When/How to Award ranks with new troop

[Eagle94-A1]

12 hours ago, Treflienne said:

What change happened in 1989?

There were a lot of changes to the program, some major, some minor. Changes include the following:

Doing away with Skill Awards

Doing away with time requirements for Tenderfoot through First Class ( Part of Operation First Class which turned into First Class First Year)

Promoting aged based patrols, i.e. New Scout Patrol, Experienced Patrol, and Venture Crew for older Scouts (which turned into Venture Patrol in 1998 when Venturing came out) instead of Traditional Patrols, aka Mixed Aged Patrols, and the Leadership Corps for older Scouts,

Doing away with the Leadership Corps as a POR and creating Venture crews/patrols instead.

Scouts no longer conducting Board of Reviews for Tenderfoot through First Class (although it did take a while for some troops to get the word)   

World Crest was no longer an award you had to earn, everyone could wear it (Grant you this mandate came from WOSM, still it ticked those of us who earned it, or were inthe process of earning it off. And they made the WOSM mandate effective when all the other changes occurred)

 

Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I believe there were more changes.

 

12 hours ago, Treflienne said:

How often do you hold a court of honor for the troop?

Is it a big deal, with families invited, and taking a whole troop meeting?   Is it a smaller affair, simply part of the opening or closing ceremony of a regular troop meeting?

If your troop has scouts wait till the COH to get their rank patches, how long of a wait is that?  a month?  six months?

 

Ideally Courts of Honor every 3 months, but most of the troops I've been in held them every 4: Usually April, August, and December.

It is a very big deal with families invited, formal ceremony, and everyone brought some type of desert for the reception afterwards. The April one with reception usually lasted the entire meeting time. The August one usually lasted longer since it also included all of the summer camp merit badges and awards. December was usually the shortest and held in conjunction with a Christmas Party. In the troop growing up, par to that COH was the issuing of new troop t-shirts. The logo never changed, but the color of the ink and shirt did.

The troop I am currently with now is quite small. Their last COH lasted less than 45 minutes. 

As for waiting, it depended upon when the BOR was. Some Scouts might wait 4 months, others might wait a week. Exception to that was Eagle. Eagle planned COH as he and his family wanted. Between the EBOR and my COH, it was 5 months. Grant you part of that was dealing with council's messed up records (5 weeks and 3 visits to the office) andpart of that was waiting for the word to come back from national  (another 4 weeks).

[qwazse]

18 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

That's the pre-1989 way of doing  things; an "Attaboy" after the BOR and formal presentation of rank and all other awards at the COH.  ...

I'm a pre-1989 scouter, and my kid's troop stretches way back. But it's not just a matter of being stuck in tradition. We tried awarding patches the week after BoR, and the boys weren't impressed. It's not like the patches made it onto their shirts the following week.

CoH's aren't just about getting patches. The SM recaps the past quarter for parents. Usually, in my troop growing up, each patrol was expected to provide a volunteer who would report on the highlights of one of the camp-outs. The SPL is master of ceremony just like a regular troop meeting.

[mrkstvns]

On 2/2/2019 at 4:18 PM, qwazse said:

The SPL is master of ceremony just like a regular troop meeting.

That's too bad...

An SPL should NOT be master of ceremony. A well-run troop will give the emcee duty to a scout working on Communication merit badge ( see requirement 8 ). A good Scoutmaster knows that every single youth needs an opportunity to speak up in front of the troop --- even if he will never be SPL himself. Speaking develops confidence and is the most critical skill a leader possesses. Don't short-circuit a chance for other scouts to grow as leaders and to work on their advancement out of some misguided theory that the SPL should be a one-man show. Most SPLs understand that they need to delegate, no just do everything. If they don't understand that, then the SM should help advise them.

By the way: Of the 3 possible ways to get their "emcee" credit, most scouts prefer to emcee the Court of Honor.  Lots of scouts like leading the campfire too...(another job the SPL shouldn't do unless nobody else wants to).

Conversely, I've only seen 2 scouts in the last 4 years volunteer to lead a scouts own service.  That's too bad.  I hope other troops have more scouts doing the scouts own service.

[T2Eagle]

39 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

That's too bad...

An SPL should NOT be master of ceremony. A well-run troop will give the emcee duty to a scout working on Communication merit badge ( see requirement 8 ).

I have to disagree a bit.  In a well run troop the scouts work this out.  In our troop the default assumption is that it's the SPL's responsibility to either do it or delegate it.  If there's a scout who is working on Communication and wants the role, which is often but not always the case, than that's fine.  But the scout working on the badge has to step forward, and of course sometimes the SPL is working on the badge.

As for giving out the badge, we tried giving out the badge the same night as BOR and then making a big deal, formal recognition at the COH.  The scouts were indifferent to receiving the badge right away so we reverted to just a big attascout at the meeting and saving the badge for the COH.  I view the pins as a costly non necessity, but that's not a widely shared view so we give them out at COH also.  

It is silly that a troop can't by them ahead of time since the myriad ways that you can buy them negate any idea that there's any real restriction on the purchase or supply.  

[mrkstvns]

1 minute ago, T2Eagle said:

I have to disagree a bit.  In a well run troop the scouts work this out.  In our troop the default assumption is that it's the SPL's responsibility to either do it or delegate it.  If there's a scout who is working on Communication and wants the role, which is often but not always the case, than that's fine.  But the scout working on the badge has to step forward, and of course sometimes the SPL is working on the badge.

I think we're in agreement here....it's just that I'm working with a troop of more than 70 boys, so there's ALWAYS a scout working on Communication.  But yeah, it's up to the scout to step forward, and if nobody does, then the SPL should either be prepared to do it himself or delegate someone to do it (like that ASPL who never quite outgrew being a chatter box).

[qwazse]

1 hour ago, mrkstvns said:

... An SPL should NOT be master of ceremony. A well-run troop will give the emcee duty to a scout working on Communication merit badge ( see requirement 8 ). ...

Sorry for the sending this off the rails. SPL serves as sergeant at arms, and may delegate the duty of emcee to a willing and able scout. That scout may be willing by virtue of a desire to earn Communications MB or some other reason.

Aside from nudging scouts to report to the SPL to volunteer their services, we don't meddle much in that process. Our scouts also take active roles in Eagle courts of honor, plus there's a campfire every month that needs an emcee (and we do encourage the SPL to delegate those) so we haven't had a shortage of opportunities.

Of course, we're at 30-35 boys, so it is easier to be a little casual about such things.