Contacting the Council to Verify Eagle MB's

[Gardyloo]

Regarding prospective Eagles, who is responsible to contact the Council to be sure all of the scouts merit badges are recorded and in order?

 

We have a Council Eagle Coordinator saying its the scouts responsibility, and the Districts Eagle Coordinator saying its the troop Advancement Chairs responsibility.

 

The scout has his contact with the District person, and following the districts advice, went to the troop Advancement Chair, only to be told it was the scouts responsibility. The scout went to the Committee Chairman who contacted the council himself. The Council said its the scouts responsibility, but we cant get that through to the district person who is rather insistent about his position.

 

We on the committee are completely confused. Is there anything in writing?

 

[kb6jra]

First of all, be careful of what you ask for. There are way too many regulations and rules in this organization and it will only confound you in the end to make more.

 

I'm not exactly sure what booklet or what publication would cover this. My feeling is that every volunteer run organization, and even most for pay orgaizations as well, have people placed in positions of power (wow, a tongue twister for sure). These people have thier own way of getting the job done and they can be resistant to change even if faced with overwhelming pressure. The fact that there are seemingly two standards (one at the district, one at the council) shows some lack of communications and a disconnect in the hirearchy of the organization.

 

You may be faced with having to play this person's game for the moment, but I would definately bring this issue up to the District Chairman and the District Executive/Director. This should not be a source of confusion. It should either be one way or the other through out the entire council.

 

If I had my druthers, I'd make the boy do the work. It's just my way.

 

Good luck

[GernBlansten]

In my troop, I've been assigned the task to work all the Eagle stuff for our boys.

I've successfully worked 6 Eagles in the past 12 months. Each of them, I have the scout verify their merit badges with our unit advancement coordinator and work out any problems. When they are ready, I have them fill out the Eagle application. I then take that application to district and have the clerk verify the badges in their computer system. That gives us the district/council signature on the application. After that, I organize the EBOR with the district rep and a board of our peers.

[scouter-mom]

In the District that I serve, our DE will print out a scout net report for any youth (or adult). The youth may ask, or an adult may ask. The scout net report has the advancements and trainings that the council has recorded.

 

 

[sst3rd]

And here I thought it was the Scoutmaster working with the Scout to verify the paperwork. I figure since the Scoutmaster has worked with the Scout through the advancement process for the last few years, he/she would have a direct investment in making sure all is well. As a current Scoutmaster, I'll admit that I'm the one that does the Advancement Reports that go to Council. I verify the Scout's handbook, his blue cards (or other merit badge documentation), and the Troop's copy of the Advancement Report. I have a working Committee that handles several key responsibilities. I guess this is one part that I'd rather do myself. I've been burned several times in the past when I'd delegate advancement documentation to a Committee member. Problems always found there way to the Scoutmaster (me), so I figured I'd just keep doing it myself.

 

Our Council is so far behind in implementing the possibilities with Scoutnet (as we unit leaders have been led to believe it to be), it's not funny. They are backlogged with trying to submit info on Scoutnet, the units simply can't use it for anything. The bottom line for advancement, is the signed Scout handbook, the signed merit badge blue cards (or other documentation), and the signed Advancement Reports.

 

And just one more point, any Scout that transfers to our Troop, I immediately verify his advancement with his handbook, and all documentation he can supply me from his prior Troop(s). I'll personally call all involved Councils and ask for verification with Advancement Reports that I hoped the prior Troops have submitted. Don't wait until later. It will come back and bite you.

 

sst3rd

[kb6jra]

sst3rd,

 

We had an issue in my old Council. Not enough resources to put toward data entry functions for Scout net.

 

When the Council folded, and on the day we were together packing up, one volunteer remained at a workstation and was imputing all of the records for the past several months...a ton of work... This volunteer was working for a couple of weeks prior and had not had the time to finish. Finally he did the last day the council was "alive" and Thank God for his work.

 

It may be a function of just not having the resources at your council office to devote to this task. Maybe they need a volunteer to help do the mundane work of data entry in order for the product of Scout net to really be of some use to you.

 

Just a thought.

[Eagle69]

As SM that is something I do. I am lucky that I live in the same town as the Council Service Center so it's no trouble for me to run by at lunch or on the way home to get this done. Another benefit is that because I'm been around so long I know the people down at the Service Center (professionals as well as support staff) and if someone gives me a hard time on something that they shouldn't, I know who to get to help. With one of my last Eagles, the Registrar was out so the Scout Exec's Secretary was the backup, she wouldn't sign off on the form for a non-valid reason (she was interpreting the requirements wrong) so I went to my DE and got him involved and we got the signature. If it had been a committee member they probably would have backed down.

[John-in-KC]

As a Troop Advancement coordinator I worked alongside the SM as a young man reached critical mass towards Eagle.

 

Our technique was to send the SM to Council with an Advancement Report which covered the Scouts' critical records (TF-Life, Eagle required, and selected optional MBs). If the Registrar said, "he lacks.....", we dropped the Advancement Report.

 

To be frank, our problem is getting unearned (keying error by council's data entry clerks) MBs back out of ScoutNet.