Minimum Rank to hold Scout Leadership positions?

[bilgerat]

Greetings!

 

Hope you can offer some insight..

 

Is there any "official" BSA policy on the minimum rank required to hold a Scout Leadership position in the Troop (example - SPL must be at least Life, Troop Guide must be at least Star, etc.)?

 

Reason I ask... every election this comes up and the canned answer is "I think it's this..." or "I remember that..."

 

I'm kind of "thinking" that there's no official BSA requirement on this... just Troop legend and folklore...

 

(oh - and I do understand why it might be "preferred" to have certain ranks serving in selected positions...advancement requirements, maturity, etc. Just looking for the "official" BSA position.

 

If there is one, could you please cite the source so I can reference it...

 

Thanks!!!

 

SCR

[TAHAWK]

Troop option:

The members of each patrol elect one of their own to serve as patrol leader. The troop determines the requirements for patrol leaders, such as rank and age.

 

Rank and age requirements to be a senior patrol leader are determined by each troop, as is the schedule of elections.

[King Ding Dong]

JASM is 16 per SMHB. OA Troop Rep must be 1st class (because you can't be elected to OA unless first class). Leave No Trace Trainer must be 14 per http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/outdoorprogram/outdoorethics/leavenotracetrainer.aspx. I am sure someone could point out some 11 year old Tenderfoot Den Chief Prodigy. That said I am not sure what a "Leadership" (capital L) position is in the BSA. I am aware of Positions of Responsibility. In my troop some positions seem to be lifetime appointments with the results you would expect from such nonsense.

[Stosh]

My PL and APL haven't earned Tenderfoot yet.... The boys determine who gets what POR in my troop, not their age or rank.

 

I read to the boys what the BSA expectations are for selecting/electing their officers and then they can figure it out any way they so choose.

 

Stosh

[koolaidman]

Hi scrinmemphis,

 

Have you checked the Boy Scout Handbook?

 

I did last night in preparing for our upcoming ILST. You know what it says? It says to go online to find out what the responsibilities of each position are. Ugh! (I'm being snarky at the handbook here, not you)

 

Given that I have the links handy check it out:

 

http://www.bsahandbook.org/PDFs/troop.pdf

http://www.bsahandbook.org/PDFs/patrol.pdf

 

 

Gotta love BSA having different requirements posted in different places:

 

KDD's post references First Class and membership of OA for OA Rep, but handbook pdf's don't even mention OA Rep should be a member of the Order.

 

KDD's post says LNT Trainer must be trained in 15 hour course and 14, hand book pdf's merely says it would be ideal.

 

JASM is definitely 16.

 

 

[Stosh]

If JASM is 16 who's going to check up on the troop that has a 13 year old Eagle who holds the JASM POR? Or maybe the 13 year old Star scout that is the oldest boy in the troop? or.... or.... or.....

 

No one cares except the boys in the troop. Let them make up their own rules and as long as the troop functions smoothly, myob. It's not a ditch worth dying in....

 

Why would an OA Rep need to be an OA member to promote OA?

 

The only ones that seem to get all worked about this stuff are the adults, and it's not even their program.

 

Stosh

[fred johnson]

For once people seem to be in agreement. Wow. Let the scouts work this out. IMHO, avoid adding more requirements. BSA already has enough.

[King Ding Dong]

I for one wouldn't want some DAC to get all worked up at an EBOR because a Scout had an unapproved POR. Most of you certainly have many more Scouting years on me but I try to play by the rules(as long as I understand them clearly) Stosh, I understand many OA Lodges exist only on paper but I went to my first Chapter, not Lodge, meeting last week and there were over 100 Scouts there. This page lists the OA Rep responsibilities. http://www.oa-bsa.org/pages/content/troop-representative. How can a non OA member be a "OA member in good standing" or attend meetings, or assist in Brotherhood conversion or, or, or?

[King Ding Dong]

Stosh while we are at lets just throw the GTA and GTSS out the window and let the Boys make up the rules.

[Stosh]

One also has to remember that having POR responsibilities and getting credit for them are two different animals. It works both ways. There are boys in my troop fighting to be GrubMaster knowing full well it isn't a POR for credit position. Also I have no problem with getting boys to take on APL when they know it won't garner them anything. If I have a boy that wears a OA Rep and works his tail off getting OA to come in and do elections and spends a ton of time promoting OA in the troop, who am I to say he has to take the patch off. He might not be First Class and after all the work might not even get elected to OA even if he was First Class. The cheerleaders don't have to play the game to be effective and might even have some sway in the outcome of a game. My boys do far more than the requirements dictate and so I'm not worried about any EBOR down the road. If OA comes in an says they want to talk to the troops OA rep and they find out he's not an OA member, I'm sure they'll still talk to him and work with him in dealing with the troop. I'm also sure that if he asked to be on the mailing list of the Lodge they would do so just so information concerning OA can flow to the troop. If our OA Tenderfoot Rep asks the OA to come in and do an AOL ceremony for a pack that has potential scouts for the troop, I'm thinking they still might say yes.

 

To date I haven't had to tell the OA guys showing up at a troop meeting that because we're boy-led troop, you're going to have to talk to the Tenderfoot kid with the OA Rep patch on or you've just wasted a trip.

 

So I bend the rules a bit.... it's how I teach my boys to take care of their buddies. If I got a kid fired up about OA and he's not a member yet, I don't care if he wears a patch.

 

Stosh

[NJCubScouter]

Stosh, is one of your Tenderfoot Scouts actually an OA rep, or is that just hypothetical?

[Stosh]

Well, I have nothing but Scouts right now, all of them working on Tenderfoot and one of them was quite impressed with the OA ceremony held last month at summer camp. He was asking a ton of questions about it and so I suggested he look into OA so the other boys can know about it. Some of the boys in the troop couldn't make it to summer camp. While it is not "official" he's the OA Rep, he's the closest thing to it. I don't see OA Rep as a full-time POR anyway so whatever he does is more than a lot of boys I have seen wear the patch in the past. As a matter of fact only one boy is actually wearing a POR patch and that's the PL. There is a boy acting APL, but doesn't wear a patch, another boy doing QM but doesn't wear a patch, two vying for GrubMaster, and another who brought up the subject of more boys coming in next winter from Cub Packs in the area and there'll be a need for another PL/APL combo maybe. As more training falls into place, the boys will naturally drift towards doing POR's Any one of them could be an Instructor. When needed for summer camp, the PL was SPL so we had an SPL who held the rank of Scout. Try floating that by some of these troop's regulations some time.

 

And by the way, no one at summer camp questioned the SPL who held the rank of Scout. He did his job and everything went just fine.

 

Stosh

[SM bob]

We set SPL and PL min rank as first class. So that they have the skills to teach and help their patrol/ troop. The ASPL is runner up for SPL. The PL's appoint their own APL. All other PORs are assigned by the SPL.

[meschen]

We do have the following unit policy:

 

"While most positions do not have a rank requirement, no Scout below the rank of first class will be appointed to a POR other than APL if there is a qualifying scout with the rank of first class, star or life who desires the position and needs it to meet their POR requirement."

 

Keep in mind that Patrol Leaders and S.P.L's are not appointed but elected. Our Troop recommends Patrol Leaders and the S.P.L be first class, but it is not a fixed requirement.

[scoutergipper]

We've had to use boys under First Class for a lot of PORs the last few years - it was that or not have boys in PORs. We got chewed out for this at a PLC by our Unit Commissioner, for which I had him removed as our Unit Commissioner. Just because a Scout is 11 or 12 years old doesn't mean he can't learn anything about leadership. Not all are ready, but every one learned something that will be useful to him when he is older and uses another POR for advancement.