Limits on MB Counselors

[SemperParatus]

Our District Advancement Committee has placed a limit such that one individual cannot be registered as a counselor for more than seven different merit badges (and no more than three Eagle-required badges). Granted, I don't know why anyone would want to be a counselor for much more, but if one is so inclined then why not.

 

Any other Council or District limitations out there on the number of MBs that one person can counsel? Is this a recommendation from national or is my district just making up its own rules again?

[Laurie]

I don't know why anyone would want to be a counselor for much more, but if one is so inclined then why not

 

I can't answer your question about limits as I don't know the national or even our council and district limits, if any. However, I know of two potential problems with one person serving as MB counselor for several MBs. (1) A person is counselor to the unit only. He counsels for 30 MBs. He remains on the unit list but is not available when needed. (2) A unit has a few MB counselors, betweeen them covering all MBs, and each will serve the unit only. Each, of necessity, needs to cover several MBs as the MB counselors in this unit will only serve this unit and the unit does not use counselors outside the unit.

 

I don't agree with the above, don't find that it meshes with BSA literature on the topic, but it does happen. I'm figuring it probably isn't a unique situation and may address the why of someone counseling in so many MBs.

[nldscout]

The DAC has no authority to limit how many merit badges a councilor can do. Unless the Council Advancement committee has made a written policy on this he has overstepped his authority. DAC do not get to set policy.

[EagleInKY]

I don't like these artificial limits people come up with. A person can easily qualify to counsel more than seven merit badges. I would guess that a person with a broad amount of experiences and a boy scouting background could counsel 20 or 30 or more easily.

 

The question I ask is "why?". Consider this scenario: Let's say this person has a broad experience in government and private business. He can do the citizenships, American business, American heritage, personal management, etc. Let's say has been a scouter since he was a Cub Scout. He can do all the basic scout skills - pioneering, camping, hiking, etc. He's already blown past your seven limit, and we haven't even talked about his hobbies. Let's say he used to have a landscaping business. He could easily counsel Landscape Architecture. However, since he has this limit, he doesn't put it down. A scout wants to work on Landscape Architecure, but can't find a counselor. What is he to do? It's unfortunate that there could be a qualified counselor right down the street that he didn't know about because of the 7 badge limit.

 

IMHO, this limitation only hurts the scouts. They need to have options for MB Counselors to go to.

 

Don't be too discourated, however. At least your district is doing this. Ours does not. It's still every troop for themselves. I don't like it because it forces us into the situation Laurie described. We have 3 or 4 people that do most of the counseling, and then we search for others to fulfill those we can't support.

[evmori]

My district has a limit of 10. They also have a rule that states that a MB counselor can only counsel a single Scout on 5 MB's. AS far as I know, National has no limits on either!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

A blessed New Year to all!

[FScouter]

What purpose is served by establishing a limit?

[KA6BSA]

Yes Laurie and there are also serious problems in the quality of rank advancement when the parents take it upon themselves to counsel many merit badges each and set up a system in the unit to push the boys through.

 

We had a Council level limit of 5 merit badges per person for a while as an attempt to prevent these unit advancement systems, but it was discontinued after objections from many parents wanting to make it easier for their boys. Even during the limited period there was one special case where many merit badges were allowed per person... for Rangers at a Scout Reservation. There the head Scouter could be a super-counselor all year around for even 25 or more merit badges. But of course there were no issues about not being accessible to all units, and hopefully there were the facilities, training and resources to do the badge correctly.

 

Many people forget (or never knew) how the merit badge counselors worked in the "old days." A boy was expected to find the counselor and make contact on his own. The counselor was almost always an expert in the field doing only one badge... and could be very demanding on meeting exactally the requirements. When I was a Scout in 1959 the typical method was to walk to the counselor's house, knock on the door, and present oneself in full uniform ready to politely ask for service. I remember vividly having to go back to a counselor several times for the Music merit badge because I made a single mistake in playing the song for him. He was an orchestra conductor for the town theater and made me go back home and practice another week each time just for one wrong note!

 

In those days there were no parents calling on the phone for the boy making appointments, no parents setting everything up for him, no parents allowed to interfere at all. And there were no merit badge factories at summer camp (we just had fun instead), no groups of parents in the troop putting on merit badge classes so every boy in the unit would get it.

 

Success depended on a strong individual initiative and persistence from the boy himself. There was no Eagle Project requirement, but the earned merit badges were an indication that the Scout had real determination and had worked hard on his own, not just followed all the other boys through a pre-arranged system of advancement run by the troop's parents. These days the Eagle Project now seems to be the event that separates the boy with that initiative from the others. Maybe BSA in its wisdom realized it was necessary for a Project requirement to demonstrate leadership and individual motivation, when just earning merit badges was no longer a consistent measure of those qualities.

[SemperParatus]

Fscouter,

As explained to me, the purpose is to ensure that a scout does not rely on only one or a few counselors during their scouting career, especially in the case of a scout going for his Eagle. In the extreme case, they do not want a situation where an Eagle Scout has earned 21 merit badges, all counseled by the same person (that could very well be related to the scout). DAC indicated that in such a case, there could be questions raised as the Eagle App is reviewed. In addition, it is further explained as a way of getting counselors to be more focused, by selecting badges that best relate to their occupation, talents, interests, etc.

 

I will say, the District does a good job of maintaining and distributing the District merit badge list that shows the names, address, phone numbers of the hundreds of different counselors available in the District.

[FScouter]

A better way to meet their objective would be to pass a law that a boy may not use the same counselor no more than 1 or 2 times.

 

Another approach would be to ensure that every counselor applicant is truly an expert in field he wants to counsel. Set a limit on the number of counselors authorized by the district for any one merit badge. Make it clear that counselors are obligated to work with any boy in the district, not just boys in one troop. All counselors should be on the district counselor list, which is distributed to all units.

[nldscout]

My question would be how would the DAC even know if the troop was using a MB councilor who was either not on his list or doing more than 7 MB's? The advancement report does not contain MB councilor's names, and why would you send the troop copy of the MB Blue card to council so it could get lost or misplaced. There is no DAC copy, only unit, Scout and MBC parts.

 

Me personnally as a SM I would have to tell the DAC to take a walk in a scoutlike manner..

[FScouter]

A person not approved and not on the district list is not a merit badge counselor.

[boleta]

In our Council, the boys can only use a MBC for 2 Merit Badges. They have to shop around for variety. A MBC, however, can sign up for as many badges as he is qualified to counsel. Eagle Boards do not like it when the candidate has all of his badges from one or two counselors.

[FScouter]

"Eagle Boards do not like it when the candidate has all of his badges from one or two counselors."

 

Not to say that a boy should or should not do this, why don't Eagle boards like it?

[EagleInKY]

Just curious, how do the boards know? Perhaps there's additional info being given to you all. Among the stack of information we get on an Eagle candidate, none of it includes the names of MB Counselors. In fact, the only people that know the name of the counselors (in our "system") is the scout and the scoutmaster (or whoever processes the blue card).

[boleta]

First, the parents can be counselors. It is odd when mommy has done Citizenship in the Community, Family Life, etc. and daddy has done Personal Fitness... you get the idea. Having only 2 Merit Badges with each counselor makes the Scout interact with a variety of different adults which is part of the idea here. I was the counselor for my son on Snow Sports and Pioneering. My wife did Gardening and Scholarship with him. That was all he could do with us because of the 2 MB rule. (out of 41 MBs that he earned).

 

Our Council uses Blue Cards and the boys bring them to their BORs. We can see where the badges were earned and with which counselors. I had a lad once with 21 MBs for Eagle. 2 of the Blue Cards were for the same MB! He had a time explaining what and where the 21st Card was for. Fortunately, his Advancement Chair was on the BoR and helped him out.

I