Missing HB = no BOR

[evmori]

What if they never buy a handbook? They are good to own for the reasons I stated before but they aren't required. A Scout can print out the requirements pages from the internet!

[packsaddle]

I'm trying to find the place in the HB where the BOR signs to approve the advancement. I can't find it, can someone help me out? What page is it on?

[FireKat]

If they bring a list of the requirement on a piece of crumpled paper with the proper intials, that is just fine with me. All I want is to see that they did what BSA reqires. Not that they have a book.

[FireKat]

pack, our board does sign the book (not as requirement but good for the boy's records) The signatures are required on the offical paperwork to council (even if using internet advancement). I have always worried that the boys don't get copies of that paperwork. That is why I give them copies of the IA reports. Then they have a copy of the dates of their BoRs if their books go missing.

[Eagle92]

I haven't looked in the current HB's advancement section in a while, I look it up when I get home to check. If they did take out the BOR's signature part from the requirements, then I would agree that a HB is not needed for advancement, so the BOR should have happened.

 

However if the BOR's signature, or initials, are required for adavancement, then the book would be required for bor since the signature needs to be in the book in order to advance. No book = no signature= no advancement. Not adding requirements, just the way it is.

 

Again I'll double check when I get home.

[Twocubdad]

The books are still set up with the "checklist" in the front and a records section in the back for signatures. The Scoutmaster conference and board of review are still there with spaces for signatures.

 

Not using the Scout's handbook for advancement sign-offs is like working without a net. It's generally considered the final word on when things were completed. Sure, boys frequently lose their books and the troop and council should always have redundant backup, but I would never skip the handbook.

[evmori]

The official advancement record should be with the unit's Advancement Chair. The HB is the Scout's record.

 

When I was the Advancement Chair I would periodically print out my records & pass them out to each Scout to check for accuracy. That way, if there were any deficiencies, they were caught & corrected. The advancement records I kept were the official records for our unit.

[Buffalo Skipper]

The only official record of a scout's progress and avancement is his handbook. The one function of the BoR is to verify this (as should also be done by the SM before recomending the BoR, but as we have seen here many times, this is not always the case).

 

If the scout does not bring his book, how can the BoR do it's duty? Looking at the dates in the book gives the committee a real sense of what this boy had done and how he has done it, and may even lead to how they conduct the review.

 

Without the scout's handbook, I do not see how the BoR can fairly conduct the review. I understand that one cannot add or subtract from the requirements, but I really do not see this as falling into that category.

[OldGreyEagle]

this may just be picking nits, but actually the official scout record is what is listed at your COuncil office. The ScoutReach wing of the Council I serve doesnt give every scout a handbook, rather they give them the requirements taken from the handbook on 8 x 11 pages and the scoutmaster holds onto them in a file

[John-in-KC]

The only official record of a scout's progress and avancement is his handbook.

 

EXCUSE ME????

 

The only official record of a Scouts advancement is ScoutNet. If your unit has not gotten information to the Council and the National database, the event never happened.

 

The Boy Scout Handbook is no more and no less than a primary source document. PERIOD If your unit has a good Scribe and a good Advancement Coordinator, there are at least two internal secondary sources of information: The Advancement Wall Chart and your unit internal database (Troopmaster).

 

BTW, the 3 signatures that matter on a BOR go on the Advancement Report to Council.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Buffalo Skipper]

Let's consider this. I am not shorting Scoutnet, but what you are saying is that a BoR is meaningless unless it is turned in AND recorded with the council?

 

And if a scout moves and has, say most Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class requirements signed off by his old troop, the new troop should not give him credit because it is not in Scoutnet?

 

Prehaps I should have said that a scouts' MOST official record is his handbook. And I am talking about individual requirements here, not the rank completetion (which occurs after the BoR--we are talking about before the BoR).

(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

[John-in-KC]

I live near a military installation. Kids arrive pretty typically in the summer. Their Scout handbooks are more than occasionally in their hold baggage, particularly if they're coming from overseas service.

 

When I was advancement coord, I emailed the old unit. They'd send me what they had of his data from Troopmaster. I posted it, he was on his way until his book caught up with him.

 

It's a source. Normally, it's the primary source. Good units have redundancy in recordkeeping. Better units have both youth-performed and adult-performed redundancy.

 

And yes, if the Advancement Report doesn't get to Council, as far as the National Council is concerned, the advancement never happened.

 

The job's not done til the paperworks' complete, but that's our responsibility, not the youth program members.

[Beavah]

Gosh, but we are an interestin' bunch of adults.

 

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with expectin' a lad to bring his book. There's no requirement that he wear anything but his underwear, but I expect most of us would expect a boy to be clothed at a BOR, too.

 

ScoutNet does not keep track of individual requirements, so it's only after a BOR is passed and recorded that ScoutNet becomes the official record, along with da paper advancement report. Of course we all know that ScoutNet seems to have a random error rate of 10% or so, so a wise and prudent scout and troop will keep backups, like a signed and dated book.

 

There is no requirement that a Troop use Troopmaster or any other record-keeping device to keep track of individual requirements. Some troops do, but personally I think it's a profound waste of people's time just to take a lad's responsibility away. So it's perfectly natural to expect a book. There might not be anything else that's reliable.

 

I think da big rule is "don't be stupid." Don't apply "no adding to the requirements" in ridiculous ways. Don't put off a lad's BOR for want of a book if you spent hundreds of hours recording everything in Troopmaster and yeh have the data right in front of you.

 

Maybe some day we'll get to reprogrammable RFID chips we can embed in the scout's right hand so we can just scan his records. No doubt then someone would say it's not required for the BOR to have a scanner present and it's not required for a boy to present his hand to be scanned.

 

Beavah

 

[Buffalo Skipper]

John, I really do not feel we are that far apart. I do apologize if I stated things in an infalmatory way. I would do the same thing as you working with other troops and Troopmaster. And yes, we do keep redundant records, but when in doubt, we go by the scout's handbook, and we consider this the most official record.

 

As stated earlier in the thread, there are occasions where a HB is lost, and when a new one is bought, we do our best to replicate the information from what we have in Troopmaster, as we do try to get scout's HBs often to keep our records up to date, but this is not perfect.

 

As we consider the HB the most offical record, the BoR must sign it off in his HB before it becomes "official." Like any requirement, it cannot be signed off until the book is presented to be signed off. Anyway, this does serve to teach the scout about the responsiblity of keeping up with his book.

[John-in-KC]

And I apologize if I was inflammatory.

 

Our difference is "most official" v "primary." Compared to Ms Summer's SM and Committee, we're in the small potatoes department