Eagle Requirement: Be active in your troop and patrol

[SSScout]

J/KC: Never said the SM could give the ESC a P/F. This SM conference should occur about when the Scout is a new Star or Life. As I suggested, the idea is to REMIND the Scout of his promise to be Loyal, Trustworthy, etc. and set the internal gears turning. Again, let the Scout define how he has been Trustworthy and Loyal. I admit, the 'oficial' requirement is to have a SM con, but there is no paper directive that says there be only one or when, or how formal. The hallway encounter might be enough.

If the Scout's Scout Spirit is evident in his non-Scout life, so much the better I say. The Eagle Rank award should be not only an indication of the Scout's worth in Scouting, but elsewhere as well.

If he is "active" in Scouting, (paid the dues) well and good. But the Scout leaders in his life need to ask him (and listen to his answer), what that promise he made (OMHIWDMBTDMDTGAMC...) has meant to him. And his answer will be not just in word but in his actions. "Let your lives speak" we say. Does he see the Spromise as important still, if he ever did? This reminder needs to be done not just once, a week before his EBoR, but often, and early on in his Scout career.

It can't just be mouthing the SPromise and Law at every Tmeeting. The goal of Scouting, in so many words, is to see the worth of those words and and to gain the skills and confidence to live the meaning of those words regardless of the reaction of the rest of the world.

Not rarely, because of action or reaction in my job, I've been asked, "were you ever a Scout?" and when I answer yes, they say something like, "yeah, I thought so." I take that as a compliment, not only to me, but to my parents, and my Scout leaders so long ago, who often reminded me of the importance of that promise I made. First because I was asked to, later because I wanted to.

 

Perhaps that is the idea. We want the boy to WANT to make that promise. Yeah, we want the boy to WANT to make that promise.

[John-in-KC]

"If the Scout's Scout Spirit is evident in his non-Scout life, so much the better I say."

 

Absolute 180 degrees out from true. Scout Spirit is what we expect from the young man when he's away from our eyes and ears. It's the goal we strive to instill in him.

 

Here are the definitions, straight from the scouting.org website, which conform to Requirements #33215 and the Boy Scout Handbook:

 

At Scout: Understand and agree to live by the Scout Oath or Promise, Law, motto, and slogan, and the Outdoor Code.

 

At T-2-1-S-L and Palms: Demonstrate Scout spirit by living the Scout Oath (Promise) and Scout Law in your everyday life.

 

At Eagle: Demonstrate that you live by the principles of the Scout Oath and Law in your daily life. List the names of individuals who know you personally and would be willing to provide a recommendation on your behalf, including parents/guardians, religious, educational, and employer references.

 

Scout Spirit is not about the meeting hall or the campout. It's about the Oath and Law 24/7/365/lifetime.

[evmori]

Absolute 180 degrees out from true. Scout Spirit is what we expect from the young man when he's away from our eyes and ears. It's the goal we strive to instill in him.

 

Scout Spirit includes Scouting & everything outside of Scouting, hence the term "everyday life".

[John-in-KC]

I can live with that Ed.

 

That said, it most assuredly includes the 168-2 hours a week the Troop isn't meeting, the 30-2 days a month the Troop isn't short term camping, and the 52-1 (or 2) weeks a year the Troop isn't LT camping!!!

[John-in-KC]

SSS,

 

Apologies. I mis-interpreted your statement.

 

To me, the ultimate measure of success of our work as Scouters is when the Oath and Law are lifetime, living, breathing elements of the next generations' lives.

 

Beavah will understand this: Christians operate from a starting position of "All humanity are sinners and fallen." From this context, a value set that tries to cover the temporal life gives superb touchstones.

 

That's my read on the world this wintry day.

[SSScout]

MODERATORS:

 

Wierd.... I wrote an answer here timed 11:31:42am, and came back to see it repeated TWO more times (makes three). So I edited, erased the last two, but came back to see the FIRST one also totally gone, so that my Pulitzer winner was no where to be seen. Any chance of retrieving it?

 

J/KC read it before the erasure, thank you for seeing what I meant.

 

Y still iS

 

 

[momof7scouts]

Our SM and CC are trying a "new" policy with our scouts to try to deal with the lack of attendance/participation for those older life scouts as well as issues with lack of advancement (due to parental apathy). It is also to address the incredible lack of participation by parents.

Starting one month before recharter time, each scout and a parental figure has to meet with a committee member (or ASM or SM), resign up, pay, have parents view list of available ways to help (and hopefully chose one), then the scout is supposed to discuss what their goals are for scouting the next year and the adult scouter will help them map a way to achieve those goals (with the parental figure there). We are hoping this keeps the scouts more active, let's them see what they need to do to get where they want to go, gets more parents involved, lets the parents see what their son/s need to do, and will allow purging of scouts who have been rechartered for a while without ever attending anything.

 

[SSScout]

OK...

So now even the boxes are gone. It was there, before I sought to eliminate the mutiple entries.

 

MODERATORS: What'd I do wrong?

 

John-in-KC saw it, right John?

[John-in-KC]

Yep, I saw it.

 

 

[FScouter]

Multiple identical posts result from pushing the "Submit Your Message" button more than once. The system is sometimes slow to respond and may take up to a full minute to post a message. You can edit out all the content of a multiple post, but you cannot delete the empty post entry. A moderator can delete the duplicates; I delete many duplicates every week.

 

It's not clear what may have happened to the origninal post (with content). If you edited out the content from the original and all dups, that may explain it. Or if you attempted to add different content to a duplicate, it may have been deleted by a moderator while you were editing.

 

There is no way to retrieve a message that has been deleted. Sorry for the difficulties.

Frank

[BulldogBlitz]

"active" is defined as being a paid member ? why do we not have 50X more Eagle Scouts every year?

 

i'm going to try that at work. i won't show up for three months and wait for my promotion.

[Bob White]

momof7scouts

 

I like what you describe the troop is doing but are you saying that it is tied to the advancement requirement in some way? Or is it just an effort to get more communication and committment from the family as a whole?

[Bob White]

While you cannot tie a specific attendance number to "active" in a troop program, you can tie it to "membership". Units that keep non-participating Scouts on the roster are as much to blame for the problem of inactive scouts suddenly showing up for advancement as the Scout himself is.

 

I am in a business organization that requires you to attend a weekly meeting (not unlike in Boy Scouts) we are allowed only 3 absenses every 6 months after which we recieve three written warnings and on the next absense your membership fee (which is a lot more than what we charge in Scouting) is forfeited and you are out of the organization. If you want back in you can reapply but your chances are slim.

 

If you have a scout with a behavioral problem rather than worry about his advancement why not reconsider his membership. I would wager that might get his attention more than anything else.

[SSScout]

 

Dang. Well. I only deleted the two multiples, and the boxes were still there with "sorry" noted therein. What happened to the boxes AND the original?

 

Well.

I tried to define the need to be proactive and therefore remind our Scouts early in their career about the promise we ask them to make.

It is not sufficient to wait until the week before the EBoR to think about the Scout's 'activity'.

 

"Tap three times on the submit if you love Scouts (tap,tap,tap)

twice on delete (tap,tap) if the answer is noooo..."

[OldGreyEagle]

remember, even if a scout doesnt show up for 6 months, he is still seen by National as an active scout, but if he doesnt go on events, earn merit badges, how does he advance ? simple he doesnt or shouldn't