When printing blue cards for a scout who has had to change counselors to complete the badge, the blue card shows a date for all completed requirements, however, the counselor’s initials only appear on a few of the ones he approved. Aside from also printing out all of the actual requirements (waste of paper), how can this issue be rectified?
@MarlaSpivey - if you go to that scout and respective merit badge, what is shown in each requirement for who entered as complete and approved ? If the approval was done by someone who was not assigned as Merit Badge Counselor that may well be the cause of a lack of initials. My other question is if the scout has their existing blue card for said badge.
The Counselor has moved away from the blank card and uses Scoutbook exclusively, He is listed as the counselor and is linked with the scout. There are some reqs where his initials appear, and some where the date appears but not his initials.
@MarlaSpivey - I know that is what is on the card, but I was asking within scoutbook itself and that particular merit badge and that scout.
For that particular Scout, in Scoutbook there are reuqirements that the Scoutmaster approved, along with ones from the counselor. The ones the SM approved don’t have initials, but I expected that. The ones entered by the counselor were approved by me (Advancement Chair). Some appear with initials and some do not, but all have a completed date.
the MBC approval in SB is a different field - I imagine that is where initials are coming from
In the end if the counselor approved the requirements either on the actual card or electronically, then the issue is closed. The new counselor does have the right of refusal to accept or reject prior work but in reality I think that does not happen often.
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Steven, the issue isn’t closed. The old counselor used SB exclusively and not blue cards. The new counselor wants a blue card. The problem is that some of the requirements that the previous counselor added into SB (since he is linked on the scout’s account) are not showing on the blue card printed from SB with his initials. Some have been approved by the Advancement Chair. Some were approved by the ASM. We are hopeful that the new Counselor will accept seeing the completed requirements entered by the previous counselor, but that won’t fix the issue with SB if needed in the future.
@AlexisArmstrong - I should have made that statement clear. The requirements being done is the closed issue. If the counselor is still connected to that scout for the merit badge, perhaps all parties can try this: remove non-counselor approvals, contact the counselor to have them approve the items, then add the unit verification. But as I stated if they are done, then they are done. The other option can be to have the counselor sign the printed card.
You have to be careful with these and see you actually entered the completions. I have a scout that got an app for his phone that is connected to the database, and he filled out a lot of things as being completed that haven’t been, and they were all waiting for my “Leader Approved” check. I discovered this when I migrated from troopmaster to scoutbook recently.
Contacting the currently assigned counselor has been the issue. But we’ll figure something out. Thanks for your help.
Alexis M. Armstrong, MBA
Destination Specialist
Travel By Design
267-760-1103
The 2019 Guide to Advancement does not authorize a Merit Badge Counselor to replace Blue Cards with Scoutbook. The Blue Card is still the official record of Merit Badge progress and completion. I would not refer any of my Scouts to a MBC that refuses to sign Blue Cards.
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Our summer camp refused to do blue cards and made all units use the blackout export.
This summer we will refuse to let them do that. It was a mess.
We did the BlackPug thing at camp the last two Years and it went off with fewer problems and less effort than filling out dozens of blue cards
I guess like a lot of things, it is in the execution. Our camp very poorly executed it. So, a lot of trust was lost. There was a lot of “it’s in there” being told. Once the files were released, a week after camp ended, they were missing a lot.
What camp did you go to? We were at Pioneer Scout Reserve west of Toledo for the past two or three years.
Bear Paw Scout Camp out of the Bay-Lakes Council in north eastern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan.
I know that Camp Hiawatha used Black Pug last year, and that the camp staff stayed up until all hours of the night making sure the dates/initials were transcribed correctly. After camp ended, there were a few hiccups with the import into SB, but I was fairly impressed. Kudos to the staff!
Bear Paw needed to do that. Only about 10% of the merit badges were entered when we left camp on Saturday. 
@Matt.Johnson - if you look at a Bear Paw one could understand that typing would not be high on the list of skills 
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