Blue Card to be Updated in 2012

[Second Class]

Totally agree, Infoscouter. What's the big deal about asking a scout to maintain a record while he does the merit badge, and beyond? Is this not a life skill they will need?

 

I sign batches of many dozens every month. Out AC does a great job of assigning MBC's.

 

It's on the scout to schedule with the MBC and follow up the paperwork with the AC.

 

I just don't see where this big thorn is. Any "on-line" system is just going to shift more of the blue card paperwork to the AC. Old school doesn't necessarily mean BAD.

[Horizon]

I have been to summer camps that did not issue blue cards - they just gave the troop a print-out and a digital copy.

 

As a Merit Badge Counselor, I keep a computer record in Excel of each Scout and each requirement. I enter the date they start, and the date they complete each requirement. Since some boys have been working with me for 3+ years on certain badges, it makes it a bit easier. When completed I sign the blue card with my signature across the requirement lines. Never had it kicked back by anyone (people know me and my adherence to the spirit and law of each merit badge).

 

 

[shortridge]

As a summer camp instructor, blue cards were responsible for my signature degenerating into an utterly unintelligible scrawl in high school. We hated those little buggers.

 

Considering 90 percent of the Scouts who showed up to all the program sessions met all of the requirements, it would have been far simpler to type up a text document, use some sort of a merge function, flow in all the names, and print out 100 pieces of paper saying "Congratulations! Johnny Scout has completed all the requirements for Pioneering Merit Badge as of July 4, 2012, at Camp Courage. Dave Matthews, Counselor." (Even easier would have been to submit them online.) Instead, all the area directors had to find time Friday evening and sign, initial, etc., every ... stinking ... card ... before that night's leader's meeting. We usually didn't eat dinner.

 

Did I mention camp staff hate blue cards?

[Second Class]

Our camp does not issue blue cards. They give us a form with the completed requirements.

Troop leaders review them at camp for discrepancies, and fill out the blue cards via Troop Master and an ink jet printer, three at a time. I sign them. No biggy.

We give the staff down the road for a few hours on the last night. They make a better program for it.

 

[NJCubScouter]

Our troop uses them. In our district, you don't make Eagle without them. They are reviewed at the EBOR and they need to match up with the printout from National. I don't know whether that's true for the whole council. I suspect it is.

 

Right or wrong, that's the reality. Why these things should vary so much from one council to another I don't know, but evidently they do.

[Eagle92]

NJ,

 

Wouldn't attaching blue cards to the application be considered adding to the requirements?

 

I ask because as I mentioned not every unit uses blue cards, and if a Scout transfer in from a unit that didn't use blue cards, wouldn't he be penalized?

[NJCubScouter]

Eagle asks:

 

Wouldn't attaching blue cards to the application be considered adding to the requirements?

 

I ask because as I mentioned not every unit uses blue cards, and if a Scout transfer in from a unit that didn't use blue cards, wouldn't he be penalized?

 

I would say yes and yes. Although I should say that the cards aren't literally attached to the application, but the cards must be brought to the EBOR, so it works out the same. Yes, I think it is adding to the requirements for a Scout to have to prove at his EBOR that he earned all of his merit badges. But since I am merely a troop advancement chairman/coordinator, I don't make the rules, I just advise the boys to follow them. If a boy ever said, I don't see in the rules where it says I have to do that, I would say, it's your decision, let me know how it turns out, or if I am on your EBOR I guess we'll find out together.

 

As for a Scout from another unit, well, if the unit is within our district they will have their blue cards because their leaders know they will be necessary for the EBOR. As I said, I suspect this is true council-wide. Now, if someone is from another council and they don't use blue cards... it's a great question. I have never heard of it happening, so I don't know for sure, but my prediction would be that they would bend or waive the requirement in that case. If nothing else, presumably our District Advancement Committee members could guess what National would say on an appeal on that issue, and its the same guess that you or I would make.

 

Now that I answered your question, I have one for you: Isn't it adding to the requirements to require a Scout to submit the Eagle application to council (and I mean, at the office, not just to someone with silver loops on his/her uniform) on or before his 18th birthday? Unless they have actually changed the requirements since the last time I looked, nowhere on the application or in any requirement does it say that it must be in council's hands on or before the birthday. And yet, that is what my council requires. (Interestingly, it is "on or before", as opposed to "before", which is when the requirements for Eagle (other than the EBOR) must be completed. But we have had Scouts submit applications ON their 18th birthday and they have been accepted.) And just so it's clear what I am talking about, what needs to be signed at that point are the sections entitled "Certification by Application" and "Unit Approval" and then it needs to be presented at the council office for signature in the section "BSA Local Council Certification", on or before the 18th birthday. The section below that is not completed until the EBOR has taken place, and everybody understands that this can occur after the 18th birthday.

 

I didn't mean to steer the thread in new directions. I guess what I am really saying is, it doesn't really surprise me that my district council adds to the requirements by requiring blue cards, because they add to the requirements in an least one other way as well.

[Twocubdad]

E92 -- you're kidding, right?

 

Technically, isn't requiring a application adding to the requirements? I mean, "Complete and Eagle Scout application" isn't listed in the BSHB, right?

[bnelon44]

Eagle92,

 

Blue cards are not a unit option. For merit badges the units must use blue cards and follow the process outlined in the GTA

 

The only exceptions are approved merit badge applications that councils implement.

[Beavah]

Yah, bnelon44, that was a subtle change in the G2A that nobody anywhere is payin' attention to. Talk about a bizarre step backward!

 

Blue cards are still for all practical purposes an optional record-keeping device, and a relatively poor one that is steadily fading. Da most common thing around here seems to be usin' some form of the printed requirements page from one of da online or other tracking providers. It's more useful because the lad can actually read da requirement on the sign-off-sheet instead of tryin' to figure out what 3(f)(2) is on the blue card. That's especially true when da requirements might change so now the Blue Card requirement numbers don't line up with da new requirement numbers, and nobody kept da old book.

 

What's required for completion of a MB is a registered MB counselor indicating that a MB is completed. If some dingleberry in da council office insists on blue cards because they forgot that their role is to provide service and not be a bureaucratic road block to kids and units, then I know units that just have da AC scrawl up a blue card to satisfy da bureaucrat. The actual in-unit process, though, does not use blue cards. Last I polled around, just under half da camps were not usin' blue cards, and every one of 'em was happy they weren't. I think da number not usin' 'em is higher now.

 

B

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Eagle92]

2Cub,

 

Serious as a heart attack. Again I know of units and councils that do not use blue cards. And while I deliberately used that hated phrase, a phrase I hate too by the way, "adding to the requirements," the purpose of it was to draw attention to the fact that the district's/council's policy is not part of the normal EBOR procedure and would hurt folks if they transferred in from another council.

 

NJ,

 

I admit it's been a while since I dealt with Eagle apps, but how in the heck can you submit an application for Eagle prior to the BOR's approval and signature?!?!?!?!

 

Sorry never heard of such a thing before, and I've been in 5 councils.

[Eagle92]

Bnelon,

 

While the GTA may say that the unit does not have an option, several questions.

 

1) Who is going to enforce the rule? Is national going to say that EBORS will have to follow somethign like NJ's council and have blue cards at BORS? That still leaves my original question of what to do with those Scouts who come from troops that have not used them and/or councils that have summer camp programs that do not use them?

 

Or worse, major catastrophe where the scout's stuff has been destroyed? I'm not talking Katrina bad, although I lost so much stuff that was still stored at my mom's house b/c of Katrina, but a tornado, fire etc cold wipe out stuff.

 

2)I believe the unit charters give some, not a lot, but some control on HOW a CO administers the program. yes they must follow rules and regs, and while GTA does indeed gives policies on how to conduct BORS, do advancement, etc, how a scout or unit keeps their records is one of those that COS has control over. Otherwise we woudl still be using the unit record books, and not have any of the various software like TroopMaster, Packmaster, etc.

 

3) If national wants to focus on a serious advancement, and other areas too, problem, then lets redo SCOUTNET. Back in 1998, I was told by the then national SCOUTNET director that with SCOUTNET would allow anyone's records to move withthem from council to council. So if Tommy Teatime in Pack 4 in Occonneechee Council moves to Pack 806 in Far East Council, as long as he knows his membership #, his records transfer. Same if Mom or dad is a leader: there records move with them.

 

Then I find out why I kept having to resubmit everything every time I move to a new council; SCOUTNET does NOT allow records to move with you, but instead each council has to reenter the records.

 

I'm not trying to bash the regs, but BSA needs some type of way to enforce the rules, otherwise they will be ignored. Look at uniforming as one example.

 

[skeptic]

Actually, if you have a membership number, the basic records are immediately available if they have been properly entered in Scoutnet. I have used it twice to find records, one for a scout, and one for his parent leader.

 

All his advancement info was there, as was the training on record for his father. Was simply a matter of turning in the transfer app and we were done.

[NJCubScouter]

Eagle92 asks:

 

I admit it's been a while since I dealt with Eagle apps, but how in the heck can you submit an application for Eagle prior to the BOR's approval and signature?!?!?!?!

 

That is what the Guide to Advancement says, see sections 9.0.1.5 through .9. The application and other supporting papers (including workbook unless the council to send it somewhere else) must be brought (or mailed, if there's time) to the council service center for signature, THEN the board of review is scheduled, then it must go back to council for the SE's signature. The application itself confirms that, because that is the order the signatures are in. There are two council signatures, one before the BOR and on after. I do not know how long this has been the procedure, but I know that it is the process my son followed in 2009. The current application appears to be the same one he used, so it does not appear that this is something that National just came up with in the new Guide to Advancement.

 

What I find interesting in section 9.0.1.5 is the fairly clear statement that the application CAN be turned into council after the Scout turns 18, but not very long after. That was not the case in my council as of 2009 (and it did matter in my son's case, he cut it that close, and his birthday was on a Sunday, so the real deadline was Friday.) I do not know whether my council has changed this, but I have heard nothing to suggest that they have. I advise Scouts in my troop to play it as safe as possible.

[Eagle92]

Skeptic,

 

There are challenges with SCOUTNET.

 

1) Not all information is getting entered into SCOUTNET as it gets sent to the office. Grant you this is a local problem, but it's a frustrating one. And how do I know stuff isnt' getting entered into SCOUTNET? I had advancement sent to me after the council received the report, but 3 months later the info is still not in SCOUTNET.

 

2) SCOUTNET does not allow records to move with an individual as they switch councils. Both my registrar and SE told me this after I mentioned that records are not moving with folks who transfer into the council. I was told SCOUTNET never allowed a person's records to move with them, which is a direct contradiction of what the then national SCOUTNET director told us at training.