{"id":2693,"date":"2020-12-08T10:38:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T15:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/?p=2693"},"modified":"2020-12-08T10:38:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T15:38:25","slug":"issue-659-december-8-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/2020\/12\/issue-659-december-8-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 659 &#8211; December 8, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><em>(Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Just drop a line to me at askandybsa@yahoo.com)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>THIS IS FOR ALL SCOUTS\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Never believe anyone who claims you don\u2019t \u201cdeserve\u201d your next rank! Only YOU can request\u2014and absolutely expect to receive\u2014your Scoutmaster conference and your board of review! ALWAYS make your requests known and don\u2019t take anything but \u201cYes\u201d for an answer!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Think your service project proposal isn\u2019t good enough and think you\u2019ve gotta add stuff? Present it anyway! And never let anyone paint their own ideas into your picture! This is your project, not theirs.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Don\u2019t think the President of the United States will answer your letter? Send it anyway!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Your only limits are what you believe you can\u2019t do. Never self-reject. Believe in yourself\u2014 ALWAYS!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hi Andy &#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This one\u2019s about Scouts who don&#8217;t follow the BSA procedure for starting and earning merit badges.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I counsel Environmental Science Merit Badge. I\u2019m counseling a Scout on his last merit badge before Eagle. When he and I first met, he told me he\u2019d found some worksheets online, and did the work and filled out the forms. This created two problems\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The first is that, as a counselor for this merit badge, I happen to be an environmental scientist of long experience and some national repute. None of my knowledge or insights could get passed along to the Scout along his journey\u2014this being one of the most important duties of the counseling role (it\u2019s why this volunteer position isn\u2019t called \u201cexaminer\u201d\u2014that\u2019s not what we do!).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The second problem is that he&#8217;d picked an online workbook that isn&#8217;t BSA-authorized. (Actually, there are no BSA-authorized workbooks!) Sure, it&#8217;s the work of a dedicated Scouting volunteer. But that was several years ago. Now it&#8217;s out-of-date and he didn\u2019t cross check against the most current requirements! This means he\u2019s done two obsolete requirements, and he hasn&#8217;t done one added in 2015 and another added in 2020. (He&#8217;s working on those last two with my guidance now, and he\u2019ll ultimately do fine.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thinking about this, I searched online, entering \u201cbsa environmental science merit badge.\u201d This gave me over a dozen citations; \u201cScoutbook\u201d was third in line and \u201cScouting.org\u201d was 16 down from the top. All others were non-BSA sites.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The printed merit badge pamphlets are also a challenge. The Environmental Science pamphlet changed in 2015. But you&#8217;d know this only if you noticed a turtle added to the cover artwork. Of course, it\u2019s now out-of-date because the 2020 requirement is missing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve long counseled \u201cfrom the book\u201d and referred Scouts to the pamphlets. But more and more, Scouts don\u2019t read these, whether paper or electronic. Instead, they dive right into any old worksheet. Part of this is understandable, since everything is immediately available via Google\u2026but the results often come out all wrong!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>So what\u2019s the best way, nowadays, to counsel Scouts for merit badges?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s a given that we counsel each Scout to follow the current requirements. But that&#8217;s if they contact a counselor before they start in on their own. It would sure help if Scoutmasters would guide Scouts on this issue!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I guess we can\u2019t tell Scouts to buy the pamphlet. If we did, we&#8217;d be forcing Scouts to spend money where it\u2019s not mandatory. We can\u2019t make a Scout buy the pamphlet because incurring this expense isn\u2019t part of BSA advancement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sometimes, troops keep small \u201clibraries\u201d of merit badge pamphlets. But a lot of troops don\u2019t do this. So the only way it works is if the troop Librarian buys a current pamphlet each time they\u2019re published and culls the old ones each time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Any thoughts on this would be really useful. (Dedicated MBC, Patriots\u2019 Path Council, NJ)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It looks like there are two issues here\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The first is how search engines work. When you enter a search word or phrase, the first citations are ads. After these, the rest are usually in order of previous &#8220;hit-rate&#8221;\u2014The more hits, the higher in the hierarchy. My own search today (I used Google and your exact phrase) produced \u201cfilestore.scouting.org\u201d in first place. Yay!<\/p>\n<p>But trying to get all non-BSA online merit badge requirements and workbook authors to get current and consistent with the BSA would likely be a fruitless endeavor. But that\u2019s not really where the cause of the symptom you and this Scout arose. It arose because his Scoutmaster was unsuccessful in directing him to contact you as the very first step.<\/p>\n<p>Since you know this Scout\u2019s troop &#8217;cause it&#8217;s on the front of his blue card, you can reach out to his Scoutmaster, ask how this big hiccup happened, and pass on how best to direct future Scouts. (If you get resistance, please take time to contact the District Commissioner\u2014this isn\u2019t \u201ctattling;\u201d it\u2019s the first step in correcting an injustice to the Scouts of this troop.)<\/p>\n<p>At the district level, this is an issue that can be emphasized in commissioners\u2019 troop visits and it\u2019s also an excellent Roundtable topic.<br \/>\n(The key here is to convert any troop handling this some other way to the way Scouting intends!)<\/p>\n<p>In addition, an \u201calert\u201d sent to all counselors from the district\u2019s coordinator or advancement committee chair can (a) describe the problem and its drawbacks and (b) offer a \u201cscript\u201d for any counselor who runs into this procedural hiccup.<\/p>\n<p>Also, make this an important part of Scoutmaster\/ASM-specific training and new counselor training too. (Someone will probably need to either counsel or cull any current counselors follow the &#8220;fill out the workbook and come back to me when you&#8217;re done&#8221; approach.)<\/p>\n<p>These steps need collaboration among each district&#8217;s commissioner cadre, the district&#8217;s training team, and the council&#8217;s counselor vetting team or coordinator.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay positive!<\/span><\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Happy Scouting!<\/span><\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong><em>Andy<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><em>When you write to me, please include your name and council. If you\u2019d rather be anonymous\u2014if published\u2014just say so and that\u2019s what I\u2019ll do. Also, although these columns are copyrighted, you have my okay to quote or reproduce any column or part, so long as it\u2019s attributed: \u201cAsk Andy\u201d by Andy McCommish.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">[No. 659 \u2013 12\/8\/2020 \u2013 Copyright \u00a9 2020 Andy McCommish]<\/span><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Just drop a line to me at askandybsa@yahoo.com) THIS IS FOR ALL SCOUTS\u2026 Never believe anyone who claims you don\u2019t \u201cdeserve\u201d your next rank! Only YOU can request\u2014and absolutely expect to receive\u2014your Scoutmaster conference and your board of review! ALWAYS [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}