How our troop meeting enables scout to get requirements signed off.
Getting requirements signed off is one of the major objectives for the younger scouts’ at weekly meetings. We encourage the scouts’ to get 2 to 3 requirements signed off at each meeting.
As scouts’ show up to meetings they are reminded if they need any requirements to be signed off, to make sure they put their name up on the board. We have a large white board that has 3 columns, the first column is the scouts’ name, the second column they put the rank and the requirement number. The third column the scouts’ leave blank. We have this hanging up on one of the walls of our meeting room.
Then while the scouts’ are doing the skills portion of the meeting the adults that are allowed to sign off on scout books go to the white board and sign their name next to the requirement that they feel comfortable signing off. After the scouts’ have a mini patrol meeting then it is activity time, this is during that last 20 minutes of the meeting. If a scout has put their name on the white board for requirement sign off then they stay in the meeting room during activity time.
At this time the scout would check the white board and see which adult signed up to meet with them. It is then the scouts’ responsibility to approach the adult and be tested on the requirement.
We try to limit the scouts’ to no more than 3 requirements per line on the white board. If a scout, let say has 5 requirements they want to be signed off, then they would put their name down on two lines on the white board. Then they would have to approach two different leaders for sign off. This is good in two ways; one, the scout gets to know many adult leaders and two, it makes it so one scout does not monopolize the adult leaders.
If there are still scouts’ that need to be signed off at the end of the meeting, those scouts’ and adult leaders stay after to make sure everyone that wants to get signed off do.
Some times this process is difficult for the new scouts’ because they do not know all the adult leaders names. To help with this our troop Librarian or Scribe was asked to make a tri fold presentation board with all the adult leaders pictures and names on the board. This has been a great aid in helping the new scouts’ and parents to get to know everyone.
So if a scout does not know the adult who signed the white board then they would go and check the presentation board to see what the adult looks like so they can approach them.
We have used this process now for about 3 years and it works great!
As new adult leaders can sign off on requirements we ask them for a 3X3 picture of them and give it to the Librarian to add to the presentation board.
As the scouts’ finish with the requirements they wanted to be signed off, the adult will go to the white board and erase the line that the scout had signed up on. Then if another scout want a sign off and there was no more room on the white board, then at this time they could put their name and requirement on the board.
This process works best for the Scout to First Class ranks. As a scout becomes Star, Life and Eagle, the Advancement Chair and I sign off on the majority of their requirements. We have all the records for attendance, merit badges and the troop positions to be able to sign off on these ranks.
I hope this helps in your process of signing off on requirements. It has made our meeting a lot more structured and we get a lot more done.
Let me know how you do it at your troop, I’m always looking for better ways of making our meeting better for everyone.
If you have any questions or suggestions please send me a message! I would love to hear your thoughts.
YIS,
Mrs. Scoutmaster, Irene
PS. Check out my story here!