Transfers from an LDS unit

[evmori]

Interesting.

 

I would contact the council office in Utah and ask for their records and see if they match with what you have. And as Mike F pointed out, if they were dual registered at the time any requirements were completed in the other unit, they should not count.

[bacchus]

Yes, definitely drop the LDS part of your argument, it's pretty inflammatory to us LDS guys trying to do things the right way.

 

By the way, we had a 10 year old scout transfer to our unit from a non-LDS unit that had advanced him all the way to 1st Class, and didn't turn in the paperwork to council. Does that raise any red flags? However, I don't fault all non-LDS units for this issue. Interestingly, once we got that back under control with retraining and rechecking, he transferred back to the old troop.

[gcnphkr]

Bacchus, I appologize to all the LDS units trying to do things right. I would be just as unhappy if this had been a traditional unit.

[Beavah]

Yah, sounds like da Utah unit submitted registration, which then overrode the lad's registration in your unit. So da Utah unit was the unit of record for the summer advancement. What that means is yeh can decide whether or not to accept da scout's application to transfer back to your unit.

 

I agree with da others, a conversation with the summer SM is in order, and with da family. Get everybody on the same page from now on.

 

Perhaps Bacchus can comment, or someone else from Western Region.... What is it with da seemingly large numbers of youth who troop hop for da summer out there? That does seem to be an LDS phenomenon, and it does seem to match accident reports. Seems like quite a few injuries/fatalities have been to these "guest" scouts, perhaps because da leaders don't know their skills/behavior.

 

As a canoeing MBC, I confess I'm baffled by baccus's claim that it's a two hour badge. It may well be that da expectations where he's at are vastly different than da rest of us, which might be why da original poster is struggling. The thought that a new first year scout would finish Canoeing MB in 4 hours, let alone 2, I find laughably tragic. If the same low bar is being set for other badges and advancement, I expect many if not most units would have a problem with it.

 

B

[gcnphkr]

Beavah:

"The thought that a new first year scout would finish Canoeing MB in 4 hours, let alone 2, I find laughably tragic."

 

I agree. The son was an instructor at camp this summer. He said that it would at least 2 hours just to test someone that was an experienced canoeist. If they picked things up quickly, they might do it in 5.

 

The Signaling is another one I wonder about. It is a hard merit badge. They need to learn Morris Code and Semaphore well enough that they would not be able to use a cheat sheet. The amount of practice required should use up so much time that it would be very hard to do anything else. At the minimum speeds, testing alone would run 40 minutes--if they went non-stop and got everything right.

[Buffalo Skipper]

Signalling is indeed a difficult badge. I had a scout who started studying his Morse Code and Semaphore as soon as the requirements were released. The badge was offered at summer camp, and we ended up moving some capeable swimmers (who mysteriously could not pass the swim test the had "aced" two weeks before camp) from the Swimming MB to the Signalling MB (the only one at the camp with openings that period. Amazingly, they all earned the badge by Thursday (just over 3 hours of class time). But it was signed off, what could I do? I did complain to the camp PD, but it fell of deaf ears. But that is another thread.

 

Interestingly, 25 years ago, my inability to do Morse Code was the only thing which kept me from making Quartermaster. Maybe if they had offered Signalling as a Diamond Anniversery Merit badge I could have gotten credit if taken at camp....

[bacchus]

Beavah: "As a canoeing MBC, I confess I'm baffled by baccus's claim that it's a two hour badge. It may well be that da expectations where he's at are vastly different than da rest of us, which might be why da original poster is struggling. The thought that a new first year scout would finish Canoeing MB in 4 hours, let alone 2, I find laughably tragic. If the same low bar is being set for other badges and advancement, I expect many if not most units would have a problem with it."

 

Maybe I better get my facts right before I comment as I'm not a canoeing MBC. I know the boys go to Summer Camp and earn canoeing in the week they are there. Maybe they spend 2 hours a day instead of 1. I know the females from our Venturing who were going to go on a river trip went by the camp and spent a morning getting trained up on 'basically' the same stuff the boys learn when they earn their MB. One of the trainers made a comment that they spend about twice as much time on the boys as they really need to. I didn't get into a detailed conversation about it.

 

Regardless, it doesn't seem that inconceivable that a young boy would spend a week at camp and while there do the canoeing MB in the morning, and then in the afternoon do the T21 requirements.

 

Look, if you don't want the boys to receive their advancements so soon just tell them to find another Troop. I still don't know where the attitude comes that boys need to hold off advancement until a certain age - it's not one of the requirements in the old book. Maybe I should get the new book.

 

As to Troop Hopping for the Summer? I haven't seen much of it. Maybe it's people going to visit with a cousin for a week since he's going to camp? No idea...

[gcnphkr]

bacchus: "I still don't know where the attitude comes that boys need to hold off advancement until a certain age"

 

It has nothing to do with age. For Second Class a scout has gone on 5 separate activities. For First Class there are another 5. They don't all need to be separate campouts, they could be a day hike, or a visit to a museum. But they are troop or patrol activities. And at least three must including camping overnight. In a perfect world they have learned to help plan the activity. They have done at least some preparation. They've made mistakes and hopefully learned somethings. Back in the "good old days" a First Class scouts was capable of leading group of scouts on a hike, not because it was a requirement but they had enough experience to do it.

 

The only way that I can see that they accomplished this while in Utah is if the count activities at summer camp as separate activities. I have never considered counting them that way and have never know anyone else to do so. That three must include camping overnight implies that they are not all occurring on the same campout.

 

I'll ask again again: Are there SMs out there that count the various events at summer camp as "separate troop/patrol activities"? Maybe I need to spin that off into a separate thread.

[Gary_Miller]

While I understand the frustration "jet526" may have a youth can be duel registered in a Scout Troop. I know this from experience as my boy was dual registered in his LDS scout unit and in another local unit. So It can happen and is allowed.

 

I could be wrong here but my guess is you have two boys from a divorced family. The boys went to Utah to visit their other parent. Or the boys went to Utah to visit their grand parents.

 

In ether case the must have attended the youth activities of the Church in Utah, which in the LDS church would be Boy Scouting. While there the church unit was scheduled to go to camp as well as other activities. In order to be covered by the church insurance while on the activities they duel registered or transfered the boys in the LDS unit.

 

In ether case the SM of the other unit had the right to sign the boys off on their requirements and the unit had the right to do BORs if they felt the requirements were met. And No one in any other unit has the right to question the actions of the other unit leaders, even if you don't think its right and especially if you have a prejudice against the charter organization.

 

It seems to me the father did the right thing. He know his boys was going to be gone. He contacted the unit leaders to find out where the boys were with their advancement. And he passed on the advancement reports of the boys upon the boys returning back home.

[Eagle92]

Gary,

I think the main challenge is that lack of communication on the father's part, as well as him being a "helicopter parent." The scouts should have mentioned the situation to Jet, not the dad. the scouts should be responsible for keeping track of their advancement, not dad. And the scouts should have arranged some type of communication with both sets of SMs. It appears that none of this happened, and dad should have talked to his sons about bringing this up to their SM at home.

 

I was duel enrolled in two troops, my "home troop" and my "trip troop." Even though both SMs knew each other, heck the trip troop's SM was an ASM in my home troop, anything related to advancement went through the home troop. the trip troop was for one purpose: the HA trip.

 

But something still doesn't sound right, esp since the goal is to recognize achievements ASAP, so the scouts should have received their advancement prior to returning. Part of me says the other troop should send the advancement to the boys since it was completed under them.

 

Anyway, I would call the UT council, and tell them that you have a transfer scout and need a copy of their records. OR you should, stressing SHOULD, be able to go to your local council and get a copy of their SCOUTNET records as SCOUTNET is suppose to allow that information to be shared with councils you move to. I've had problem with that though.

 

I would also contact the other SM and come up with a game plan for when this happens again. let's face it if you have a summer home, you usually use it. So this will happen again.

 

I would also have a discussion with the scouts and dad. let them knwo your concerns, your expectations, you discussion withthe other SM,and how it will be handled in the future.

 

good luck.

[bacchus]

Eagle92: "I think the main challenge is that lack of communication on the father's part, as well as him being a "helicopter parent." The scouts should have mentioned the situation to Jet, not the dad. the scouts should be responsible for keeping track of their advancement, not dad..."

 

I don't even know where to start on this. If you wait for the youth to keep their paperwork in order and the adults don't get involved, you are going to have a major mess on the day before his 18th birthday when he wants his EBOR.

 

And where do you get the helicopter parent thing from? I guess it's implied by the lack of information of how all these activities were completed over a 9-week period, that the father must have done it all for the boys, but jet526 needs to tell us that's the case before we just assume.

 

A father keeping records, and talking to other adults about the records coming is not helicoptering. I do agree that the 2 youth should have mentioned it to the adult leader, but I would expect the actual follow up to be done by an adult.

 

"And the scouts should have arranged some type of communication with both sets of SMs."

 

Huh? Am I being picky here? I wouldn't expect a couple 11-12 year olds to be calling adults on the phone to arrange communications between them. I understand the adult association method, but expecting two new, young scouts to be assistant scoutmasters doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Eventually they will get there.

[gcnphkr]

I wouldn't call him a helicopter parent. I tend to associate that with parents that come to campouts, hang out at troop/patrol meetings and generally get in the way. I have actually only met him once at a single meeting that he was at. The boys are dropped off and picked up without parents coming in.

 

He does seem a bit pushy on advancement. I have a talk with him about it.

 

 

[Eagle92]

Baccus,

 

Maybe my troop growing up had different or higher expectations, but keeping track of advancement was the Scout's responsibility, not the youth leaders, not the adult leaders, not the parents, but the youth. When you completed something at the T-2-1 level, your PL, or whichever youth was assigned to work on that requirement, signed you off after you gave him your HB. At the S-L-E level it was the MBC, the SM, or in rare cases his designee, that signed off after you handed them the HB. During the weekly uniform inspections, the SPL or ASPL would not only look at your uniform, but also asked questions to see how things are going with you. One of the questions once a month was how are you doing for the next rank. And it was expected that you know what you needed. Also at the BORs what our plans for acheiving the next rank were, i.e. what was already completed and what needed working on.

 

In my experience, the problem with record keeping wasn't with the youth keeping track, but with adults keeping track of the paperwork, specifically the council registrar. In my case for Eagle, the registrar put in wrong dates into the preSCOUTNET system, and I had to turn in a copy of my BSHB to get it fixed. In one friend's case, council had no records of him advancing for 4 years! We had to turn in a copy of his BSHB as well, AND the troop turned in their copies of the ARs to show that yes the reports were turned in.

 

As for calling him a helicopter parent, one sign that I have seen with them is that they focus on advancement. if he isn't attending functions, then I am wrong in that matter.

 

part of scouting is letting your sons grow up. That entails letting them do things they need to do, with minimal to no assistance form you, and letting them take responsibility, and letting them succeed or fail. Scouting provides the safe environment for them to do just that.

 

More later

 

"Empower" your youth by giving them responsibility for their own advancement, and you will be surprised at how well they do

 

[BartHumphries]

Four weeks is plenty of time, presuming that the boys did homework. Shoot, at the 100th anniversary campout locally recently, there were programs to take the boy from Tenderfoot to 1st Class in one long weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun). There are no time requirements for those ranks.

 

I've been planning on doing the Pathfinding merit badge in one evening for our boys. They all know the area -- basically, all they have to do is to draw maps, know the streets on the north side of the lake, where the hospital is, etc. This is a rural area, but there are no farms, no blacksmiths, so those requirements are easily met -- there are 0. There's only one gas station, the court house/municipal building/police (sheriff) station are all the same building. It's not a difficult badge to earn. The same goes for the Carpentry merit badge which they already earned -- the example in the century old pamphlet is just the same as what most people build in an hour for the Woodworking merit badge today, a bird house (an article for practical use on the home grounds).

 

Signaling would take some work. Send and receive in Morse Code and Semaphore? That's daunting, but if you have a few weeks to practice for a few minutes each week and the boys practice at home (perhaps while they're bored with nothing else to do while on vacation) I think that would be doable.

 

Tracking is easy, as long as you can find the animals to take pictures of them, well, it would be for us anyway. We live right by the National Forest, so we'd just go down to the local Ranger Station and look at one of those Smokey the Bear posters with all the animal tracks on it and memorize those. Do a "stalking game", chase after a lizard and a squirrel while they run away and guess how fast they were going. Note the "or" in requirement 3, you only have to track two animals.

 

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Perhaps they didn't really do anything while with your troop because your troop doesn't really do anything and so (since it wasn't fun for them) they didn't really feel like coming? I don't know, but then I don't know anything about the other troop either. Perhaps you need to pick up the pace a bit, though.

[Eagle92]

Actually there is a "time requirement' for going to Scout to First Class: 30 days. Tenderfoot requirements 10a an 10b states they must do pushups, pullups, situps, long jump, and a 1/4 one time and then again 30 days later (10a) and show improvement (10b).

 

Me personally I am very skeptical of a weekend as you mentioned. Heck I'm skeptical of some of the First Year Camper programs that claim to have a scout master the T-2-1 skills. In fact I've only seen 2 folks able to teach a group of new scouts those skills to the point that they mastered them. And I been around camps for a time or two.