Merit Badge
Del-Mi’s Merit Badge University 2017
From Con Sullivan, our District Executive:
The Del-Mi Merit Badge University is approaching early next month. At this event we have 1,600 slots for Scouts over the course of Friday evening and all-day on Saturday. There are numerous Merit Badges that are offered and might make a good program offering for your units. I have included the information below. Please forward out to your units in your district if you believe this opportunity would fit with what your units might be looking for. We already about 900 of those 1,600 slots filled by Del-Mi Scouts, however there is plenty of room left. Here is info you can copy and paste while sending to your units:
What: Del-Mi District Merit Badge University
Where: Carmel High School, Freshman Center (520 E. Main Street, Carmel, IN) – Entrance 13
When: Friday, March 10th and Saturday, March 11th
Online Registration: https://scoutingevent.com/160-DMmbu
The Merit Badge University is open to any registered Boy Scout, Varsity Team member or Venturer working towards Boy Scout rank advancement. Tiger, Cub, and Webelos Scouts are not eligible to participate (even if they will be crossing over into a troop later this year after the merit badge university).
- Pre-requisites are required for many badges.
- Online registration fee is $6 per Scout per session. Individual courses may have additional equipment or material fees.
- Three sessions are available. Some merit badge classes span across 2 sessions.
o Session 1: Friday evening from 6:30 to 10 p.m.
o Session 2: Saturday morning from 8:30 a.m. to Noon.
o Session 3: Saturday afternoon from 1 to 4:30 p.m.
Lunch is available from Noon to 1 p.m. at a cost of $6 per person.
There are over 1,600 Merit Badge slots open and available for Scouts. If your first choice is not available, there are plenty of other options.
Questions? Contact: Laura R. (lkr@isbits.com)
Ryan Kelleher | Del-Mi District Director
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
Crossroads of America Council
Golden-Burke Scout Center
7125 Fall Creek Road North
Indianapolis, IN 46256
P: 317.813.7085 | C: 317.445.0658
Merit Badge Counselors Terms Expire
Remember that your Merit Badge Counselors are District Staff, not Troop Staff. That means their positions expire every year when the District’s Recharter Application (yes, District has a recharter application, too) expires on December 31, 2016.
We still have several troops and crews that have not confirmed the renewal of their Merit Badge Counselors. We need those immediately to prevent any loss of authority to sign Blue Cards.
Next week I will report on troops and crews that have completed the MBC rechartering process.
For more information, see prior postings.
Merit Badge Counselor Rechartering
Remember as part of District’s Recharter (yes, District recharters annually, too), we need to confirm your troop’s and crew’s merit badge counselor list. (They are technically district staff and not unit staff.)
Please confirm with District Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates that all of your MBC’s are
- Trained as an MBC
- Current on their Youth Protection certification through my.scouting.org, and
- Still active with the troop.
Units that fail to certify this information to Mike Yates are subject to having their MBC’s dropped in the rechartering process. That means all blue cards they sign are void. Please do not let that happen to your scouts.
Merit Badge Counselors: District Rechartering
Remember, North Star District has to re-charter each year just like our units. This means all volunteers listed as “District Staff” must be dropped, added, or retained at the district level as part of the rechartering process.
For Cub Scout Packs, this is not an issue. Ever.
For Scout Troops and Venturing Crews, this is important. Many scouters in troops and crews serve as Merit Badge Counselors (“MBCs”). MBCs are District Staff. They do not recharter as part of the unit. They recharter as part of the district.
That means we need every troop’s and crew’s immediate assistance. Each troop or crew needs to verify by email that the MBC list of their volunteers is accurate by November 30, 2016.
All it takes is a quick email to District Merit Badge Registrar Mike Yates at Mike-fpd@comcast.net, saying, “We wish to recharter all of our existing MBCs for 2017.” If those MBCs have their MBC training and YPT expiring after 3/1/17, they will be good to go.
If you have new MBCs or some veterans don’t meet the above criteria, they can do the MBC training online or find live seminars at http://www.crossroadsbsa.org/506. They will need to update their YPT training. New MBCs will also need to fill out an Adult Application on paper or online at https://my.bsa.us/160ns01mb (a dedicated website for District applications).
If a unit fails to report in to Mike Yates, all MBCs currently registered will expire on December 31, 2016 and be required to re-register. Any blue cards a deregistered MBC signs after January 1, 2017 will be invalid.
Please help us avoid that unpleasantness. All committee chairs for troops and crews (or their MBC designate) should check in with Mike Yates at their earliest convenience so that District can be rechartered on time.
Thank you for your assistance.
NOTE: for more about why these rules exist, see past posts on merit badge counselors.
New Merit Badge Counselor Material
BSA has just posted a quick article on Bryan on Scouting about becoming a merit badge counselor.
This has been timed to coincide with a how-to pamphlet on the merit badge counseling process and expectations of merit badge counselors. North Star District Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates recommends this pamphlet highly.
All troops should print out this material and use it for new counselors to better understand their roles.
Advancement Resources
Often we have questions about advancement issues. BSA puts out a great deal of information. Often this feels like drinking from a firehose.
One of the ways to avoid this problem is to be sure your unit’s advancement coordinator subscribes to the irregularly published BSA Advancement News. (Irregular because it is sometimes monthly and sometimes bi-monthly.) 
For a new advancement coordinator, catching up on old articles in the archive can be daunting. They may just want to look at specific issues of the moment. One of the best ways to do that is to review the Advancement News index of articles on the BSA Advancement website. The article titles are often catchy and artistic, but misleading about the main idea. Have patience with it. It is not intended to be a advancement manual (the Guide to Advancement serves that purpose). Instead it is intended to focus on hot topics.
If an advancement coordinator wants to study the history of advancement changes, he or she can read back issues of Advancement News. There is a lot to be learned to look at how a once “hot topic” was handled and resolved. It helps guide an advancement coordinator to have a better sense about how to handle future problems. The method of resolution will often be similar: the timeframe required to identify the issue then resolve, the groups giving input who have the most persuasive authority on the final result, and the types of issues that are resolved with finality versus lingering effects.
Always start with the Guide to Advancement, the most recent revision for the current year of Boy Scout Requirements, the most recent issue of Advancement News for answers, and the related Merit Badge Counselor’s Compass newsletter. If those prove unsatisfactory, review the News index. You may surprise yourself with the quality of answers that are already published.
If you still do not find your answers, reliable and regular private bloggers can provide insight, such as Clarke Green at www.scoutmastercg.com with a focus on scoutmastership, Frank Maynard at www.blogwhiteblather.com with a focus on committee issues, and the Ask Andy column at www.netcommissioner.com.
To subscribe to the Advancement News, follow these instructions:
Send an email to advancement.team@scouting.org.
Put ‘Subscribe’ in the Subject line and in the body of the email put only your:
Email Address:
Name:
Council Name:
Thursday Roundtable
This Thursday we will hold a Boy Scout and Cub Scout roundtable. We will meet on the fourth floor of second Presbyterian church as always. The general session and district news will begin at 6:30 PM with breakout sessions beginning at 7 PM.
Merit Badge Counselor Registration Open Forum
The Boy Scout round table will focus on merit badge counseling registration, education, troop counselor list maintenance, and related troubleshooting. The district merit badge counselor registrar Mike Yates will lead the conversation. We will focus on identifying problems, solutions, and procedures for maintaining a reliable District Roster of Merit Badge Counselors and their Badges going forward.
Cub Scout New Program Review
The Cub Scout roundtable will focus on “the New Advancement Program: How’s It Going So Far?” The discussion will focus on how to improve and clarify understandings.
Merit Badge Counselor Renewal
Remember that Merit Badge Counselors have to be rechartered to the district like any other members of the BSA.
That means that District is still looking for updated Merit Badge Counselor lists.
Just hours remaining before the deadline on November 3, 2015, Mike Yates, our District Merit Badge Counselor Registrar, has heard from only the following troops:
- Troop 18
- Troop 73
- Troop 514
- Troop/Crew 358
- Troop 804/Crew 408
Thank you to those troops for keeping us on schedule. Mike Yates still needs to hear from the remaining Troops and Crews. See the links above for information about what you are being asked to do.
Your Troop and Crew Key 3 were emailed further instructions on October 21st and again on November 2nd about this process.
If your MBC needs to drop or add merit badges, please read this article.
Merit Badge Counselors: Annual Renewal
Did you know that
- Merit Badge Counselors are considered part of the “District Staff” and not as an adult member of the Troop or Crew that enrolls the Merit Badge Counselor? Consequently, this position does not appear on the unit’s recharter paperwork.
- District has a member of its Advancement Committee, Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates, whose primary duty is to maintain an accurate list of Merit Badge Counselors living or serving within the District?
- District has to recharter just like any of our units?
- Merit Badge Counselors who have not maintained their Youth Protection Training are scheduled to be dropped from the list?
- As part of that process, Merit Badge Counselor staff are subject to a drop-add from membership in the district rechartering process?
- While District Executive Con Sullivan is primarily responsible for the District Rechartering, he relies heavily on the accuracy of information from the units and Mike Yates?
Background
You may remember in July of this year I published an article about why many long-time Merit Badge Counselors suddenly in 2015 found themselves no longer registered as Merit Badge Counselors. This de-registration was primarily due to the District Rechartering process and our prior District Executive’s adherence to the Guide to Advancement’s procedure (section 7.0.1.5 page 47), described in that article, for determining if Merit Badge Counselors are willing to serve in the new year.
Current Status
Our District Executive Con Sullivan has begun the process for rechartering the district for 2016 in cooperation with the District Chair Steve James, Advancement Chair Mark Pishon, District Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates, and District Commissioner Jeff Heck.
Forestry Merit Badge class
On Saturday, October 17, 2015 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, the Zionsville Park Naturalist Mindy Murdock will offer the Forestry Merit Badge class at Zionsville’s Starkey Park, 667 Sugarbush Drive.
Park Naturalist and merit badge counselor Mindy Murdock will guide you through most of the requirements needed to earn your Forestry Merit Badge. Requirements include: identify species of trees, shrubs and vines, describe contributions forests make, and find examples of animal damage on trees. Boy Scouts should come prepared with their blue card and dressed for the weather.
Register at naturecenter@zionsville-in.gov.
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