Merit Badges during meetings?

[evmori]

Ahh well what if the PLC decides to work on a merit badge during a meeting or two and wants to bring in an outside presenter?

[allangr1024]

I have worked with our troop for 9 years, 3 as SM. Our founding SM set up merit badges in troop meetings because that was the practice of the troop he grew up in (Eagle Factory). The boys in our troop new no other way.

 

I stopped doing that when I got the job. I sat in on one class in our troop on Trucking, and I swear the boys knew no more about the subject after 2 weeks of the parent lecturing than they did before the class. I am not a fan of doing merit badges like the boys have to do school courses. We do one every once in a while when the SPL asks for one. If we do one in the troop, I prefer we do it on a camping trip. We are going to offer Camping MB this way in December. We did Wilderness Survival last year. I would even do one that is more academic on a camping trip, but more one on one with the boys.

 

In theory scouts are to go to the councilors on the list and do the badges on their own. The MB councilor list should be maintained by the council or district. Troops should keep lists from adult surveys they do. When I took the job, our troop not only did not have a list, but it never entered into anyones mind to prepare one. 3 or 4 registered scouters taught the merit badges for the troop. The council people said to refer to our troops list, since they did not maintain one. Thus it goes.

 

[scoutldr]

If your District does not maintain a list of registered MBC, then the District Advancement Committee is not doing its job.

[Horizon]

Merit Badge Counselors can choose to use some of the skills portion of the Troop meeting time to meet with Scouts at my Troop. We open that up to them 1-2 times per month.

 

I have a Troop of 50+ boys, and many very skilled and educated parents. When the physician offers to teach First Aid, with two nurses as assistants, I welcome him. He takes on 5-10 boys and instead of dropping off his son, he sticks around and teaches. That works for me, is adult association, and the boys learn First Aid.

 

I do not have MBCs at every meeting, but I think that allowing counselors to have some time at meetings is just fine. We have the Council MBC trainer come to the Troop 1-2 times per year and they train our parents who are willing to fill out the application and provide services.

[Twocubdad]

There's nothing wrong with that. The instruction portion on our troop meets frequently come from merit badge topics. In fact, the PLC, during the troop planning conference uses the list of merit badges to come up with monthly program ideas.

 

The bugaboo is what happens next. If everyone who sat through the meeting is handed a blue card on the way out, you have a problem. What should happen is for the Scouts to take what they learned from the troop instruction, contact a counselor and find out what he has to do to complete the merit badge. When we have programs like this we typically have very low completion rates for the MB, which is just fine. All we are tring to do is whet the Scouts interest in the topic. Follow-through is part of the learning process.

[artjrk]

The last time I can remember a meeting being devoted to a merit badge was two years ago. The school (where we normally meet) was closed so we met at the police station and all took the fingerprinting merit badge. The officer also had another presentation for the boys. But that is it for merit badges during meetings in my 5+ years there. Occasionally we will have a MB class prior to a meeting for those working on the same MB.

[FScouter]

PLCs decide all kinds of dumb things. When they decide that the next meeting will be to shoot hoops, they're off track. Same as if they decide the next series of meetings will be a lecture class on some merit badge or other. That's why we have a Scoutmaster, to help the PLC focus on their purpose.

[evmori]

PLCs decide all kinds of dumb things. When they decide that the next meeting will be to shoot hoops, they're off track. Same as if they decide the next series of meetings will be a lecture class on some merit badge or other. That's why we have a Scoutmaster, to help the PLC focus on their purpose.

 

So deciding that a few meeting will be dedicated to working on a merit badge is dumb? Interesting perspective.

[jeff-o]

I'm working with a very young troop (oldest scout is 12) with less than a year's experience. I'll admit, the troop isn't boy-led yet, but that's a 3-4-year goal for us. In the meantime, the adults (me) are doing most of the meeting planning, with input from the scouts. The scouts selected ideas/themes for the months last August.

 

The way I'm doing merit badges is to occasionally introduce things that are parts of merit badges -- for example, we invited a public official for a 10-minute talk one meeting. Afterwords I mentioned that there was a requirement for the citizenship in the community merit badge related to what we had just done.

 

So we don't devote a meeting to a merit badge, but since our Scouts are all young and inexperienced, I use the meeting time as a way to introduce the Scouts to a merit badge. If they are interested in the idea, then they get the merit badge counselor's phone number and a blue card.