Eagle Letters of Recommendation is NOT a requirement. Time to clear this up.

[John-in-KC]

You're missing the fact that ACP&P #33088 is the governing document. If someone has an 08 or 09 edition, please check wording below:

 

Step 6: When the completed application is received at the council service center, its contents will be verified and the references contacted. The Scout shall have listed six reference (five if no employer, and parent if no organized relisious association). the council advancement committee or its designee contacts the references on the Eagle Scout Rank Application, either by letter, form or telephone checklist (emphasis added) (The council determines the method or methods to be used.) The candidate should have contacted individuals listed as references before including their names on the application. (emphasis added) If desired by the council, the candidate may be asked to deliver a blank reference form and envelopes to the listed references. The candidates hould not be involved personally in transmitting any correspondence between people listed as references and the council service center or advancement committee. If the initial reference ltter or form is not returned to the council in a timely manner, the council advancement committee (emphasis added)must make direct contact with the reference(s) listed on the Eagle Scout Rank Application on its own, by follow-up letter, phone contact, or other methods as it chooses. The candidate shall not be required to make a follow-up contact with the reference or submit other reference names. A Scout cannot have a board of review denied or postponed because the council office or council advancement committee does not receive the reference letter forms he delivered.

[evmori]

And that says it all John!

 

Letters are NOT required and a scout can NOT be denied a BOR because his references have not been contacted.

[BrentAllen]

A BOR can be denied or postponed if the references haven't been contacted. Read that last sentence in John's post again. The council MUST make direct contact with the references. The board can't be held until they do. It is in the candidate's best interest to get his references to send in the letters.

[mmhardy]

IMHOLooking at the size of this thread and the various interpretations of how this aspect is handled, its blatantly obvious that this is a significant point of contention. I would propose that National take it out of local council hands and spell it out as a requirement of rank. Period. As an Eagle advisor I tell each boy as soon as they achieve Life that reference letters are expected. (Does this make it a requirement?). If the boy can not come up with 3 to 5 letters of recommendation maybe they are not Eagle material.

[Lisabob]

I guess I do not understand the tempest in a teapot over this issue.

 

For starters, unless (even if?) the boy is a truly horrid person, what boy is going to find it impossible to get several reasonably positive letters written on his behalf - especially since his parents can be references. I've not yet seen any parents throw their kid under the bus in this context; maybe others of you have.

 

Second, making the request to have those letters takes minimal effort on the boy's part. Even if he has to make a couple of phone calls to ensure that the request has not been forgotten or the form not lost, it really is not that difficult or time consuming to do that. And of course he's requesting letters from people who probably like him, making this easier still.

 

Third, it would be quite illogical to put up a major fight over this matter. The potential costs are great, while the benefits are minimal.

 

So although I understand the "no adding to the requirements" business, this particular matter is not a hill to die on, in my estimation. There are a lot of things we all do every day in "real life" that are technically not required but are just basic common sense and survival. I know that if I pulled the "it isn't required in my contract" bit every time I was asked to participate in something at work, I'd probably be replaced. Same thing at home. Where does it say on my marriage license that I have to do the laundry?? Teaching kids to always take that approach is probably not serving them well in the bigger picture, especially over matters that are relatively simple.

[BrentAllen]

I can't understand it, either. Are we teaching the youth to find the absolute minimum way through the program, and to just play legal games? The BSA has decided that one of the best ways for a Scout to demonstrate he is living the Oath and Law outside of Scouting is through these reference letters. I have been asked to write them before, and I consider it an honor and a privilege. That usually means I'm also getting an invitation to the ECOH! :-) In the scheme of things, this should be one of the easiest requirements to complete.

[nolesrule]

The "it isn't in my contract so my boss can't make me do it" isn't really a valid analogy. If you want to compare it to the workplace environment, it's more akin to having a supervisor take a task that they are required under their contract to personally execute and push it onto one of their subordinates, who according to the office policy manual is expressly prohibited from executing that specific task.

 

According to the ACP&P, once the scout has turned in the list of references, or beyond that delivered the DAC/CAC reference forms, it becomes the DAC/CAC's responsibility to follow through and ensure that the references are completed. I don't see a problem in the scout giving a friendly reminder to their references, especially if they see them regularly, but the DAC/CAC should not be holding the scout personally responsible for their references not following through, which appears to be what is happening in some councils.

 

As for having the referneces into council by your 18th birthday, or no BOR, what a joke. Only the requirements (except the BOR itself) must be completed prior to the 18th birthday, and that only means turning in the list of references with contact information.

 

[Eagledad]

You might as well replace reference letters with uniform and you have the same discussion. Neither is required, but it sure makes the whole process messy and "risky" if you don't. Just do it and save the hassle.

 

Barry

[OldGreyEagle]

Again with the minimums...

 

We have requirements for Eagle, they are known and publsihed. We also know that there is no adding or subtracting to the requirements so do we not expect the scout to meet the requirements or not?

 

I pay income tax each year I don't add 10% more to prove I am a Patriot and I don't want to do just the minimum. In my professional certification I must have 24 hours of Continuing Education every 24 months to renew my registration. Am I bad for only doing the minimum? WOuld you be more impressed if I said I would do 30 hours?

 

We have requirments for Eagle, we have requirements for the Eagle applicant to provide 5 references whom are to be contacted for a reference. As stated in multiple places in this thread the Council may elect that these references may be in the form of a letter and the boy may be asked to deliver the form letters.

 

If we want to "upgrade" the Eagle requirments, then please, add to the Eagle and Minimum thread. What I thought we were teaching youth was to make ethical decsions over their lifteime based on the values expressed in the Oath and Law wich means we the adults have to follow the Oath and Law itself. Seems many councils have forgotten that or never got the memo

[packsaddle]

Brent wrote: "A BOR can be denied or postponed if the references haven't been contacted. Read that last sentence in John's post again."

 

I just read that last sentence in John's post again and I understand something completely different. Here's that last sentence again:

"A Scout cannot have a board of review denied or postponed because the council office or council advancement committee does not receive the reference letter forms he delivered."

 

The way I interpret that is that the scout CANNOT have a BOR denied or postponed because the council office or council advancement committee does not receive the reference letter forms he delivered. Hey, that's starting to sound like Deja vu all over again.

 

Or am I reading a different last sentence? Hey, are those pesky forum moderators messin' with the posts again? That must be it...they've CHANGED the last sentence just to confuse me. Bad Dogs!

 

Hey pack, if I was messing with the posts is woudl look like this, somehtng about the post being edited by a staff memeber

 

OGE (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[BrentAllen]

The reading and comprehension skills here are pretty depressing.

 

Ed wrote: "...and a scout can NOT be denied a BOR because his references have not been contacted."

 

I responded with the sentence you quoted. There is a big difference between the letters not being received and the references not being contacted. The council MUST contact the references. This can be done by letter, email, phone, fax - whatever method the COUNCIL chooses. If the candidate does not get the letters in, he will have to wait until the council gets around to contacting the references listed on the application.

 

OGE,

We are hopefully teaching our Scouts to do their best.

 

Minimum: provide 5 references

 

Doing his best: make sure the references know they need to write a letter and are willing to do so, provide a stamped, addressed envelope, provide them with some background on the Oath and Law so they can write their letter in that context, give a "due date," follow up to see if the letter was sent.

[Eagledad]

>>I pay income tax each year I don't add 10% more to prove I am a Patriot and I don't want to do just the minimum. In my professional certification I must have 24 hours of Continuing Education every 24 months to renew my registration. Am I bad for only doing the minimum? WOuld you be more impressed if I said I would do 30 hours?

[Twocubdad]

There's a whole lot of grey area in BSA policies, but this ain't one of them. The Scout's obligation is to choose his references and list them on the application, contact them to make sure they are willing to be a reference and, if the council asks, give the references envelopes and form letters from the council. Period.

 

Beyond that the Scout is out of the process. If the reference fails to provide a letter, it is up to the council to track it down. If a reference doesn't come through it can't be held against the Scout.

 

Look at the alternative: through no fault of his own, a Scout's advancement is held up or denied because his reference is a slackard, or forgetful. Not every boy is in a community where potential references are professional folk, accustomed to writings letter and understanding the process or it's importance. Should we hold the failure of a reference against the Scout?

 

Let's just call this what it is. Council advancement committees don't want to be stuck with the aggravation of tracking down what could be hundreds of overdue reference letters. Councils don't want to pay staff to do it and volunteers don't want to get stuck with it. So they dump it on the Scout.

[Oak Tree]

Clearly it's much easier for the council to have the Scout round up the letters.

 

What can happen, though, is that the council can say, "We'll schedule your BoR once we have the letters or we have made other contact with the references." Then the cone of silence descends. Obviously the council has to wait some amount of time to see if the letters come in. How long? The rules say that if the forms are not returned "in a timely manner", they have to make contact. How long is "timely"?

 

I've had boys waiting months. When we check back with the council, they say, "Oh, right, we still haven't had a letter or contact with so-and-so." They didn't bother to tell us. Just very frustrating. It doesn't seem like you should have to push on council every step along the way. I had a Scout miss out on an Eagle palm due to this type of delay.

[packsaddle]

Brent,

I'm just trying to find all your claims in that last sentence. You stated that the council MUST contact the references and that "A BOR can be denied or postponed if the references haven't been contacted. Read that last sentence in John's post again."

And later " There is a big difference between the letters not being received and the references not being contacted."

 

However, in that last sentence which states, "A Scout cannot have a board of review denied or postponed because the council office or council advancement committee does not receive the reference letter forms he delivered.",

it is explicit that if the scout delivered the reference letter forms and that if somehow (Rosemary Woods accidentally reaches across the office and her little toe tips them into the dust bin) they weren't received by the council office or advancement committee, the BOR cannot be denied on that basis.

 

(remember, you asked Ed to focus on the last sentence of John's post)

 

If the forms are not received by the council office or advancement committee, to me it seems unlikely that they will be able to contact the references, they don't even know the references exist without those forms, right? This is all part of the same situation. How does it make sense that the BOR CAN be denied, as you claim, because of failure to contact the references on forms that it is perfectly OK not to have received in the first place?

Catch-22?

 

Let's go through it again.

First the boy gets the reference letter forms.

Then the forms are filled out.

Then they are delivered to the council.

Now Rosemary loses the forms but that's OK, the BOR can't be denied because of that.

But because the council advancement committee didn't contact the references that they didn't know about in the first place, the BOR can be denied on that basis.

Please explain.