Troop 111 Eagles New Requirements
Troop 111 Eagles
Effective April 1st, 1999
Summary - (1) Safety and Sports Merit Badges have been dropped from the Eagle Required List, and have been replaced with Cycling and Hiking Merit Badges.(2) Personal Fitness is now a "stand alone/must do" Merit Badge (it took the place of Safety.) The former triple option of [Personal Fitness, Sports or Swimming] has now been replaced with [Cycling, Hiking or Swimming.]
With these changes, the list will be: 1) Camping; 2) Cit/Comm; 3) Cit/Nat; 4) Cit/World; 5) Communications; 6) Env/Sci; 7) Family Life; 8) First Aid; 9) Personal Fitness; 10) Personal Management; 11) Cycling, Hiking or Swimming; and 12) Emergency Preparedness or Lifesaving.
1) All Eagles must adhere to the new guidelines as of April 1st, 1999; there is a transition period from January 1st through March 31st where either the current or new system may be used. However, the final date for Scouts to make Eagle under the current guidelines is March 31st, 1999.
2) The above statement mandates that current Star Scouts who wish to make Eagle under the current guidelines must have their Board of Review for Life by September 29th, 1998 (No, Not September 30th!) Current Star Scouts making Life on September 29th will have exactly 6 months to make Life - which is of course the exact tenure requirement for active service/Troop Officer, starting on September 30th, 1998!!! (Note - the 6 month tenure requirement for Troop Officer begins the day after the Life Board of Review, so September 29th is the cutoff for Life Boards of Review.) Of course, this begs the rhetorical question, how many Scouts have ever completed the Life to Eagle process in exactly six months???
3) All current Life Scouts (or Star Scouts about to make Life) need to pay very close attention to the "long-term merit badges": Family Life and Personal Management, if they haven’t yet completed them. These both contain 90 day (three month) long requirements; therefore, they MUST be started by no later than December 31st 1998, in order to be completed by the March 31st deadline. Obviously, much earlier would be much more prudent - what Scout needs to be completing his last Eagle Required Merit Badges the day of his Eagle Board of Review???
4) Although not specified, there will (presumably) have to be some type of "grandfathering" clause after April 1st for Scouts who have used Safety or Sports to achieve Star or Life ranks, even though both will no longer be "Eagle Required" merit badges at that point. This would be consistent with past changes in the Required Merit Badge List.
5) Quick Interpretation on my part: For Life and very soon to be Life Scouts, the changes are basically "transparent" for everyone EXCEPT those who have avoided (either intentionally or not) the Personal Fitness Merit Badge and/or the Swimming/Lifesaving Merit Badge pair. These Scouts must get cracking, or they will have to complete "extra" Merit Badges when the new requirements become effective. Everyone who has already completed Personal Fitness and Swimming probably won’t notice a thing, or miss a beat.
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As best as anyone can determine as of 9/11/98, there are no changes in the Star or Life Rank Requirements. However, there are a host of changes in the Junior Scout Rank Requirements. At first blush, it appears that they are putting significantly more emphasis on water safety, camping stove safety, and food storage and preparation safety. These changes will be detailed elsewhere.Note: This is NOT an Official BSA document, but rather a hastily assembled summary for "Heads Up" purposes only - wait for the Official BSA Supplements before acting on these changes!
Dr. Bob, SM-111, Chain Bridge Roundtable Commissioner
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