouraging schools to be COs or would BSA have to make to many concessions for that?

As someone who minored in Comparative Religion, I'm pretty sure I know the difference between atheism and agnosticism and that they are not necessarily synonymous so believe it or not there is a difference. Since you choose to assume I am ignorant let me point out that the difference between the two is about faith vs. knowledge. Agnostics believe that belief in God is based on faith in that there is no true way to prove God exists within our epistomology. Atheism is the belief that God or any other deity does not exist. I don't believe I ever said the two views were contradictory. Instead I believe I said that a particular scout indoctrinated with Judeo-Christian theology tells me that they are atheist because they don't believe in a God with a flowing white beard. Does that mean that they are an atheist even if they do believe that there is an underlying force that gives order to the universe but can't really give any justification beyond a feeling? Maybe Merlyn LeRoy, you shoud stop assuming people are less knowledgable thatn you and actually know what they are talking about.

Getting back to the OP, National has clarified the rules on being Trained while simultaneously making it more confusing. Some Councils require a leader to be trained before taking a leadership position. For this, once trained - always trained so that your Cubmaster/ASM/SM etc. trained 10 years ago is always trained. HOWEVER: In order to ensure that a leader has the most current training, a leader must have completed current training requirements to 1) Wear the "Trained" patch 2) Be considered trained for the purposes of Journey to Excellence

Not exactly the same issue but similar. My Troop (as are most units) is chartered by a religious organization. We want to foster closer ties and with a new pastor, I (as Scoutmaster) want to make him aware of the office of Chaplain and also ask if they would be willing to provide instruction on the generic Protestant youth religious award if any of the Scouts want it. One parent on the committee was upset as they saw that as an encroachment on the scouts' religious freedom. I did not disagree with her, but made it clear as the "owners" of the Troop, the church can play an integral part or continue as absentee owners like they have been. I don't think BSA has ever really settled the issue of whether or not it is a religion-based organization. You can't be atheist but you can be Buddhist. No one religion is promoted but I know of a scout in another troop that was humiliated in front of his peers for not participating in a very Christian-based prayer. One young scout told me he was an atheist and after talking to him it was clear he was agnostic (but he had no clue what the difference was). By BSA policy, I believe he is to be barred from scouting if he is a self-proclaimed atheist, but would that have been the right thing to do?

I am a committee member and was requested by our SM to wear a uniform, so I pulled out my uniform from my denmaster days and changed the blue epalauts to green and sewed on the new council patch and troop number on my sleeve. I also changed denmaster patch to committee member patch and changed the trained bar from red to green. Before, I didn't wear my uniform because I wasn't a SM/ASM, but the SM said that adults in uniform are an example to the kids - and yes, I wear my 1930's campaign hat just like I did when a denmaster because a hat is part of the uniform. I also kept my denmaster square knot on because I feel I earned that and asking me to take it off would be like asking a Scout to take a merit badge off of their sash. So I disagree, it's not ego but rather pride in wearing the BSA uniform and setting an example for the scouts. I personally think that all of the extras do look a little ridiculous and some Scouters look like Mexican generals. I don't think it's an ego thing so much as pride in what they have done as a Scouter (like my lone knot) and why shouldn't we take as much pride in what we do as the kids do?

Is there an official BSA BOR training? Out troop committee chair want all of the committee members to take it and I see that it was available in 2008 because it is recorded for on of our scouters, but I don't see any mention of it and that page on the BSA site is no longer there.