Life Service

[T305TG]

I recently became a star scout and In my troop you are required to do a service project for your life service as compared to many different things totaling the required number of hours. Is this the way it is in most troops? Do you think that scouts should have the option of doing a Life service project or many individual services? Thanks.

[EagleBoy62204]

You are required to do community service. It is not a rule that you have to do a service project. unless your troop conciders that the same thing, they are not allowed to add to the requirements or change them in any way.

Most of the scouts in my troop including me, are involved with older boy eagle projects which totals well over the amount required for life. So this requirement is a breeze.

So many boys these days, wait for others to start a project so they can get community service time. This was never the case when i was that age and doing life (which was about 2 / 3years ago or so.) My group that came in all together, started our own community service, outside the troop, by volunteering at events that helped the homeless or victims of a tragedy.

[scoutaholic]

The BSA standards do not allow local units or leaders to add to or take away from the requirements.

The requirement says:
While a Star Scout, take part in service projects totaling at least six hours of work. These projects must be approved by your Scoutmaster.

That means that you are not required to initiate the project, nor show leadership in getting it done. If you want to do 1/2 hour on 12 different projects, that also counts. It does say the Scoutmaster must approve the projects, but that doesn't give him the right to add rules.

If you are having trouble with the added requirement, I suggest you discuss it with the Scoutmaster. If that doesn't work, take it to the Unit Committee or the Unit Commissioner. If you have to, you could take it to district, council, or national levels as well, but that gets harder and messier. You also have the option of finding a different troop, if you can't find a satisfactory solution in your current unit.

That being said, I like the idea of doing a small project for your Life service hours. It will provide some learning experiences that will probably help you in planning and executing your Eagle project. I can't see anything wrong with doing a Life Service Project, except that the requirement is not written that way.

[RWSmith]

I must say, the VERY best method I've seen of completing service hours is to help another Life Scout with his Eagle project, al beit, preferably, one within your own Troop; but, if not, then even if he's from another Troop (e.g., within your District). Lower ranks can work as helpers/laborers. But, Star Scouts (esp.) can perform more responsible duties by volunteering to act in some small, well-defined "assistant leader" capacity according to the Eagle candidate's needs. Getting Star Scouts to do this is a great bridge to prepare for the daunting ESLSP.

[Note: I don't take credit for this idea... like most good ideas I've learned in Scouting, I got from observing the methods of multiple Troops. I've noticed that most Troops that are successful at "producing" Eagles use this method to the greatest extent possible, even when it means going outside the Troop. Units who have sombody (anybody) attend District Roundtables to "network" with other ULs are best able to maximize the effectiveness of such tricks of the trade.]

[DadScout]

Ours is the same as the other posters here. Service hours are on any project: Hrs spent working on someone elses Eagle project, a troop project, dist/council sponsored project, or just any old community service project done by another worthwile organization.

[Mrw]

Community service is community service. Many of our boys will earn this working on Eagle projects as we have three boys currently organizing them and two more nearly ready to start.

The last two years, many of our boys helped with a Cub canival games area at a local festival. It is a fund raiser for the Cubs, but our boys only get the service hours.

[T305TG]

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone. We have a troop meeting coming up so I will go over it with him then and see what he says. Thanks again.