power hungry MB councilors

[advancement lady]

I have come across a couple of "power hungry" councilors. How do you deal with them? Do you just send your scouts in a different direction? to another councilor?

 

EX: a Family Life councilor said he wanted to meet with the scout first to pick out his chores and that he should do 7 (5 required) because it would help build his character!

a Gardening councilor was not going to accept the sunflowers because they weren't in the same garden as the vegetables. (grow 6 vegetables through harvest ~ grow 6 flowers through harvesting)

 

Has anyone else dealt with these types of scenarios?

[Papadaddy]

I would drop a note to the District Advancement Chair indicating you are not going to recommend those counselors in the future, due to their penchant for adding to the requirements. They apparently need training/retraining.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmmm...

 

I think we start by assumin' that merit badge counselors are good people who are givin' their time and energy to boys, have expertise in the field, and are to be respected as friends and colleagues. "Power hungry" almost never applies.

 

Now yeh don't mention what your role is, advancement lady. Are yeh the Advancement Chair for a troop? The District Advancement Chair? Da SM? A parent of the youth in question?

 

What yeh do depends on what your role is.

 

Generally speakin', it's up to the counselor to decide when the lad has met the requirements. I don't know enough about gardenin' to be able to make a judgment in that case. I do believe I know enough about family life and that sounds a bit odd, but it might be well-intentioned. The counselor might have learned, for example, that sometimes things change and a boy who only has 5 laid out in the beginnin' runs into some issues and doesn't finish, but that if yeh have 7 laid out in the beginning then it's more likely that he'll meet the requirement of havin' done 5 at the end. So there might be a madness to the method so as to benefit the boy.

 

If you're the SM, yah, yeh can always opt to send your scouts to da "easiest" counselor if that's what yeh value. Certainly, there are times when yeh learn that a particular lady or fellow has been too much of a poor fit for your boys or your program so as to decide to go somewhere else. I'd encourage yeh to chat with da MBC first.

 

If you're the troop AC, I'm not sure this is your issue, eh? I'd refer it to the SM.

 

If you're the DAC or someone on da district or council committee, then I'd file it away for a bit until yeh got multiple complaints about an individual. Then it might be worth havin' a chat or lookin' in on things.

 

Beavah

 

[Basementdweller]

Beavah beat me too it....

 

 

This isn't your issue, it is the SM's.....

 

I don't have an issue with them wanting to look over the chore list before hand....I am going to bet they have had boys try to skate by on requirements.

 

The flowers.....who knows????????

 

Bottom line is do your job let the SM do his job?

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

Ah, I see the local folks (other than the original poster or the Scout, of course) are back to getting the benefit of the doubt around here.

 

Anyone have a scorecard I can borrow?

[Eagledad]

We've had a few counselors that I would say have an aquired taste in their style, but power hungry isn't how I would decribe them. I know folks on the forum like to raise the "Adding Requirements" flag a lot, but I find the opposite of counselors not wanting to do enough to be more common. As has been said, once we learn a counselor's style, we pass that on to the scouts so they can make the choice. I will admit that I have taken a counselor or two off the list because I was not comfortable with their behavior. But that was more of a temperment issue, not a power hungry issue.

[Eagle732]

The Scoutmaster deals with them by not recommending the "power hungry" MBCs to Scouts.

The scouts deal with it amongst themselves by letting each other know which MBCs to avoid.

My troop established its own merit badge councilor list which consists of people who we know will work with our scouts.

 

I have to admit that I've never met a power hungry MBC, only ones who enjoy helping boys learn about a subject they have an interest in.

 

 

[skeptic]

In today's world, we have many misperceptions based on the society willing to accept an absolute minimum of effort, as long as they at least come in contact with the requirement, or someone told them, and they wrote it on the requirement sheet. I am fairly certain that is why I have so few come to me for citizenship badges, as the word is out that I might actually ask them to explain the material they wrote down in their own words, just to verify they actually grasp it.

 

Not sure what we can do about that, other than just explain to a disgruntled parent that just writing it down does not show an understanding, and I still expect them to understand and be able to show me they do.

 

Of course, while I prefer the parent sitting across the room stays quiet, once we had an interesting discussion between her, her son, and me regarding the meaning of rights versus license.

 

We do what we can do and hope we succeed at some level.

 

Thanks to all that take the time and try to assure a scout learns something.(This message has been edited by skeptic)

[advancement lady]

Thanks folks ..... To clarify I am the one assigned to getting councilors' names etc for our boys. Our SM has never been involved with the councilor aspect, recording of MBs or even the purchasing of scouting equipment or awards.

 

We do have some wonderful councilors and I do not feel our boys are "skating" by. (not that I've seen at least.)

We have councilors who meet multiple times with the boys. (our scoutmaster does camping ~ talk about complete .... EX they need to do duty rosters just for him even if they say they've done hundreds, write out menus ...... everything is done again just for the badge. He is very thorough. You could have been on the last 12 campouts, but he'll sign you off on presenting yourself when you present yourself)

 

I have two boys in our troop and neither one has any desire to work on any more MB's, so this question is for our troop kids with my own personal scouts out of the mix.

 

So, basically I steer them away from the bad, steer them towards the good and let them tell each other if their is a councilor they really like or dislike.

[Eagle732]

I always follow up with the scout after he completes a merit badge. When we don't have a MBC from out troop list and have to refer to the District list I get the scouts opinion on the MBC. If he had a good experience I contact the MBC and ask if he would like to work with our scouts in the future and then add him to our list.

 

We also recruit MBCs from our CO and other local organizations that we work with such as the local American Legion post.

We try not to depend on the District list since it's so out of date.

 

[Oak Tree]

I wouldn't worry about those two particular cases, but in general I'd do as Eagle732 suggests:

 

"The Scoutmaster deals with them by not recommending the "power hungry" MBCs to Scouts.

The scouts deal with it amongst themselves by letting each other know which MBCs to avoid. "

 

In our case, there really aren't any district or council lists, so it's up to each troop to maintain its own. We haven't had much issue with "power-hungry" counselors, but I would describe some counselors as "long-winded". Some boys avoid certain counselors for that reason - they don't want to have to meet 20 times and hear the counselor pontificate about the importance of every requirement in the badge.

[advancement lady]

Good Point ~ Our list isn't up to date either. I recently had a scout who was given three names. Two (that we know of ) are no longer councilors and the third hasn't bothered getting back to the scout?!? Those were the councilors who were close to us (town wise)

 

One of our scouts had to go to another council because our council didn't have anyone doing reptile and amphibian that didn't live an hour away from the scout's home.

[Papadaddy]

Publishing a current MBC list is one of the District Advancement Committee's primary responsibilities. If they are not doing this, what ARE they doing???

[Oak Tree]

"If they are not doing this, what ARE they doing????"

 

I'm not sure what, if anything, they do. In fact, I couldn't even tell you if we have a district advancement committee. Perhaps they are the ones who put on the Eagle boards of review? Beyond those boards, I have no evidence we have such a committee. Fits right in with Eamonn's thread of ideal vs reality.

[Eagledad]

>>Publishing a current MBC list is one of the District Advancement Committee's primary responsibilities. If they are not doing this, what ARE they doing???