See your Handbook for the merit badges required for rank advancement.
Steps to Earn a Merit Badge
Find a badge that interests you.
Get a blue card from the advancement team: Mrs. Carson or Mr. Whitman.
Ask the Scoutmaster, Mr. Tidmore, to sign your blue card first.
Contact a counselor for your merit badge and ask them to work with you. You must have a buddy at every meeting.
Read the merit badge pamphlet.
Show your work (see note below) to your counselor and get all requirements signed off.
Turn in your blue card to the advancement team.
NOTE You are to do the requirements by yourself with guidance by your counselor. "The secret to successfully earning a merit badge is for you to use both the pamphlet and the suggestions of your counselor." (BSA merit badge pamphlet inside cover).
Additional Tips
If the Scoutmaster is not available, you may ask an Asst. Scoutmaster to sign your blue card.
Merit badges can only be signed off by a counselor who is registered for that badge. Our troop has counselors for about 75 of the badges. You can also find a counselor for any merit badge in the Lakeview District directory.
Ask our troop Librarian about checking out a merit badge pamphlet, or buy it at a Scout Shop.
The BSA strongly recommends that you read the pamphlet for your merit badge. It is written for a Scout's level of learning and has the information you need to complete the requirements.
Use the Current Requirements for the Merit Badge
Merit badges are revised and updated over time. Be sure you are using the current revision when you start working on a badge's requirements.
Check the copyright date in your pamphlet. This is the revision date of the badge's requirements. In the photo shown, the copyright date is 2005, which matches the current requirements date for this merit badge (see link below).
The Printing date does not matter. This is simply the date the pamphlet was printed. In this example, it is 2008.
Find the current requirements date (copyright) for every merit badge here.
If a badge's requirements change before you complete it, you should finish it using the same requirements when you began. You do not need to start over with the new requirements, unless you want to. You may not mix requirements from different revisions.
You may use an older pamphlet for information, just as you would do with a book, encyclopedia, or Internet source.
The Lakeview District merit badge counselor list has been made available online. Users will need Microsoft Excel to download the file. Scouts need to contact Mr. Tidmore for the user name and password. We have to safeguard the privacy of the merit badge counselors on the list.
Meritbadge.org has worksheets and other information. This site is popular, but is not always up to date. For example, on 3/7/2010 they did not have the new Scuba Diving merit badge released in December 2009.
