I have been asked by a local BSA scout troop to be a counsellor for the chess merit badge. For the above requirement, I prefer to have a small rated tournament and let the scouts’ first experience with organized chess include exposure to the USCF (especially in light of competing chess organizations for scholastic players). I think that there is value to them receiving an official rating and being able to see their tournament result online. However, I am not involved in scholastic chess. I am a club TD with privileges to rate tournaments for a non-scholastic affiliate.
What have other counsellors done for this requirement? My understanding (likely incomplete) is that if a scholastic affiliate rated the event (for which all scouts would need to be attending the same school - not sure that this troop qualifies), then the scouts would not need to join the USCF (which I can’t require). Even then, is this worth doing if I can’t find some rated, inexperienced kids to play in the tournament as well? Easiest is to forget the tournament and do “option a.” above, but if it is feasible to provide a tournament for them then I will. In addition to looking for feedback from other counsellors, I am posting here in hopes of learning that the USCF has options for easily including the USCF in the merit badge experience.
6b is a “do it yourself” type of requirement for the Scout. If there are non-rated youth tournaments in the area it should be easy to use your chess connections to find those opportunities and tell the Scouts about it, but you don’t have to organize the tournaments to make their badge happen.
6c could be done non-rated as a troop quad but if you have 3-4 Scouts doing the badge together then they need to EACH run a quad if they all want to go for 6c. They could also set up a double elimination tournament so that every competitor plays at least two games. That’s probably up to how the counselor guides the Scouts and whether they “get” the swiss system.
I don’t fully understand this statement / question:
Boy Scouts (5th/6th grade and up) are too old for JTE. Any tournaments mentioned in the requirements are presumed to be non-rated unless the Scout chooses to join USCF (or is already a member).
JTP (Junior Tournament Participant) is limited to up to third grade if the players are from different schools. If players are all from the same school, and that school is a scholastic affiliate of the USCF, then that school affiliate can run JTP tournaments (for its students only) up to twelfth grade.
I’m opting for a non-rated event and asking for notation from that event. One scout opted to organize his own six-player tournament. My son (using a different merit badge counselor) used a non-rated event he had organized since he didn’t have his scoresheets with him when he saw his counselor.
P.S. Just as a clarification, a school running a JTP event for only its students means that every player in the rated section(s) is a student of that school. Every game played in a rated section needs to be rated.
Eric, I helped a young lad become certified as a USCF tournament
director, and helped him with some of the details in running a
tournament for about 12 players in his chess class at school.
We went through all of the steps and I signed off each and everyone
of them for the kids to earn their merit badges. I helped two
schools in this.
Later, I found out that one of the local troops refused to accept
the results because I had not gone through the steps to be
“certified” as a boy scout instructor. What poppycock. I mean
the kid was listed on MSA along with his school and other players.
Now, it is not necessary for these scouts to be a member of USCF
if they go to the same school, which is a USCF affiliate. Even if
this is not the case, most parents would be willing to invest
$ 8.00 for a three month USCF membership towards this cause.
I mean, weekend campout expenses are a lot more than this.
If you have any other questions, I would be absolutely delighted to
help. Please PM me for private contact information.
Rob Jones
Chess Instructor and Tournament Director.
Eric, contact Tina Schweiss in Virginia Beach, VA. She’s organizing a big Boy Scout event at the end of May for the purpose of aiding Scouts in earning their Chess Merit Badge Her email is cschweiss2@cox.net
Mike Hoffpauir, NTD
VA Chess Federation
Member, USCF Scholastics Council
This is a case where “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. The BSA unit leaders were almost half right in their actions.
I’m reading between the lines here, and making some assumptions, so forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’ll explain what appears to have happened.
A boy wanted a merit badge. You helped him fulfill the requirements for the merit badge. The local leaders wouldn’t accept it because you weren’t “certified”.
They were right to do so, and there is no need for the quote marks. The BSA merit badge process is very specific on this point, for every merit badge. First, the boy must tell the Scoutmaster that he wants to pursue a merit badge. Second, the Scoutmaster assigns a counselor. That counselor must be a certified merit badge counselor. He must be registered with BSA (though he need not be a member) and he must undergo a criminal background check. He must also undergo child protection training. (It’s a video on the internet, followed by a quiz. I’ll summarize it here: No hitting. No one takes off their clothes, ever. No counselor is ever alone with any boy who is not his son, ever.) Then, the counselor signs off on whether or not the boy has met the requirements.
You aren’t a certified Merit Badge Counselor, so you can’t sign off. It’s simple.
Now here’s where the Scoutmaster was wrong. The counselor must be satisfied that the boy has fulfilled the requirement. He doesn’t have to personally see the child fulfill the requirement. The Scoutmaster should have found someone to sign up as a Chess counselor with BSA. That person would then ask the boy if he had done these things, and the boy would have said he did them with you. You tell the counselor. The counselor signs the card. The boy gets the badge. Very easy.
Unfortunately, a lot of Scoutmasters don’t understand the actual requirements themselves very well, and end up imposing restrictions beyond what are really there.
Scout requirements to be a merit badge counselor are there in large part of make sure that the volunteer has passed a background check as part of the BSA youth protection program. The requirements to know very much about the topic are minimal.
As a Scoutmaster for the last 10 years, I agree that the SM should have done some more work. But that SM had a responsibility to work within Scouting’s rules. As such the SM could not blindly accept Rob’s work as Rob was not a MB counselor. The fact that a Scout might be on MSA doesn’t mean the Scout has completed all of the MB requirements. It would be evidence of having completed at least of them.
A better approach might have been to go to the SM in the beginning is figure out how to get set up as a MB counselor - or to go in later and explain what the MSA posting meant.
I have done the chess MB for about 12 troops in the S.F. area., probably 350 to 400 scouts in total. I have never attempted to make the tournament USCF rated nor the scouts members. The challenge is having an affiliate or setting one up to report the tournaments. If you have a local club or chess school willing to do so, then it could be a step. I am having trouble seeing the upside, but maybe the small benefit of getting them interested in playing other tournaments. I get the small percentage interested in playing more by coming out to a club or scholastic chess school. My experience is if they want to play other tournaments, then joining the USCF at that point is easy.
I have worked up the other requirements to 3 sessions of 1.5-2 hours with liberal play. The tournament is easy to run, but I have had plenty of scholastic TD experience and years of BSA leadership. We just do a four round G/25 or G/30 format, straight swiss, one section. For a group of 28-32, I get three trophies and medals for the younger ages. I encourage the troop to throw a little BBQ. I keep it fun and focused on lively chess games.
Please let me know if I can help.
Regards,
Pete Klein (#12410786)
(Local) Tournament Director
District (II) Chess Coach
Pete, I know you know this so my comment is in general for the Forums. Hopefully everyone understands that the scholastic tournament for the BSA requirement need not be USCF sanctioned or rated.
Indeed it not only does not have to be rated, the MB requirements don’t even mention it. That is consistent with all the other 110 or so MBs - none require one to join anything else.
And as a clarification, if all the boy scout members are from that same
school, then it can be run as a JTP K-12 event, under that school’s
scholastic affiliate.
What might be a very good idea is to run a general youth/scholastic
tournament allowing the players to select either the Boy Scout, Girl
Scout, Cub Scout, or school they wish to represent. Why not–
could expand USCF to a new market, perhaps??
This discussion raises an interesting question I’ve been wondering about ever since I heard about the chess merit badge:
I run a kids’ chess club that, in addition to regular club meetings, does one-on-one coaching of its members and runs sanctioned tournaments 3 times per year. I know that a few of our members are involved with the BSA. Is there any way our club can assist Boy Scouts with getting their merit badges, granted that we have no intention of becoming affiliated in any way with the BSA?
It is individual merit badge counselors, not the group they belong to, that would become affiliated with the BSA. Since some of your members are already involved, they can become counselors.
Tina Schweiss took the time to become qualified to sign the blue card for the chess merit badge for Boy Scouts and the belt loop and pin for club scouts. As Mike Hoffpauir noted, she organized a Friday training session and an unrated Saturday tournament which it was both Mike’s and my pleasure to run. We had about 50 boys and 50 Cubs qualify for the chess badges, loops, and pins at the event last weekend. 66 played in the Saturday unrated tournament. We were able to provide info about rated chess to the boys playing in the tournament and have hopes that a significant portion enjoyed tournament chess and will continue in rated events.
IMPORTANT NOTE! The very first thing that Tina did was meet with the local council to get permission AND HELP. The council notified area troops and packs and provided the site and financial support for trophies and supplies. To see some of what happened, visit my website to see the flyer http://chesshouse.zxq.net/BS_info.pdf and the tournament results http://chesshouse.zxq.net/
Also note that Tina took her children [Duncan and Caitlyn Guthrie] to the recent Super Nationals and she played in the Friends and parents tournament. She is now planning to join the USCF and play in my club’s events.
Thank you everyone for the feedback. Seven scouts earned the merit badge, five others participated in at least one session.
The scout troop that asked for my help was organized enough to provide the information necessary for me to become certified with BSA. It is good that you mentioned your experience here so that other forum readers know of the requirement.
I arrived at the same schedule of three sessions and it worked well.