"2010 Historical" Merit Badges

[deweylure]

I reviewed the requirements for the Centennial badges. They should not be to hard to earn.
signaling may be the hardest of the 4.

the only item I have not heard about is who are approved MB counselors from our council. they will let us know shortly.



Dewey

[Cowboy]

Anything new on these? I am starting get a lot of "flack" about them. Signed up last week to counsel them and received a call from our council office asking what I was doing. Our DE had not heard about it, and, like I said, Council office staff knew nothing either. Nothing on the BSA site yet..... Since it is already 30 Jan. I am wondering if we are all vicitims of an urban legend.

[wagionvigil]

Anything new on these? I am starting get a lot of "flack" about them. Signed up last week to counsel them and received a call from our council office asking what I was doing. Our DE had not heard about it, and, like I said, Council office staff knew nothing either. Nothing on the BSA site yet..... Since it is already 30 Jan. I am wondering if we are all vicitims of an urban legend.

Here is the link to show your council people

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/

[smtroop168]

Anything new on these? I am starting get a lot of "flack" about them. Signed up last week to counsel them and received a call from our council office asking what I was doing. Our DE had not heard about it, and, like I said, Council office staff knew nothing either. Nothing on the BSA site yet..... Since it is already 30 Jan. I am wondering if we are all vicitims of an urban legend.

Here is the link to show your council people

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/

I believe this is considered an "official" link and source of BSA information.

[RWSmith]

Permalink is here: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2010/01/historical-merit-badges-help-boy-scouts-celebrate-scoutings-past.html

UPDATE (3:15 p.m. Jan. 13): Bill Evans, Youth Development team leader with the BSA, tells [Scouting Magazine's] Cracker Barrel [department] that these merit badges will count as electives for rank advancement. As if you needed another reason to get your guys to earn these.

[PaulSWolf]

TIME OUT!!!

I just got a message from BSA. They have placed the program on HOLD temporaarily. The announcement on the Scouting Magazine blog was premature.

I'll be deleting the requirements, which are apparently still DRAFTS, until BSA officially releases them.

Sorry for the confusion.

NUTS!!!

[topshot]

Gee, let's waste even more time.

They should have had everything finished before Jan 1 if Scouts only have to Dec 31 to complete them.

[alex gregory]

Well, the Pathfinder and Tracking badges still look like fun and not that hard to earn, so we'll start working on the requirements as last listed and see what happens.

[smtroop168]

TIME OUT!!!

I just got a message from BSA. They have placed the program on HOLD temporaarily. The announcement on the Scouting Magazine blog was premature.

I'll be deleting the requirements, which are apparently still DRAFTS, until BSA officially releases them.

Sorry for the confusion.

NUTS!!!

How did they screw this up?? The blog even has a quote from Bill Evans.

[Cowboy]

Talk about a snafu! I have boys working on Carpentry and we have already published our Merit Badge Clinic brochure with Pathafinder included. We even held off an extra week waiting until it was officially announced. I checked yesterday morning on the Centenial website and there it was so we went to press, finally. Sent out the link to everyone, adn then started getting calls that it was a deadlink. Grrrr.

[AquilaNegra2]

Mine are almost done with Signaling, and have a Carpentry clinic already lined up. Any word when they'll "officially" come out? Is it a "when" rather than an "if"?

[AquilaNegra2]

[sorry for 2nd post; wouldn't let me edit]

Paul, since badges that have not been rolled into another can still be earned anyway, wouldn't that mean that if they are being started under the old requirements, they would be valid? Just thinking...

[PaulSWolf]

The problem I see is that these badges, and any others not currently in the system, can't be entered into the Scout's "Scoutnet" record, which is used to verify that he has met advancement requirements. So, while he can indeed earn the badge, I don't think they can be counted toward rank advancements or Eagle Palms.

The plan, as I understand it, for the Historic badges, is that they would have Scoutnet ID numbers, and thus would count toward advancement if earned in 2010.

I'm just waiting to see the final program announcement. I do have the pages with the requirements (and pages with links to those pages which I removed) saved locally, so once the program is announced, I can quickly restore them to my site.

[Cowboy]

Additionally: How are we suppose to obtain the badges if they are earned? I suspect that the guys who earned them pre-1952 would be reluctant to give them up.

[lifescoutforlife]

Mine are almost done with Signaling, and have a Carpentry clinic already lined up. Any word when they'll "officially" come out? Is it a "when" rather than an "if"?

We have put time and effort into these also, any time frame for when they get this straightened out?

[PaulSWolf]

Here are excerpts from 2 e-mails I saw:
=======================
As mentioned below in the email from Bill Evans (my boss), the Historical Merit Badge program is currently on hold. As soon as it becomes available, the councils will be notified. I do not have an estimated time for release.
========================
I spoke with Bill Evans today and the message was the 4 new Historic Merit Badges that were talked about in Boy’s Life have been Suspended until further notice.

Somebody leaked the information out prior to finishing the process…………Boy’s Life got the Scoop……….
========================

I've seen other, similar messages between various BSA offices, all basically saying that the program is delayed.

That's really all I know, but note they do say DELAYED, not CANCELED, so it looks like the program will take place, just not right now. So I'd just tell the boys to hold off for a while.

[PaulSWolf]

Here's another, clarifying, e-mail that was posted on scouts-l yesterday:

From: Bill Evans
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 1:47 PM
Subject: RE: historical merit badges

We're putting the finishing touches on the program like being able to
record the advancement in the computer, have all the support information
needed by a boy on our website, etc. We hope to go live any day now.

Bill Evans
Team Leader, Youth Development, BSA

Once they post the final requirements, I'll update the pages I had, and repost them as well.

[wagionvigil]

Bill is the Bomb!

[Billiken]

Boys Life gets a journalistic scoop!!!!!!!!!
Holy smoke.

Maybe they have their own spy inside BSA HQ.
Watch out New York Times.

[razor_strop]

Not to be overly snarky, but I seem to recall the BSA motto as "Be Prepared". I would have thought National would have all the major kinks worked out of something like this well before the Jan 01, 2010 start date.