Blue Cards

[John-in-KC]

TCD,

 

The youth or his parents are the most commonly recognized two.

 

That said, a phone call by a Chartered Partner to the Council Solutions Group at BSA, routed to whoever is handling Chartered Partner Relationships now, is going to get some degree of attention ... especially if an IH or COR says "my council is in left field on this, and we are pursuing an appeal."

 

I like Loud Snoring Bear's idea of a shot across the bow... in fact I said something a bit similar last night at 630PM:

 

"This is a time for your (in order) COR, CC, or SM to pay a business office call on the Scout Executive... with his Advancement Chairman present. Ask, forthrightly and bluntly, where the "must have blue cards" is in the National Program materials ... and be armed with the no additions, subtractions or modifications clause from ACP&P."

[evmori]

Neil,

 

You are correct it is the Scout's Eagle. But why should the Scout have to comply with a made-up requirement? If he had to bring his birth certificate to prove his age, would that be OK? How about a blood test?

[NeilLup]

Hello Ev,

 

I suspect that I didn't make my point clearly enough.

 

The Scout shouldn't have to do those things. Nor, in my opinion and according to the BSA advancement guidelines, should he be required to show blue cards for every advancement.

 

So here is the scenario.

 

The Scout is preparing for his Eagle application and Board of Review.

 

He is told that he must have the blue cards for all of his merit badges. He doesn't have all of them. I make the presumption that the effort has then been made by the Scout and/or by the unit to reason with the Council Advancement Committee and that effort has been unsuccessful.

 

It then should, in my opinion, be the Scout's choice if he wants to:

 

1) appeal to National to force a Board of Review or

2) get another copy of the blue cards

 

Not the choice of the unit adults who want a test case.

 

That was all.

[emb021]

"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. "

 

I would add that in such a situation (which is how things worked when I was a scout and later a Boy Scout leader), the blue cards were given to the SM at the close of camp, the SM used those to fill out the Advancement Report going to council for merit badges earned, and most likely tossed them (tho partials would go to the scout). The SM would only hold the carbon of the Advancement Report for the troop records, and maybe the blue cards. (unless someone else came along and tossed them).

 

I've always viewed the completed and signed merit badge cards as more important then the blue cards, and final proof of earning them.

 

 

[Apache Bob]

It will take a little time to get things set up to work on the blue card problem. When it get resolved it will let everyone know how it came out.

Thanks for all your advice. Not now but in the future the Scouts in our Council thank you also.

Apache Bob

[Eagle92]

2CubDad,

In the one case I was personally involved in where an Eagle Candidate sent an appeal to National for his EBOR, the Eagle Candidate was responsible for, and sent the petition to national. Grant you the young man had several letters of support for granting the EBOR from all his scout unit leaders, District Adv. Chair, and his USAFR commanding officer accompanying the petition. Luckily it was a proforma appeal: he could not get an EBOR due to basic training and had to get it done after returning home. He did get his Eagle BTW.

[CA_Scouter]

Over the weekend I heard talk that our Council was asking for blue cards for Eagle BoR as well.

 

Just for kicks, I looked for my son's info and he is missing most of his blue cards. However, I checked one of his older blue cards and it says on the bottom:

 

"Keep this record until you receive your merit badge certificate."

 

It says '1985 printing' on the card. ( I guess the troop bought a bunch of cards back then and some were still floating around. )

 

 

The 2003 printing says 'Retain this copy for your permanent records.'

 

 

 

 

[John-in-KC]

CA,

 

Interesting. Of course, an 11 year old Tenderfoot in 2002 will not age out until 2009, so those old cards may be in Scouts' hands at least another year...

[CA_Scouter]

Follow up:

 

What I found out with my council is they want the portion of the blue card that is submitted to the Advancement Chair, not the 'applicant receipt' ( so to speak ). Maybe I missed that point somewhere in this thread.

 

Our Advancement Chair keeps these in a safe place and gives them to the scout when he prepares his Eagle application, so it doesn't look like a big problem in our case after all.

 

Still seems like an unnecessary detail, what with electronic records now. Of course, our council advancement guy also made it a BIG point that when you fill out your Eagle app that you don't abbreviate your street name, i.e.. 'Drive' instead of 'Dr', etc...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

Isn't the application checked prior to it being sent on to the advancement committee? And if the committee wants the unit's portion of the blue card, they should be the ones who get them & leave the Scout out of it!

 

I still don't see the necessity.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[John-in-KC]

Actually, I see what CA is describing.

 

I've had Eagle Apps rejected because COUNCIL employees failed to code in a MB or a rank ... and I had the unit copy of Advancement Reports to back up the submission.

 

What I had done the last 18 months or so of my tenure as unit advancement guy was do a summary Advancement report... I pulled everything from Scout up out of Troopmaster and submitted it.

 

That stopped the rejection problem for non-coding. Optimum? No. Pragmatic? Yes.

 

What CA's Regsitrar appears to be doing is a variant of my technique.

[gcnphkr]

"What I had done the last 18 months or so of my tenure as unit advancement guy was do a summary Advancement report... I pulled everything from Scout up out of Troopmaster and submitted it."

 

That is what I do. I print out their advancement history and participation history as well and give it to them at their SMC.

[John-in-KC]

jet,

 

Yes I do that.

 

One of our adults works two miles from the Scout Office. For the rest of us, it's a 20+ mile one way drive. He'd take the paperwork down.

 

After a while, when he took an Eagle app, he'd also take an Advancement Report for that one boy... with every rank and MB the boy had earned on it.

 

When the Registrar said "he doesn't have X", the app taker would say "OK, here's an Advancement Report covering X."

 

When he'd call back that night to say he'd needed it, I'd find the original submission... yep, another case of the coding clerks striking again.

[Liz]

I know my boys do not have all of their blue cards. My older son started in one troop, and then changed when my younger son's den crossed over and started a new troop closer to our home.

 

In both troops, the boys have been told to hold on to their books (with advancement signatures) and the little cards they were presented with along with the MB's. They've been really good about that. They didn't find out they were supposed to keep the blue cards until recently. It's been drilled into them that the little printed MB cards and the signatures in their handbooks were the "proof" that they might need someday at Council in case Council messed up their records (which our Council does have a reputation for doing -- I don't know whether that reputation is earned or not, but it's there).

 

What would you do if your boy were in this situation, with few or no blue cards? They're only 1st Class & Star level at this point, but they've got lots and lots of elective merit badges.

 

The troop continues to emphasize the importance of book & printed cards, and I've never once heard anything about having to keep blue card stubs after they've been completed turned in (my boys have both been burned by bringing home partial cards and having to start the MB's over because they didn't bother to keep track of the partials).

 

-Liz

[Eagle92]

Liz,

my old troop had a similar problem to the one you described. Except it wasn't MBs but adavcnement. one of our guts was listed as First Class by council and was denied the EBOR because he was "only first class." The AC did the job of getting the award and turning in the paperwork, but not keeping the paperwork. We solved the problem by taking the Scout's book, photocopying it, and filling out an advancement report with attached copy. Problem solved.