John-in-KC Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Scoutmasters, Advancement Coordinators, District and Council Advancement Committee Members, and Others: Very much worth your read. Key points: "Updating requirements means merit badge pamphlets and the Boy Scout Requirements book need to be updated as well. In the past, this process slowed down the update cycle, at times causing delays of a year or more. Not anymore, Berger says. "“As soon as we have new, updated merit badge requirements, we’re going to immediately get them on Scouting.org, as well as in our new interactive digital merit badge pamphlets and on Scoutbook,†he says. “We’re not waiting for reprinted pamphlets or requirements books. This should help to get the very best information and resources into the hands of Scouts as quickly as possible.â€" WHAT THAT MEANS: Scoutsource is now the source of record for requirements, not the annual hardcopy of BSA requirements. Counselors and advancement folk will need to check to be sure they are using the latest requirements set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentinel947 Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Mixed feelings about this. Awesome that it'll be available online, but putting the onus on volunteers and scouts to verify consistently that their print versions of the books are up to date means that the books could become obsolete very quickly. If the requirements are only slightly tweeked versus completely overhauled, that's a huge waste of money for counselors and scouts to buy the latest book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Might as well put the whole merit badge booklet too. Have you seen how thin the pamphlets for Citizenship in the Community and Nation now are? A Girl Scout Thin Mint is thicker, 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 When I do MB's I have the boy buy the latest pamphlet from the Scout Office and he fulfills those requirements. Otherwise if the only thing being printed on-line is the requirements then what's the sense of the pamphlet? With Google, the boy can get any and all the pamphlet's information anyway. My council does not do "blue cards" anymore. We print off copies of the blue cards on blue paper and cut them apart for boys going to MB day and summer camp out of council. As MBC in my council the boy has a signed copy of his MB pamphlet indicating by my signature he has completed all of the requirements in that book to earn the MB. With the turnover in the pamphlets and their requirements changing, the council has no idea which MB pamphlet the boy earned the MB with. For this reason, my troop has never had a Librarian as a POR. If all this person is to do is keep a box of old MB pamphlets, it's a total waste of time and a pencil whipped POR for the boy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJCubScouter Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 A Girl Scout Thin Mint is thicker, No doubt tastier, too. Although I prefer the Tagalongs. By the way: How do you know when your organization has become a little too bureaucratic? Answer: When you have a committee called the "National Merit Badge Maintenance Task Force". 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Needs an Executive or Blue Ribbon adjective to be taken seriously. It amazes me that rank and mb requirements are in such a constant flux. They are like Adobe software, in that you have to download an update before you can start. Local scout store still has a dozen 2015 Requirements booklets on the shelf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krampus Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I don't see this really having any impact. Most units I know rely on a combination of the most recently published pamphlet and the Internet to obtain the latest requirements. In my unit we have MBCs point the scouts to the updated requirements online, print off those requirements and put them in their book and continue. This will not push scouts to use the electronic pamphlets or units move summarily to ScoutBook. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Well supposedly a Snowshoeing Option was added to Snow Sports MB this year but I can find no info online. National Merit Badge Maintenance Task Force, General Quarters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwazse Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 I continue to be astounded by the inability to maximally grasp the power of crowd-sourcing. The task force could ... Develop a secure online-forum for each MB. Charge $1 via scout account to apply for online materials for a specific MB. (Which would be a click-through from the requirements page on scouting.) On a rotating basis, open a few MBs per year for comment and review. Each proposed new paragraph/image/video gets "up" or "down" voted by registered counselors. (A users' right to vote is contingent on completing whatever MBC training BSA deems appropriate. Vote's might be rated by the number of scouts counseled in that badge.) Scouts earn the right to a vote by earning the respective MB and 1st Class (recorded on internet advancement) and maintaining their registration. Parts that are "most helpful" get incorporated in the new materials. The login might come with permission to request a hard-copy from your service center. Charge $1 for cost-effective printed hard-copy pamphlets (grayscale covers). These could be produced on demand at the national scout shops -- possibly even at most camp trading posts! On-demand copies would have a code and a login instructions granting access to the interactive site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 I continue to be astounded by the inability to maximally grasp the power of crowd-sourcing. The task force could ... Develop a secure online-forum for each MB. Charge $1 via scout account to apply for online materials for a specific MB. (Which would be a click-through from the requirements page on scouting.) On a rotating basis, open a few MBs per year for comment and review. Each proposed new paragraph/image/video gets "up" or "down" voted by registered counselors. (A users' right to vote is contingent on completing whatever MBC training BSA deems appropriate. Vote's might be rated by the number of scouts counseled in that badge.) Scouts earn the right to a vote by earning the respective MB and 1st Class (recorded on internet advancement) and maintaining their registration. Parts that are "most helpful" get incorporated in the new materials. The login might come with permission to request a hard-copy from your service center. Charge $1 for cost-effective printed hard-copy pamphlets (grayscale covers). These could be produced on demand at the national scout shops -- possibly even at most camp trading posts! On-demand copies would have a code and a login instructions granting access to the interactive site. We've never done it that way before. We still have Councils out there that won't accept a summer camp's print out of MB progress, it has to be hand written on a Blue Card. However, I do like the idea, might even work in the long run for rank advancement .... someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwazse Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) We've never done it that way before. We still have Councils out there that won't accept a summer camp's print out of MB progress, it has to be hand written on a Blue Card. However, I do like the idea, might even work in the long run for rank advancement .... someday. Not proposing getting rid of the blue card. For councils that don't do internet advancement, a boy could upload an image of his completed application. But even if that kind of validation is too expensive of a feature, the goal isn't necessarily to require every scout to give feedback on the MB, but to get as many as possible with means and interest on board. However, now that I think of it, smart reader technology -- where SMs upload a picture of a table full of unit copies of the week's blue cards to order MBs -- would be a killer app. Edited January 26, 2016 by qwazse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krampus Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) I continue to be astounded by the inability to maximally grasp the power of crowd-sourcing. The task force could ... BSA cannot manage a simple website and database back-end for tracking training data. You can't really be surprised that they haven't made the quantum leap to an effective distance learning platform, can you (I suspect you are not really surprised)? Heck, their ScoutBook platform is marginal at best and is yet to go in to the cloud. BSA operates as if it is 2002, not 2016. Contrary to what Jessie J says, it *is* about the money, money, money. Edited January 26, 2016 by Krampus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdidochas Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 We've never done it that way before. We still have Councils out there that won't accept a summer camp's print out of MB progress, it has to be hand written on a Blue Card. However, I do like the idea, might even work in the long run for rank advancement .... someday. Do Councils actually look at Blue Cards? I know ours doesn't. They use the advancement report. The Blue card is for use when there are discrepancies in records--usually from a Scout who has changed Councils. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krampus Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Do Councils actually look at Blue Cards? I know ours doesn't. They use the advancement report. The Blue card is for use when there are discrepancies in records--usually from a Scout who has changed Councils. Our council AND national does. Case in point: We had a scout several years ago finish off a MB with an old MBC. This person was registered when the scout started and had remained a registered MBC for several years. The year the scout went to get sign off though, this person did not register...but they signed off any way. Yes, should have been caught by the subsequent folks who also signed off but they just assumed they were still registered. Three months later the scout passes SMC and BOR. National kicks back the paperwork because of the un-registered MBC. So someone somewhere *does* check...at least from time to time. Epilogue: We got it figured out. National was good enough to recognize this was not a mistake of the scout and allowed a current MBC to review and sign off after-the-fact. Eagle was awarded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle69 Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 "Our council AND national does." Interesting. I was SM for 28 years 1979-2007 and produced 26 Eagles and never turned in a Blue Card to Council. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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