Counting Activities for Achievements vs Electives

[mschwartz]

Hi all - I have a Bear Cub Scout in my house this year (plus a Tiger, but he's easy) and we're trying to figure something out. Throughout the Achievements section of the book, each piece has a signature line and then a place to check "Bear Credit" or "Arrow Point Credit". So my question is this. If he does something, for instance 9e, Make some trail food for a hike, twice (he thought the trail mix was fantastic and begged to make it again), can we count it once towards his Bear badge and again for Elective, or is it one or the other?

 

I'm sure all the experts out there will be able to explain this in about 30 seconds. Thanks in advance!

 

Marietta

[kittle]

From my understnadin, no.

 

In the Bear boo on page 158 it says: You can mix requirements from electives and unused achievements in any way to get the ten you need for each Arroe Point.

 

I may be wrong and if I am, I am sure someone will explain it better.

 

Katrina

[sctmom]

No, I think somewhere it points out that once an achievement is counted, it can not be counted again for an elective. But do encourage him to do things again and again, on his own! That's what Cub Scouting is about -- introducing the boys to new acitvities.

 

[NJCubScouter]

There is a clear answer in the Bear book, it should be in the introductory pages right before the first achievement. Basically the answer is, no, you don't count it twice. You count the requirement toward the achievement unless it is not needed for the achievement. It would be "not needed" for one of two reasons, either the boy has already earned that achievement, or the boy is not going to earn that achievement. Almost every achievement has more individual requirements than are necessary to pass the achievement. For example, an achievement may have 6 requirements, and it might say "complete 1 and 2, and any 2 of the remainder." (I forget if it's numbers or letters, but the idea is the same.) So if for example, the boy does 1, 2, 4 and 6, he has completed that particular achievement. None of those requirements will count as electives. But if he then also does 3 in that achievement, it counts as an elective. Similarly, if he only does 2 and 4, he is not going to earn that achievement at all, but 2 and 4 will count as 2 electives. And it's ok to do achievements and electives at the same time, but your son cannot actually receive any arrow points until he earns the Bear badge. The main thing is to make sure your son does enough of the achievements to earn the Bear badge. I think it's 12. At the point where he earns the Bear badge, he may already have done enough electives along the way to earn one or more arrow points, and if not, he can then work on either "leftover" requirements from achievements, or "electives," to do enough electives for an arrow point.

[janssenil]

Hey, wait a minute. I don't have my book with me (well, my son's book) at the moment, but don't I remember it saying something somewhere about being able to do they same achievement or elective over & over and having each time count toward the 10 needed for Arrow points? I even remember at training, the trainer pointed out that some kids parent's seem to let them go to extreme with repeating and they have arrow points around their waist. I hope she was exaggerating.

[sctmom]

In Wolf they can do electives over and over. In Bear there are only certain electives that can be done more than once.