Is this service hours project considered "double dipping?"

[BubbaBob]

My son is a newer scout, and at 11 1/2 very shy. His Trail to first class leader is a big guy with a really loud voice, and my son is VERY intimidated by this man. LOL he kinda has a football coach mentality, and it's just not something my son is used to. LOL He'll get over it eventually, but in the meantime we're having trouble with him getting the courage to ask questions.

I'm trying very hard to NOT do the asking, it's his responsibility.

Now for the question--Our troop is very clear about NO DOUBLE DIPPING.
For example, you cannot use the same community hours on the Citizen in Community MB AND service hours required for 2nd class.
We understand and do not have any problems with that.

Here's the situation, and please tell me if this is OK. If not, I will tell my son to not even bring it up.

If citizen for community has 8 service hours required, and 2nd class has 1 service hour required.... Can he do 9 hours in one service project and complete both requirements? Or is that double dipping? He's not combining the hours, but he is doing just one project...

[smtroop168]

Welcome to the Forum!

My initial reaction is "Good Grief" we have yet another unit that adds to the advancement requirements. Double Dipping is allowed. There are many other examples in different forum topics about this if you do a search.

For Cit in Comm, the crediting of the hours is not the troop's call, it's the MB Counselor's

For 2nd class, the approval of the service project is the SMs.

Can he do 9 hours for one organization and get both done....absolutely. I would also say that the one hour service project could also be done very easily as a separate project.

[kwildman]

i agree with smtroop168. However, i do add an a requirement for my scouts for the service hours that require SM approval in that I do not allow double dipping with other organizations. That is a scout can't come to me and try to get credit for service hours that he was required to perform as part of a church youth group or school citizenship grade. My issue is that he is supposed to be providing service as a scout.

[Quailman]

The way I see double-dipping with two organizations is that a boy's time is often limited. This spring during our Scouting for Food campaign, I signed a 'receipt' for a scout who needed service hours for his school. He spent four hours placing door hangers on a 75 degree day in late January (yes, we get those here). This particular boy has no shortage of hours when it comes to scouting, helping with every service project that arises, but he needed some hours to count for school. I didn't want him to skip the following week's collection effort to put in hours somewhere else.

But BubbaBob's SM is clearly adding to the requirements. OTOH, I try to encourage service for the sake of service, because that's what scouts do. There are many boys in my troop who have hours all over the place. And there are some with the minimum.

[smtroop168]

Take a look at pgs 84-85 and 447 in the BSA Handbook on Service Projects and Service Logs. I think this is what the BSA is trying to instill in the scout when think of and doing service projects regardless of rank.