Unit Leader Award of Merit

[shortridge]

"The impression I got was they developed this award system to give the Boy Scouts parity with the Venturers's Ranger Award."

 

And here I always thought that was called Eagle...

[emb021]

""The impression I got was they developed this award system to give the Boy Scouts parity with the Venturers's Ranger Award."

 

"And here I always thought that was called Eagle... "

 

No, why would it be Eagle? Eagle is meant to be the top boy scout award, whose equivalent is Silver, QM, etc. It is NOT an award for an outstanding outdoors person, which is what Ranger is about.

 

I've never understood the attitude of some who try to match Eagle with Ranger that way.

[CHLees3rd]

Qwazse

 

Thank you for your response. Im a Unit Commissioner, and the reason why I posted was not so much for the Advisors who love getting awards but for the committee members who want to recognize their advisors for a job well done. Unfortunately, the way the requirement is worded, Venturing Crews have to figure out how to satisfy it unlike Cub/Boy/Varsity/Sea Scouting units which have advancement built into their programs. Im not trying to get around the requirement on a technicality or because of semantics. Im just trying to fit what Venturers do into the award. And while I agree that focused Venturing Crews may have an easier time with the requirement, I think general interest Venturing Crews should be able to satisfy this requirement too by taking a look at their Venturers recognitions in whatever form they are. How do you recognize your Venturers accomplishments in your general interest crew? Im sure there are others involved with general interest Venturing Crews who are trying to figure this one out too.

 

Chazz Lees

 

[shortridge]

emb021,

 

I was partly being faecetious in my comment. Of course I know that Eagle and Ranger are not parallel awards. Venturing is an entirely different animal.

 

But in my opinion, an Eagle Scout *should* be an expert outdoorsman, rightly confident of his abilities in the backcountry and frontcountry alike. We hear every day in this forum of Eagles who can't tie knots, build fires, cook meals.

 

Saying that someone can be a "top Boy Scout" without being an expert in the outdoors is acknowledging that parlor Scouting has won. And I refuse to agree with that.

[qwazse]

Chazz,

 

My knee jerk is that since the kids are shrugging off awards, the advisors may be too. I think from a UC's perspective you may want to sit down with the advisor and crew president go over bronze award requirements and see how close kids are to being recognized. The advisor might be too critical of the requirements, or maybe it's too hard to get all the kids on the roster in ther room at the same time to nail this down.

 

You might also want to factor in that crew membership is quite volitile, so rather than counting rostered kids, count "likely to recharter".

 

Also (and this may be the lightning rod issue) if a youth is cross registered with another unit and advances there, do you count it twice? For example a boy in my crew made life in the troop that he's in. I'm not expecting him to get a bronze award. I want our crew to support, not hinder, him getting his bird.