Blue Cards

[Gold Winger]

"I didn't say this - in fact, I agreed with GW. I just said that with all the things that can happen to a small piece of paper - and especially recalling my own airheadedness as a young man "

 

That was you. Maybe your parents were enablers like so many post 1960s parents. "Don't worry, we'll get a new one." If it means something to the kid and his parents haven't stressed that nothing is important enough to worry about, he'll hang onto them.

[NeilLup]

"That was you. Maybe your parents were enablers like so many post 1960s parents. "Don't worry, we'll get a new one." If it means something to the kid and his parents haven't stressed that nothing is important enough to worry about, he'll hang onto them. "

 

With respect, I believe this is uncalled for in this case. I would respectfully suggest that the Scout is totally within his rights thinking that:

 

1) He has the merit badge card given to him by the Board of Review or

2) He has the merit badge itself or

3) The information is in the Troop records or

4) The information has been transmitted to the local council

 

that his holding the merit badge is well proven and he has no reason to be expected to keep the blue card unless by someone who is

 

a) a packrat or

b) anal

 

I have received professional counseling on how to be neater and to declutter my life. I am a packrat. Discarding these blue cards years after the merit badge is awarded when I have another card documenting the earning of the award is exactly the type of thing I would be counseled to do. The alternative is to hang onto everything that might ever needed. That is precisely the kind of thing that I have been directed not to do. As another example, when I was in the Air Force (1969-1973) our colonel directed us to discard anything that we did not reasonably expect to use in six months. He said that, if needed, we could recover it.

 

The term enabler is a real hot button for me. I resent it deeply, particularly in a case like this.

[Eagle92]

A few things. Yes a Scout is responsible for maintaining a record of when he got his MBs. BUT that record is included in his HANDBOOK. Some summer camps do not issue blue cards. The only records of a scout earning a MB are given to the unit leaders, not the individual scouts. So my question is this How can a Scout be responsible for keeping something he never received? Second some units don't use the blue cards. They use their own forms, being thrifty. So again I ask how can a Scout be asked to show something he never received?

 

The handbook has the information in it, and it is verified by the signature that is required. So showing the handbook should be enough. Also council should have reviewed the records and approved the EBOR, so the records aspect should not be a problem. have some council's screwed up. Yes, it happened to a very good friend of mine who, according to council was only First Class Scout and not a life, but hat is why UNITS keep copies of the advancement reports.

[Gold Winger]

". I would respectfully suggest that the Scout is totally within his rights thinking that"

 

You could suggest that but we might be within our rights to expect that the teacher has our grades recorded and that we don't need to hang onto our homework until the end of the grading period.

 

" when I was in the Air Force (1969-1973) our colonel directed us to discard anything that we did not reasonably expect to use in six months. He said that, if needed, we could recover it."

 

Different situation and they had an unlimited supply of money.

 

"The term enabler is a real hot button for me. I resent it deeply, particularly in a case like this."

 

Oh, that has sooooo many hidden meanings. LOL!

 

 

 

[evmori]

I see no problem with having the Scout keep his blue cards. I do have a problem with any BOR requiring the Scout to produce them at his BOR. Doing so is adding to the requirements.

[Apache Bob]

John-in-KC

It is the policy of the Council Advancement Committee.

Our District Advancement Chairman sits on the Council Advancement Committee. The District Advancement Chairman has District Scouters who go to the units to conduct the EBORs. They have all received the training in giving the proper EBORs. In their training they are told (I have not had this training) that all the blue cards for the 21 MB should be reviewed by them before giving the EBOR. Without the cards there is no review.

Not that anyone would but some people have long memories. I do not want to have any youth or SM or unit get in a position where testing this could come back to haunt them several years down the line.

 

[John-in-KC]

Bob,

 

This is where ethical decisionmaking comes into play for us. What's the right thing to do? From where I sit, the decisions possible are:

 

- Push individually. If the EBOR adjourns, the Scout has right of appeal at District, Council, and National. Sooner or later, do you not think National will notice a common thread of appeals from Council X?

 

- Push once. This is the approach I advocated in my earlier post. It will take at least one involved Chartered Partner to raise the baloney flag to the Council President, SE, and Advancement Chairman.

 

- Do nothing, and let this addition to the requirements stand.

 

I know what I would choose; you have to make your own decision. Let us know how you decide and how it turns out.

 

 

[evmori]

John's do nothing option isn't an option. I'd ask for chapter & verse from National policy that requires this. And when it's time for your Scout to have his EBOR, don't take the blue cards. If they refuse this Scout his EBOR, appeal.

[NeilLup]

Hello John and Ev,

 

In your appeal, appeal, appeal scenarios, is there one factor you may not have reported.

 

It's a Scout's Eagle, not yours.

 

If some Scout has the blue cards, he presents them, no problem.

 

If he doesn't, then he has the decision about which is to his greater advantage, getting them replaced or appealing.

 

If, for example, he is thinking of Eagle palms, I believe that the time waiting out the appeal would detract from his eligibility time for palms.

 

I would believe that replacing the cards would be, in most cases, the far simpler and faster alternative.

 

Plus there is the factor that a being a whistleblower is rarely a career plus. If one is a whistleblower, one may win one's case or one may lose but, by and large, one's career as it has been is over.

 

So for us adults sitting here, we may want to make the fight. But how is it to the advantage of the indivdual Scout whom you would make the test case?

[John-in-KC]

Neil,

 

If you let one major addition to the requirements stand as Council policy, how long will it be before the next? What will it be?

 

I can imagine a Council Advancement Committee dumping Lifesaving OR Emergency Prepardness for Lifesaving AND EP.

 

You have to pick the Scout and his parents with some care.

 

Of course, the first two appeals in this council should be be pro forma, since they'll be denied on the basis of local policy. Again, that's where I advocate an involved Chartered Partner being the one to push the issue. Scouting has its side of the contract to deliver.

 

I think we can all agree this Council Advancement Committee has set up a lose-lose situation.

 

I'm just glad I'm not in this Council.

[NeilLup]

"I think we can all agree this Council Advancement Committee has set up a lose-lose situation.

 

I'm just glad I'm not in this Council. "

 

Hear hear! And I'm particularly glad that I don't have a son who is a Scout there.

 

However, I suspect that every council has some policy or area like this. It's just that in this council, the area is advancement which is an area that allows National appeals.

[croushorn]

>> It's a Scout's Eagle, not yours.

[Twocubdad]

Maybe someone with their fingers on advancement policy can answer this, maybe Bob White or someone else mentioned they had a friend who was on the National Court of Honor can ask, but,

 

Who can file appeals to national on advancement issues? Does it have to be the Scout or can a unit or leader file an appeal? Secondly, can a policy like this be appealed pre-emptively? (There's another legal term for this, maybe NJ will help me out.) Or as in the regular legal system, do you have to have been turned down for something in order to have standing to appeal?

[NeilLup]

I agree, Snoring Bear, but I thought that I had read of somewhat of a more pugnacious approach suggested.

[shortridge]

That was you. Maybe your parents were enablers like so many post 1960s parents. "Don't worry, we'll get a new one." If it means something to the kid and his parents haven't stressed that nothing is important enough to worry about, he'll hang onto them.

 

Actually, my comment was a reflection on me, myself and I as a newly-minted Tenderfoot at my first summer camp. My parents are both pretty organized. But as a young Scout, I was interested in swimming, knots, firebuilding and survival, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Blue card? Yeah, I might have one of those somewhere. Did it survive camp? Probably not.

 

It wasn't permissive parenting, it was an obsession on my part with all things outdoors. I hope my daughter grows up to be half as obsessed as I was. There's plenty of time for learning how to file.

 

NeilLup has it right - the rule should be no surprises. If "keep your blue cards for life" was hammered in as part of the program from Day One - rather than just one line on the blue card itself, which as others have pointed out is optional - it'd be one thing. Instead, you've got your Handbook - my much-loved copy has been coverless and held together by red electrical tape along the spine since I was 13. And that's enough for everyone - except Bob's crazy council, it seems.

 

Another issue is that blue cards don't always go from counselor to Scout. At the camp where I used to work, blue cards went in a packet to the SM at the close of camp. If the SM loses them, should the Scout be penalized? No.