more adding to the Eagle application requirements VENT

[CA_Scouter]

Son fills out his Eagle Application/Packet and contacts the District Advancment chair to submit. We have a situation where my daughter is moving out of state in June, so I want to get this processed so she can be in attendance at COH.

 

District Advancement Chair will not accept the Eagle application without the letters of recommendation. Council says a minimum of 3.

 

Aaargh. So he rushes to get the letters of recommendation, gets 4, ( myself the SM, personal friend Colonel in the Air Force, personal friend CIO of a high tech company and from our pastor )then meets with District Advancement Chair. Now he says he's got the wrong ones, that the one from his SM ( me ) counts as the 'parent' letter, that he needs one from another leader in the troop, and that there is no letter from a school teacher so he needs that also.

 

%%^*$%#$!!!

 

I'm willing to tolerate some of this to a certain point because this guy is, after all, a volunteer and helping him get those letters seems like a friendly thing to do even though BSA does not require it. But to NOT accept the application then to NOT accept it a second time because the 'wrong' letters were submitted... DOUBLE AAARGH!

 

District Advancement Chair did say he would expedite the process for us due to my daughter's situation so I don't plan to tar and feather the guy like I thinking about last night. However, I do plan to send him a friendly email afterwards indicating my displeasure at his adding to the requirements.

 

At one time I was considering sending a letter to the DE and Council Exec. Still considering it.

 

I am thinking to encourage son to get letters from my 3 ASMs, the Chartered Org Rep, Committee Chair, his principal, youth pastor, head of the org who benefitted from the Eagle project, his basketball coach, music teacher and the guy who fixed his motorcycle last time. I am only half serious here.

 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

Get him as many unnecessary letters as possible!

[Lisabob]

I'm with Ed on this one.

 

Sheesh. I would be sorely tempted to send that letter of concern to the DAC and cc the district chair, district commish, and DE - After your son gets through his Eagle BOR and necessary paperwork. But then maybe this guy is new to the DAC position and is merely trying to be thorough, which could explain his over-zealousness.

 

At any rate, try (hard) not to communicate your annoyance to your son. Not worth it. Let his Eagle process be as untainted with dumb adult goofiness as you can manage, so he can fully enjoy the experience.

[frankj]

Don't forget to get one from his dentist. Just kidding.

 

Sounds like what I call a "localized" interpretation of the requirement. I have been on Eagle Boards where there were as few a 3 letters. For others reading this who may have a boy getting close to seeking these letters, I have encouraged boys to provide people with a stamped, self-addressed envelope to make it easy for them to write the letter and mail it.

[evmori]

CA,

 

After you give at least 30 letters to this individual, please remind them that letters of recommendation are not required.

[scoutldr]

As long as they are on the table on the night of the EBOR, what's the diff? I find the letters to be silly anyway, and a waste of time...ESPECIALLY the one from the parent. The one from the SM is redundant, since he/she has already had the SM conference and signed the Eagle app indicating approval.(This message has been edited by scoutldr)

[asm 411]

Why do we have this hoop?

 

Seriously has there ever been a Scout who could not obtain Eagle because he could not find several people to write nice things about him?

 

Does anyone know the purpose behind this requirement?

[sheldonsmom]

The teacher note drives me nuts....we homeschool! We had to submit one letter from my husband and one from me to fulfill the requirements since my son had not taken outside classes in the last semester.

What a joke. I mean, really, are you going to denigrate your own son at his Eagle BOR?

 

[eagle77]

Many councils do this and their EBOR differently. In our council they give a sheet that lists the 12 points of the scout law and how the person would grade them on this, from poor to excellent. There is also an area for written comments, it then asks if they approve the scout for Eagle. I don't see this as much different then the refrences that an employer or higher education school may ask for. Aren't we supposed to be getting these boys ready to be adults? I did have one boy who was home schooled and just asked him to give one to another person or friend. Also when it comes to parents who are also leaders since I never signed for my son on any advancement I also asked another leader to do the SM sheet. Granted these can be a pain sometime, but we need to get our youth ready for adult life and the sometimes redundt things that go on there too.

[eagle77]

Missed one point on this. The main purpose as I was told is to see if the scout is leading his life outside the troop by the scout oath and law.

[scoutingagain]

We did something similar to Sheldonsmom for the religious letter. We are not exactly a well known quantity at our church. Doesn't mean there is no faith there but the Pastor wouldn't have known my son from a hole in the wall. I wrote the religious letter and my wife wrote the letter from a parent. In CA's case I would have either written a letter as the SM or Parent, and had either an ASM or the other parent write the other. I know it's 20/20 hindsight.

 

I purpose of the hoop and the process I think is largely symbolic. Among other things it prepares a scout for college applications, job applications etc. in the future. The process also teaches the scout to read and follow directions. While it may seem petty(and it is) it teaches the scout how to deal with bureaucracies, be they college administrators, the military or the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.

 

SA

[Crew21_Adv]

CA_Scouter,

 

I've had a similar issue with an Eagle Scout candidate. Being an ASM for the troop, and helping him get his documentation in order for the District Advancement Chair, days before he turned 18. I was playing middle man, attempting to get him to do the work himself, meanwhile attempting to get the district to conduct a short fused EBOR.

 

For this young man, it was probably more closer to hours than days, between Eagle Project to Application Submission to Eagle Board to the Eagle Ceremony. So the troop leadership and committee was already acting quite flexible enough for him.

 

 

His father presented the Eagle Rank application and three referral letters, the candidate himself could not meet with me to present his rank application. The three referrals contained, one from his mother, one from his father, and one from his father's co-worker (who didn't even know the young man). I had to tell the father, that the EBOR committee would desire more than just three referrals which did commented positively on the Scout. But two of which were his parents, and another gentleman that did not know the Scout, the EBOR may withhold endorsing the application and advancement report until he could obtain at least one more referral.

 

After alot of frustration by the father and a friend. The father obtained one more referral by the next day.

 

Was it fustrating? Yes for everyone, similar to your fustrations. But obtaining a referral from someone else that actually knew the boy was what the district and council advancement committees desired.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv(This message has been edited by Crew21_Adv)

[CA_Scouter]

FrankJ - I actually DID consider his dentist, but I didn't want to appear to be going 'over the top' with this... ;-)

 

LisaBob - my son didn't need any encouragement from me to be annoyed. I haven't seen him roll his eyes this much since the last time I asked him to comb his hair!

 

Taking deep breaths and counting to ten... one....two....

[Buffalo Skipper]

Seriously has there ever been a Scout who could not obtain Eagle because he could not find several people to write nice things about him?

Yes, there has--well sort of. And it was in my current troop, but before I joined the unit. One scout had compled all his requirements for Eagle, his MBs, his project, his SM conference, and was awaiting letters to be returned before his BOR. The SM had just stepped up, and though he knew the scout well, he was unfamiliar with proceedures, and the outgoing SM had become he "Life to Eagle Coach." The scout received only 2 of 3 letters back and the L2EC refused to set up a BOR, on the basis that 3 letters were required (no one at the time knew any different, so it was not challenged).

As it turns out, the 3rd letter was not received because the Associate Pastor had been on a summer mission trip, and the letter was lost on his desk (I started/fueled a thread a several months ago about Life to Eagle coaches because of what I found out about this situation).

This man is now 26 years old and, with information I have passed on, is now appealing the decision. I will start another thread to discuss this some other time, as the process has just begun.

[John-in-KC]

What Lisa said.

 

I do think Districts should explain, almost annually, the Life---> Eagle process. Ours does. It's a hugely popular RT event, it's been known to fill a 200 seat church sanctuary with Scouts, parents, and Scouters. As others have said, that may be an indication of the "arcane knowledge, Indian Lore, and Lean-Six-Sigma" processes needed to get through the last mile. Even so, it's there, and our chosen method to deal with it is to educate.

 

As a side note, I've learned, the hard way, that parent letters are a point of risk in and of themselves. I've seen letters from divorced couples that describe the candidate in opposite terms: It's pretty clear one parent is using the Eagle Candidacy to get at the other parent. For those who are SM/CC, that's not a "be prepared" issue, that's a "be wary" issue.

 

Finally, to answer the question of whether letters are even required: As I read ACP&P #33088, that's a Council Advancement Committee discretionary item. My Council's Advancement Committee's interpretation is:

- Districts have discretion about whether to use unit boards/District Guest, or District Boards, unit participation.

- Letters are required.

- The Scout delivers letter shells to references.

- The unit CC is the recipient as an agent of the District Advancement Committee.

- The letters are opened and read at the EBOR before the candidate arrives.