AS already mentioned, Scout Advancement involves the following four processes:

1. Preparation—The Learning and Doing Process.

2. Examination—Meeting the Requirements.

3. Review—Maintaining Standards.

4. Award—Presentation of the Badge.

The procedure to be followed in the Troop for meeting these points depends upon whether the Council Advancement Plan is used, or whether the Troop has been authorized to make use of the Troop Plan of Scout Advancement. In either case the processes of preparation and examination for Second Class and First Class advancement will take place in the Scout's own Troop.

The Council Advancement Plan

Under the Council Plan of Scout Advancement, the review and award will take place on a Council or District basis. The boy, who has been properly prepared and examined, will appear before the District or Council Board of Review for the review, after which, if it has been satisfactory, he will be called before the District or Council Court of Honor, there to receive his award.

Full details about District or Council Boards of Review and Courts of Honor should be secured from your Local Council Office.

The Troop Advancement Plan

If your Troop has been authorized by the Local Council to use the Troop Plan of Scout Advancement, it will administer all four processes of Scout Advancement—as they are related to Second Class and First Class Advancement—acting under the direction of the Council Committee on Scout Advancement.

Under this set-up, the preparation will be done in the boy's own Patrol, the examination in the Troop by qualified Troop Leaders and the review by a special Troop Board of Review. Finally, the awards will be made by the Troop Court of Honor.

Troop Board Of Review And Court Of Honor

The Troop Board of Review and Court of Honor may be the same body of men, acting in two capacities. This body is made up of members of the Troop Committee, and is established at a special meeting of the Committee, at which the details of the plan may be thoroughly explained and discussed. At least three members of the Committee must agree to serve and to assume responsibility for the full observance of all National and Local Council regulations governing Scout Advancement.

The Scroll is the Second Class Badge. The ends turn up like a Scout's smile. The Knot reminds a Scout to do a Good Turn daily.

The body meets in its double capacity regularly, at stated times, monthly or bi-monthly, as it best fits the program of the Troop. In small Troops the sessions may be held upon call, as soon as a Scout or several Scouts are prepared. At least three members must be in active attendance at every session.

There are two distinct advantages to this feature of the Troop Plan of Scout Advancement:

(a) It provides a method for reviewing candidates and for making awards that "reduces to a minimum the necessity for requiring a boy to travel long distances from home or to interfere with his school work or home duties." (By-Laws, Art. XV, Sec. 1.)

(b) It gives the members of the Troop Committee an opportunity to render a very real and distinct service to the Troop and brings them into a closer and more helpful relationship to their Scouts. It enables the members of the Committee to observe the Troop's progress and the effectiveness of the work being done.

Encouraging Advancement

As with everything else, the attitude of the Scoutmaster is of prime importance toward encouraging advancement among his Scouts. If you have an active attitude and make your boys realize that you expect them to advance, they will advance.

But do not attempt to make the Scouts advance. If you "hound" a boy long enough, you may be able to drive him along, but that, naturally, is not your aim.

As a matter of fact, do not talk about the requirements too much. Rather give the boys opportunities to practice them—develop your program in such a way that advancement will be a natural outgrowth of the boys' activities.

Hiking And Camping

If you lead a horse to water, let him see the water, let him watch other horses drinking, you don't have to make him drink.

Just bring a Scout face to face with a chance to learn new lore. Demonstrate Scoutcraft before him, introduce it attractively in terms of activity and experience. Then give the boy plenty of uses for firemaking, cooking, signaling, first aid, and map making, and he will soon be able to meet any advancement requirements. In other words: give your Scouts plenty of hiking and camping. A hiking Troop is an advancing Troop.

If you lead a boy to water, he will want to swim. Hiking and camping give a boy the chance to advance.

Other Aids To Advancement

Equipment helps to encourage advancement. Place a set of signal flags in the hands of a boy, and he will start using them. Give him bandages and he will be anxious to apply them. A Patrol chest in every Patrol den, with ample equipment will aid each Patrol in attaining advancement.

Visual recognition will also help. Post on the wall of the Troop meeting room an advancement chart that will indicate just what requirements each Scout has completed. The boys will eagerly watch their progress across this chart. It recognizes the Scout that forges ahead and shows up the lazy one.

Placing a premium on steady (but not over-rapid) advancement in all Patrol Contests, giving credit for ranks attained rather than for individual separate requirements met, will keep the boys on their toes. And this is a socializing procedure because the credit goes to the group—the Patrol—not to the boy as an individual.

By providing plenty of Counselors, eager to help the boys in their advancement, you will encourage the Scouts to make use of them.

Regular and definite dates for examinations, reviews and awards, will prompt the boys to be prepared in something when those dates arrive.

Preparation

The preparation for advancement takes place right within the Scout's own Patrol. Here he is coached in the Scout Requirements. In many instances the Patrol Leader himself helps him along, in others a boy who has already attained the rank for which he is aiming may be assigned as his "buddy" Counselor and will aid him in his training.

Where the Patrol is new it may be necessary to let a junior Troop Leader—the Senior Patrol Leader or a Junior Assistant Scoutmaster—provide encouragement and help, but it should be definitely understood that the responsibility is really the Patrol Leader's. He has been—or is being—trained for this very thing in the Troop Leaders' Council.

Preliminary indoor demonstrations will train Scouts for "live demon* strations" of doing things. Then they will be prepared in emergencies.