A little Dad bragging, and a question about Eagle binders

[SteveMM]

Let's get the bragging out of the way: My son completed his Eagle BoR last night!  They talked with him for at least 45 minutes, which was longer than I expected.  He said he had an answer for everything, including the standard, "Which of the points of the Scout Law would you eliminate?" question.  He said he would eliminate "clean" because, really, have you seen Boy Scouts at summer camp?  That got a round of laughter that I actually heard from across the hall.

Needless to say, I couldn't be more proud of the boy if I tried.

Now, the question: They kept his Eagle Project binder, and said it would be sent to the national office.  I think I understood that he would NOT get that back.  Is that correct?  At our troop's Eagle Courts of Honor, it's traditional to lay out mementos from the Scout's "career" on a table, along with information about the project.  It's usually in a binder.  Am I to assume that they must have just printed out new copies of the proposal and application to make a new binder?

[qwazse]

Congratulations! Nothing like knowing that your son can command the respect of your peers!

The workbook should come back to your son. I can't imagine any council HQ wanting to keep it. Just ask them when he'll get it back.

[SteveMM]

16 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Congratulations! Nothing like knowing that your son can command the respect of your peers!

The workbook should come back to your son. I can't imagine any council HQ wanting to keep it. Just ask them when he'll get it back.

I think they said it would be sent to the national office in Texas for review, but not returned.  It's entirely possible I misunderstood, though.  My thought was that if they didn't return Scout binders, then they'd run out of room to store them eventually and would end up destroying them.  This is why I wondered if I misunderstood.

[SteveMM]

Completely unrelated side note: The one other Scout doing his EBoR last night is 13 years old, and is in a troop that meets at an LDS church.  I really wondered if he rushed to Eagle a bit because of LDS severing their ties with Scouts BSA.  No way of knowing, but it would make sense.  With that said, they were VERY impressed with his project.  He collected 2,000 donated books for an organization and built a bookshelf to house them.  

[mrkstvns]

On 8/6/2019 at 2:10 PM, SteveMM said:

... With that said, they were VERY impressed with his project.  He collected 2,000 donated books for an organization and built a bookshelf to house them.  

That sounds like one *BIG* bookshelf!

 

[HashTagScouts]

Our legacy council used to the say the same, but in reality only the completed Eagle application went to National- the project binder stayed at the council office until the credentials came back from National, and then the binder with credentials went to the unit to present to the Eagle.  Your council is likely doing similar, but i would reach out to your district advancement coordinator to confirm.

[SteveMM]

20 minutes ago, HashTagScouts said:

Our legacy council used to the say the same, but in reality only the completed Eagle application went to National- the project binder stayed at the council office until the credentials came back from National, and then the binder with credentials went to the unit to present to the Eagle.  Your council is likely doing similar, but i would reach out to your district advancement coordinator to confirm.

I actually got confirmation at our meeting last night.  You're right.  The binder does NOT go to national but rather stays with the council.  Once national sends the credentials, Scouts get their binders back.  The only issue right now is that it apparently is taking national forever to get credentials back to Scouts.  Our Scoutmaster said he JUST heard back from national on a Scout who had his EBoR in late June!  I'm hoping my son's doesn't take that long, but just to be sure, when we schedule his ECoH it will probably be in early October.

[MattR]

I always wondered why national would take more than 5 minutes to respond. Type the data in from the signed app, press enter, press print, put it all in an envelope, mail it. Better yet, have each council type in the data, scan the app, press send, wait for the return pdf file, press print. Honestly, I've never heard of national rejecting an eagle app.

Anyway, it used to regularly take a month for all of this to happen but in the last couple of years it's been about 2 weeks. Maybe there's a rush of LDS scouts. BTW, congratulations.

[Eagle94-A1]

I remember when it could take up to 3 months for National to approve Eagle.

[Eagle94-A1]

2 minutes ago, MattR said:

Honestly, I've never heard of national rejecting an eagle app.

They won't, even when they acknowledge that there are problems with the applicant because "you do not penalize the Scout for the errors of the adults."

[The Latin Scot]

On 8/6/2019 at 12:10 PM, SteveMM said:

Completely unrelated side note: The one other Scout doing his EBoR last night is 13 years old, and is in a troop that meets at an LDS church.  I really wondered if he rushed to Eagle a bit because of LDS severing their ties with Scouts BSA.  No way of knowing, but it would make sense.  With that said, they were VERY impressed with his project.  He collected 2,000 donated books for an organization and built a bookshelf to house them.  

That's a great-sounding project! And while certainly he may have hurried his project along to finish by the end of the year, at the same time there have always been many LDS boys who earn Eagle early, so he may just be reflective of that long-standing trend. My two brothers and I all earned our Eagles before 14; the family of 5 boys across the street has always worked to get them their Eagles early, most of the LDS boys I know are 15 tops when they reach that rank - it may thus be that we have so many other activities going on as the boys get older that it's simply easier and wiser to get it done early so that they can focus on other pursuits as they age. So the current situation would only be accelerating a trend that was already long in place. 

Oh and CONGRATULATIONS to your son and family! 

[HashTagScouts]

3 hours ago, SteveMM said:

I actually got confirmation at our meeting last night.  You're right.  The binder does NOT go to national but rather stays with the council.  Once national sends the credentials, Scouts get their binders back.  The only issue right now is that it apparently is taking national forever to get credentials back to Scouts.  Our Scoutmaster said he JUST heard back from national on a Scout who had his EBoR in late June!  I'm hoping my son's doesn't take that long, but just to be sure, when we schedule his ECoH it will probably be in early October.

We generally work with the family to expect to have CoH no less than 6 weeks from the EBOR.  That also gives time to get responses to congratulatory letters from dignitaries.  

[SteveMM]

20 hours ago, HashTagScouts said:

We generally work with the family to expect to have CoH no less than 6 weeks from the EBOR.  That also gives time to get responses to congratulatory letters from dignitaries.  

Our troop has its Greenbar next week, so we'll have the troop schedule for the rest of the year.  We plan to schedule about six weeks from that point, which will be about 7.5 weeks after the EBoR.  That puts us into the first week of October.  I hope that will be enough time.

[Drastent]

I submit my binder and application almost 2 years ago and haven't seen it since.