When to sign off requirements:

Meetings are the best time to sign off requirements. The time before and after meetings is open for scouts to approach scoutmasters and older scouts to get requirements signed off, and some meeting plans allow for time to sign off requirements during a meeting.

At campouts, there are often opportunities to complete requirements like firebuilding and ax-use, but scouts are expected to be familiar and well-read on a skill before being able to sign off the requirement for it. Troop 10 will always try to provide as many opportunities as possible to sign off requirements that can only be done outside of meetings such as those at campouts and weekend activities, but scouts are asked to advise troop leadership when they would like to sign off a particular skill at an upcoming campout so adequate preparations can be made.

Fitness Requirements:

Fitness is a common theme across all ranks. Tenderfoot Rank requires a fitness test, 30 days of exercise and improvement, and a final test. All subsequent ranks require 4 weeks of exercise for at least 5 days every week. Regular exercise is expected of the scouts on their own time, but scouts must provide evidence of their exercise through exercise logs to be signed off for their work. For the fitness tests required for Tenderfoot Rank, those must be either administered by an older scout or scoutmaster at a meeting or troop activity or signed off by an adult other than a scout’s parent.

Citizenship Requirements:

Citizenship Requirements are present at every rank and range from community service to cultural education to earning and saving money. For the requirements that entail learning about the citizenship of Americans in particular, whether it be the rights and obligations of a US citizen or the respect due to the US flag, Troop 10 encourages scouts of other nationalities to applying the teachings to their own countries, learning about their own rights and obligations and the culture of their nation. However, being a Boy Scout of America does require a basic knowledge of American citizenship, and we expect that of all of our scouts.

Service Hours:

Service hours are required for multiple ranks. In accordance with the BSA Guide to Advancement, service hours may be completed with the troop or individually, but regardless of where the service hours are earned, a Scoutmaster must have approved the activity before it has taken place. Service hours completed without prior Scoutmaster approval will not be recorded towards rank advancement.

Leadership Positions:

Troop 10 has two election cycles per year, and every position is available at each election. The positions of Senior Patrol Leader and Patrol Leaders are elected, and all other positions are appointed by the Senior Patrol leader upon application for those positions. Not all positions are available at Troop 10, depending on the Troop’s need as decided by Troop 10 leadership, and the available positions can be found on the Leadership Positions page. Permanent positions include Quartermaster, Webmaster, Den Chief, and Historian.

Who can sign off requirements:

Scoutmasters:

Scoutmasters are eligible to sign off all requirements for all ranks, though, in the interest of allowing Scoutmasters to work on Scoutmaster conferences and managing troop leadership, older scouts should be approached first to sign off requirements.

Scouts:

Scouts of the rank of First Class and above are allowed to sign off requirements of ranks from Scout to First Class.

When to work on different requirements:

Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class can all be worked on at the same time, but Board of Reviews must be done in order.

Troop 10 leadership tries to provide all the opportunities possible to learn scout skills and work on rank advancement and merit badges, but it is up to each scout to take responsibility for his advancement and work on advancement on his own. All the resources necessary to learn scout skills are in the Scout Book, and those that are eligible to sign off requirements for others will always try to help those working on requirements and ultimately sign them off. At every meeting, the 15 minutes before the meeting are a dedicated time where scouts are able to find older scouts and Scoutmasters to sign off and work on requirements, and some meetings will have extra time to work on advancement. Campouts and other troop activities also provide time for scouts to work on advancement with older scouts and Scoutmasters.

Troop 10 works to provide the experiential learning that is the basis for advancement in the BSA. Meeting instruction and activities in addition to campout activities and other troop activities are all centered around scout skills and scout spirit. Every meeting is designed to teach and strengthen skills and methods, and every campout provides an outlet to learn more advanced scout skills and apply what scouts have already learned on their own.

Troop 10 recognizes that advancement is not an end but a means. While advancement and rank requirements serve as a basis for meeting and activity plans, learning through experience is the end goal of such activities, not signing off any one requirement.

Of course, individual learning is also key to advancement and getting requirements signed off. There are endless opportunities for scouts to learn scout skills and become prepared to sign off requirements in their own time. A weekly email before every meeting informs scouts what they should review on their own to be prepared for the meeting and better prepared to get requirements signed off. Scouts are informed before campouts of what activities will happen and what opportunities there will be to sign off requirements, and this allows scouts to review those skills at home and come prepared to sign off those requirements when they arrive.

The process:

Choose a Merit Badge:

There are over 135 Merit Badges a scout can earn, and 21 of them are required for Eagle Rank. It is recommended to work on only a few at a time, so before you choose a merit badge to work on, talk to your unit leader about your interests. Then, read the requirements of the merit badges you think might interest you, and pick one to earn!

Find a counselor:

Once you have decided on a badge to earn, talk to (or email) a Scoutmaster and get permission to start a merit badge. He will give you a signed Blue Card which officially allows you to start a badge, and will put you in contact with a Merit Badge Counselor, who will work with you throughout the Merit Badge and help you earn each of the requirements.