Public Kudos To My Boy

[WasE61]

Public kudos to my son.

 

For nearly 5 year he stopped Scouting.

 

His father passed suddenly when he was 12. Scouting was their summer pastime.

 

He took up Marching Band ... it was his gig...played along side my other son in jazz band.

 

This year, he decided to try for his Eagle.

 

Banged out the rest of this requirements for Life.

 

Picked out his Eagle project...planning in progress.

 

Then at one of the Troop Eagle Board reviews ... the adult in charge said, "Sorry, your Life Rank was one week too late."

 

I think most boys would have folded it up and gone home...not my son.

 

"Well, I'm going to do the project anyway."

 

Good boy... 

 

 

[T2Eagle]

Good for your son, ridiculous on the part of the adult.

[Scouter99]

Very mature and honorable of your son!  A good example of internalizing the values.  Once he has done it in this altruistic way, maybe try appealing to the Council.

 

Good for your son, ridiculous on the part of the adult.

The requirements are the requirements, and they're the same for everyone.  It's called "drop dead date" for a reason. 

[SSScout]

Congrats to your Scout.  Rules are rules and some seem more draconian than others.  I would be interested in learning about the project.

I must ask, WasE61, what exactly does that mean, "your Life  rank was one  week too late"?   Not enough time between Life and earning Eagle? 

[Stosh]

Not a problem,  I'll take one Real Scout over a hundred Paper Eagles any day.  Well done, he knows more about Scouting than a lot of Eagles out there.

[qwazse]

By the way, it doesn't hurt to check out the math on that half-birthday.

Also, if it was only the BoR requirement delayed for some adult reason (e.g. only held after the moon is in it's 1st quarter) some CCs will backdate the paperwork.

 

Regardless your boy has class (and a nice set of chops after five years in band). Help him live up to his word.

[Hedgehog]

By the way, it doesn't hurt to check out the math on that half-birthday.

Also, if it was only the BoR requirement delayed for some adult reason (e.g. only held after the moon is in it's 1st quarter) some CCs will backdate the paperwork.

 

Regardless your boy has class (and a nice set of chops after five years in band). Help him live up to his word.

 

Also, the rank is earned at the Board of Review and not the Court of Honor.  Some Troops wrongly treat it as the CoH date. I know our troop hands out patches at the CoH (three annually) but reflect the rank earned (as it should be) after the BoR.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Hedgehog

[WasE61]

We did the math, and he's late.  Not based on CoH date. 

 

One week short between Life and aging out...

 

The SM and ASM's were will to backdate everything, but someone ratted him out to the Troop board.

 

His project is to clean up a home used for emergency housing of families in crisis.

 

I know this has to be churning up a lot of crap for him...he hadn't even realized that he had stepped away for all that time.

[WasE61]

Incidentally, I have no problem with "drop dead dates", as long as you realize that sometimes you get the result like the Challenger, the iNtel 386 and the Edsel.

 

  

[qwazse]

Incidentally, I have no problem with "drop dead dates", as long as you realize that sometimes you get the result like the Challenger, the iNtel 386 and the Edsel.

 

  

The iNtel chip set bit our stats center. It's amazing how a 1 per million error rate can infiltrate so many analyses when they involve at least that many floating point ops for each . One of our guys in frustration put an Insel Intide sticker on our sys ops' door. Fortunately we had a legacy VAX/VMS to fall back on until new cores were sent.

 

If your son agrees with the reasoning, that's fine. Just saying that sometimes a double-check is in order ... especially if it was only one scouter who made the comment without confirmation from the CC and SM.

[Gone]

We did the math, and he's late.  Not based on CoH date. 

 

One week short between Life and aging out...

 

The SM and ASM's were will to backdate everything, but someone ratted him out to the Troop board.

 

His project is to clean up a home used for emergency housing of families in crisis.

 

I know this has to be churning up a lot of crap for him...he hadn't even realized that he had stepped away for all that time.

 

To be honest I am glad the adults did not back date him, though I am very sorry the adults may have failed him in helping him to manage his timeline.

 

We had a similar situation long ago where a very good Scout mismanaged his dates and missed out on Eagle. Our SM at the time put in a new process to help the adults help the boys to manager their path better. In our unit, our SM contacts all Scouts that are 18-24 months away from aging out and sends them quarterly "reminders" of their age out date. This goes to their email, but he also pulls them aside during meetings to give a personal reminder. This way the adults can feel better about not having failed the scout, BUT the scout is the one held responsible for his path to Eagle.

 

Some of the best adults I know today are those who were Life scouts but never got Eagle. The vast majority of them are over-achieving adults who have not-making-Eagle as a life-long reminder to not put off to tomorrow what can be done today.

 

Congrats to your son! 

[WasE61]

I'm a little on the fence on the whole thing...it's not that he mismanaged his time as much as Scouting, at least subconsciously, reminded him of his Dad's death, not something your average teen wants to be reminded about.

 

By getting back in, and then not being able to succeed ... might leave a bad taste in his mouth.,..and he's got big fish to fry over the next seven years.

 

Dwelling on this (which I could easily see him doing) could be a detriment. I'll have to have a talk about that.

[Gone]

I'm a little on the fence on the whole thing...it's not that he mismanaged his time as much as Scouting, at least subconsciously, reminded him of his Dad's death, not something your average teen wants to be reminded about.

 

 

We had a similar experience with a scout. We kept in contact with him and his family and encouraged him along as needed. Let him do "Lone Scout" for a while. It helped.

 

Sounds like the adults could have done a bit more to help keep him on track. Either way, it never hurts to talk to district or council about what might be able to be done given the extenuating circumstances. One week is not as bad as a longer period of time. Someone might budge if the unit does not. All district or council can do is say no....which has already been said by the unit.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[resqman]

I'm a little on the fence on the whole thing...it's not that he mismanaged his time as much as Scouting, at least subconsciously, reminded him of his Dad's death, not something your average teen wants to be reminded about.

 

By getting back in, and then not being able to succeed ... might leave a bad taste in his mouth.,..and he's got big fish to fry over the next seven years.

 

Dwelling on this (which I could easily see him doing) could be a detriment. I'll have to have a talk about that.

 

"then not being able to succeed"...

 

Scouting is a journey of development.  Rank is a way to celebrate that journey.  Earning the rank of Eagle is not a requirement of Scouting.  It is a marker of achievement.  Took me 4 years between Life and Eagle.  Mostly because I did not really care about the rank.  I was having fun and going on adventures with my friends.  Parents stepped in towards the end and strongly encouraged me to wrap up a few loose ends.  Glad they did.  Had I not completed those last few requirements, it would not have wiped out the almost decade of scouting.   Life for life is not a failure.