MB Counselor signing off work done prior to them being counselor

[cdroberts94]

The former advancement chair told us a story about a scout from our troop who had two badges not accepted at the Eagle board of review because the date on the front of the card (next to the unit leader signature) didn't jive with the dates on the back. In both cases a scout needed to have X number of days working on the badge to have completed the requirements and there wasn't enough time between the dates. My guess is that the scout did what I have seen numerous times - the scout started the badge without that approval (because no one thought it was important) and when he was finished handed it to the scoutmaster to sign and the scoutmaster dated it that day.

 

Fortunately for that scout they were not Eagle badges but I have tried to drill into the scouts that they must have the card signed by the SM before they start. The problem is that the Scoutmaster is always so busy it's hard for them to find a time to do that and then it goes right out of their heads.

 

I mention this, though, because The Blancmange makes a very good point about the Camping Merit badge. I would guess that most boys use nights from before that official approval for the merit badge.

[moosetracker]

Our troop didnt have a drafting counselor so he put it aside for later!

 

Have your sonh ask about the district list of Merit Badge Counsilors.. The SM or the Advancement Coordinator should have a copy of it.. If not, you should be able to find the District Advancement Chair on your council Web site and ask them..

 

You probably never will get a drafting MBC in your troop as it is a specialty Merit Badge.. But with one drawing to go, I would imagine this will not take long for a MB counsilor to finish up.

 

The only time my son didn't finish up a Merit Badge from camp was for horseback riding.. All the councilors in the district for that subject were "Troop Only"... We knew years later to then ask other districts, but by then he had thrown out the blue card he was so discouraged..

[ScoutNut]

 

From your story, it sounds like the EBOR overstepped its bounds, and would have been reversed on appeal. BSA SPECIFICALLY states that once a merit badge is signed off as completed by a registered/approved merit badge counselor it can NOT be taken back by anyone.

 

I suggest that you have your Troop only MB Counselors contact the District Advancement Chair for any questions, and for Merit Badge Counselor training.

 

 

 

 

[Eagle92]

To add to the post above, as stated in another thread, requiring blue cards for an EBOR is adding to requirements, and is appealable.

 

 

As I stated before I know units that do not use blue cards. And as several have pointed out, You can start work on a MB before seeing the MBC, you just have to keep track. Lots of summer camp programs tell you what to do in advance, and some things like Camping MB can be started as soon as you join a troop.

[cdroberts94]

Our district merit badge list has been a mess for years - various people have taken it over and tried to fix it but before they have any noticeable succcess it's passed on to someone else.

 

I am the troop advancement chair and _I_ get no response from the District Advancement Chair. Maybe he doesn't know the answer to these questions I post either - ha ha!

 

We have a very motivated young scout who is striving to get ALL of the merit badges so he will definitely have to reach out beyond the troop level in the coming years.

[NJCubScouter]

Beavah says:

 

In the BSA there's really no such thing as a "partial" merit badge.

 

Actually, there is.

 

I found this in the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures book on page 34 (it happened to be the 2008 edition so it may be on a different page number now):

 

"Partial completion of merit badges should be credited to a Scout on the Application for Merit Badge and given to the Scoutmaster at the end of the week."

 

As the wording may suggest, that statement appears in the section on merit badge work done at summer camp. But I see no reason to believe that "partials" would be allowed only at summer camp. The same principle would apply to merit badge "events" and to special situations where the first merit badge counselor and the Scout are unable (for whatever reason) to complete the merit badge together.

[bnelon44]

The new Advancement Guidebook coming out in 3rd quarter will clarify this pretty well. Yes the MB counselor may take up where the previous one left off (up to him, but it should be rare not to) and yes, there is such a word as "partial" in BSA advancement language.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

[Beavah]

and yes, there is such a word as "partial" in BSA advancement language.

 

Rumors and rumors. Da thing has been issued, recalled, and revised over and over again. If da BSA is goin' to officially sanction da notion of a "partial" MB that would be a big change in da philosophy and policy of the MB program which would to my mind require approval beyond da program office. It would also contradict what yeh said earlier in the same paragraph, eh?

 

Yeh don't and shouldn't earn a MB by goin' from counselor to counselor accumulating a requirement signoff here and another one there. That has no merit or value. We allow it for T-2-1 because the fellow who signs off on cooking might not have the skills to sign off on swimming or first aid. But that doesn't apply in da case of a merit badge counselor.

 

Still, it seems there's no aspect of da advancement method the program office on its own doesn't try to water down with each new proclamation, no matter what da tradition, program effectiveness, or official policy of the organization is.

 

Beavah

 

[NJCubScouter]

Beavah, you were apparently reacting to what bnelon44 wrote, but did you read what I wrote? (Right above that?) Partials, at least in the context of summer camp, have been part of the official advancement policy book for at least the past few years. The edition I quoted was the 2008 printing of the 1989 book, and there are often changes between printings, so that sentence got into the book sometime between those two years. Personally I would be surprised if the idea of partials is something that suddenly surfaced in 2008. I do not specifically remember it from when I was a Boy Scout in the 60's and 70's. I do specifically remember it from when my son first attended summer camp, which was in 2003. Every year when I went to pick up my son from camp I got to hear the Scoutmaster's standard end-of-camp speech, which always included a mention of how many completed and partial MB's the boys had received and how the Scouts should start working on the partials and get them done as soon as possible so they didn't get forgotten about.

 

So the point is, partials are not some new thing, nor is the BSA's recognition of them a mere "rumor," or something that one office in the BSA is doing without "official" sanction. It is right there in black and white.

[CalicoPenn]

Beavah is correct - there is no such thing as a partial merit badge.

 

Everyone else is correct too - there is such a thing as partial completion of a merit badge that can be finished with another MBC. NJCub - Partial completions have been aroound for as long as I can remember (as have blue cards). Had them in the early 70's.

 

Once a requirement has been signed off on, the requirement is complete - if it takes a Scout 5 years to earn the merit badge, every requirement he get's signed off during those 5 years counts as partial completion of the merit badge.

 

I agree with Beavah that a Scout should try to work with the same counselor all the way through a badge, but sometimes, it's just not possible. Summer camp is not the only place one can earn partial completion - a Scout may be working with an MBC who is suddenly hospitalized and can no longer continue to work with the Scout - or an MBC who is transfered and has to move, or an MBC who just decides s/he's done her bit and wants to move on. The BSA handles this quite perfectly - allow for partial completion of a merit badge so the Scout doesn't have to start over. A Scout moving from on MBC to another just because they want to should be rare, but we still need to give the Scout the ability to do so, if he so chooses - for whatever reason he may have. I'm not about to get in between the gut feeling a Scout has about an MBC and the ability of a Scout to find a MBC he can work with.

 

Now I also said that Beavah is right - and I am focusing on the semantics here. Words mean things - and the order of words mean things - and they way words are put together in a sentence means things. Notice I used the term partial completions. Most of us short-cut that to man partial merit badges, but where Beavah is right (and it may be semantics) is that there is no such thing as a partial merit badge. You've either earned the entire badge or you haven't. We don't give a lad a merit badge with a 1/4 of it cut out if he's only completed 75% of the merit badge. There is no such thing as a partial merit badge. I'd call it an unfinished (so far) merit badge.

[NJCubScouter]

Calico, I appreciate what you are saying, but I think everybody knew what was meant by "partial" -- partial completion of a merit badge. Nobody thought we were talking about cutting a slice off the little round piece of material. Words do mean things, but there is also such a thing as jargon, and it is used on this forum all the time. A "partial" is Scouting jargon for a partially completed merit badge.

 

[AvidSM]

I agree with NJCub - we use so much jargon in scouting. It saves time, but can confuse people. As far as I know, "earning a partial" merit badge means you have completed some, but not all of the requirements. If he has not misplaced it, the scout should have a "blue card" filled out with some of the requirements signed off by a MBC.

 

If a boy already has a stamp collection, that he started before he became a scout, there should be no problem getting a MBC to sign off on that requirement. Why would a MBC discourage the boy from enjoying the hobby that they both share? If there are MBC's out there that insist that the scout complete all the requirement with them, no matter what the sitution is, I would steer the boy away from that MBC.