by Quailman » Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:22 pm
I've reluctantly done one-day MB fairs as a counselor, and I agree with smtroop168. I always insist on prerequisites and have at least one volunteer to help check them. One that I've done is American Heritage. The boys have to rewrite part of the D of I in their own words, plus a couple other requirements before they show up. Pretty much we just discuss national symbols as a group.
I tried Bird Study at a one-day fair, and as part of a Hornaday weekend. I had a couple of prerequisites for both. For the one-day program, there ws a mandatory field trip the next day. For the weekend program we did two hours in a classroom setting (with three assistants for 18 boys) followed by two hours walking around the council camp.
You can get several badges to work with mandatory prerequisites, but I recommend against the ER MBs. Try to offer MBs that are harder to find counselors for.
If you read about how to earn a MB, there's no mention of "classes". The most scouts to meet with a counselor at one time would be 2 (the buddy system). At a recent MB fair that was thrown together at the last minute and the boys signed up early in the morning, I simply gave handouts with my contact information for American Heritage and Coin Collecting. The scouts were to contact me with questions if necessary and then contact me to set a time to review what they had done. That worked the best. The only ones I had to spend time with were those who were willing to do the work, rather than those who wanted the badge in return for sitting in one place for two hours with no electronics.
