AboutTom Newman Expertise Just about anything to do with scouting. I have been honored to recieve both the District Award of Merit and the Silver Beaver. I have been associated with Cub Scouting for about 16 years. I served 8 years as Cubmaster and 8 years as Committee Chairman. I was Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner for 1 year and Cub Scout Pack Commissioner for 2 years. I have served 15 years with Boy Scouting. Three years as Assistant Scoutmaster and then formed my own troop as Scoutmaster 12 years ago. I am also working as an adult advisor for the Order of the Arrow, which is the elite campers of Boy Scouts. I have ran several major events for both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, including a Pinewood Derby, a Spring Camporee, a Fall Camporee, and 2 Klondike Derbys. In the 12 years since forming our troop I have had 22 Eagle Scouts.
Expert: Tom Newman Date: 6/17/2008 Subject: Advancement chair
Question QUESTION: Hi Tom, I have just taken over advancement chair for our troop. I have two
questions. First, is it OKAY if a boy has no desire to advance? I have always
said no - but some seem to think it is fine. For example - we have a 3rd year
scout that is a tenderfoot, and other boys in his patrol are life and star. This
boy does not come to meetings, and will say very clearly he does not want to
advance, but just wants to go camping once a month. He is not a team player,
the other boys have trouble getting him to do anything and it is a real thorn
for them. One school of thought in the troop is that he "NEEDS" scouts and
the boys need to work it out, others, like me, say he needs to have a
discussion with the scoutmaster /committee about his goals - immediate and
long term, where scouting is concerned. Now that I am advancement chair, I
feel like it is my duty to help the committee get a unified position on this and
stick to it. We actually have about 3 boys going down this road, but one is
very bad.
Secondly, when I got all of the advancement stuff, I was suprised to find
boxes and boxes of records. Paper records going back for 1o or 12 years.
Scripts for COH's, every detail of every person who went on which campout,
etc. I am a believer in complete recordkeeping, but the volumes are crazy
going so far back. These boys in the records are in their late 20's some of
them. What needs to be kept and can I pare it down a few years?
Thanks in advance.
ANSWER: Hi Robin,
First let me say that there is no requirement for a Scout to advance, but this can lead to other problems for the troop. It is suggested that any boy not advancing have a board of review conducted by the committee this would be the proper place to address this issue.
"board of review
A review held to determine if a Boy Scout has satisfactorily completed rank requirements. A review may be held also to encourage Boy Scouts who are not advancing. For the first five ranks, the board of review is conducted by the troop committee. For the Eagle Scout rank, the council decides whether the unit committee or the district or council committee responsible for advancement conducts the board of review. At least one district or council advancement representative shall be a member of the unit board of review."
I have a boy run troop, but most boys are not equipped to delve into the mind of a another boy to figure out how to motivate him. This takes more experience than a boy would have. If adults are able to decipher a way to motivate the boy, then the SPL can implement it.
A way that you can enforce advancement is to require that kids take certain merit badges at scout camp. Our troop requires that all first year campers take Swimming (if they can swim), First Aid and Emergency Prep. All second year campers must take Environmental Science. This gets 4 eagle badges out of the way. We also spend a lot of time on campouts working on scout skills. When these boys are on a campout, the Troop Guide should be working with them completing their requirements. We did have one boy who would participate at meetings and at campouts, but would not write any reports or do any of the paper work, so he had a lot of incomplete merit badges. He has since moved over 60 miles away. I am not sure if he is involved in scouts anymore.
Second, There are several good computer systems for Troops. I use Troopmaster and I am very happy with it. I would suggest that you get one of these and you can enter your data in the system and throw away all of your paper records as they are entered. Any information that needs to be saved should be on file at your local Council Office or at National. No real paperwork needs to be saved by the Troop. I would suggest that you keep all paperwork for the last year and some important paperwork for the last 4 or 5 years. About the only thing that I keep are receipts from the scout office.
The nice thing about the computer system for you is that you can run reports that tell you when you need to hold a Board of Review, Fill out your advancement form, give you a list of badges that you need to purchase as well as several other advancement reports. The newest version can now import the advancement information from your council's ScoutNET export to save you even more time getting started with your system!!!
I hope this answers your questions, if not feel free to contact me here or directly at scout043@aol.com
Tom Newman
scout043@aol.com
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Those are great answers. We do use troopmaster and have for several years -
that is why I am sort of befuddled about the extra loads of paper that we
have kept. The only reason I was given was "in case there is ever a question."
I guess my point is by the time a boy is 18, he is finished no matter what he
did or did not complete. As I said i a pretty new, but all of the info on each
boy gets filed with the scout office eventually, their ranks, merit badges, etc,
Right? The other thing we have a huge file box of is forms - random forms
that might be used occaisonally. I am assuming that all forms can be found
online now, and there would be no reason to keep file boxes of old forms
either, correct?
Answer Hi Robin,
Yes you are right, if they have finished there is no reason to keep the records.
On the forms issue, when a new form is issued, our scout office wants us to use the new forms and not the old forms.
Yes, I think that you can find all of the forms on the Internet, including replaced form.
