I have been told that the 2018 edition of the Boy Scout Requirements book is now available for purchase in Scout Shops, although I haven't seen it available yet on scoutstuff.org. The new edition lists the following changes:
1. Changes to Ranks: Second Class and First Class - these are basically the changes announced last summer regarding the availability of a swimming exemption if a council determines that there is no safe place for swimming within a reasonable time/distance.
2. Changes to merit badges - 27 merit badges listed - most of these are minor changes. a couple have been rewritten or rearranged and renumbered, but with little effective difference between the old and new requirements.
3. Changes to "Special Opportunities - one dropped (the Varsity Scouting Denali Award, and one added - the National Park Service's Resource Stewardship Scout Ranger program
However, my review of the book has found a number of other changes that were NOT listed:
1. ALL references to Varsity Scouting have been removed. This affects ALL ranks.
a. The notes indicating that for Varsity, the terms "Team" and "Coach" should replace "Troop" and "Scoutmaster" have all been removed.
b. For Star, Life, and Eagle the lists of Varsity Positions of Responsibility have been deleted.
c. In some Special Opportunities, mention of membership in a Varsity Team has been removed.
2. The changes to Eagle Palms announced last summer are now in the book.
3. For Star, Life, and Eagle, the list of Venturing/Sea Scouting Positions of Responsibility have been split into separate lists, with some additions.
4. The Complete Angler patch and the Whitewater Rafting BSA award were added to the Special Opportunities.
There are NO changes to the "Merit Badge Library" listing, and the copy of the book I have has the same stock number (SKU) as the 2017 edition.
Finally, there are still a few merit badges where the text of the requirements in the Boy Scout Requirements book and the equivalent text in the current merit badge pamphlet differs. At least one of those dates back to wording that was changed in 2004.
I've prepared and uploaded to the US Scouting Service Project website (usscouts.org) my annual report detailing all of the specifics of the changes mentioned above. It can be found at http://usscouts.org/advance/changes/advchanges18.asp and/or http://usscouts.org/advance/docs/advchanges18.pdf
All of the web pages and workbooks on usscouts.org have been also updated to reflect the current requirements. Those pages also have links to pages showing the detailed changes plus links to to the previous requirements for those who have already started work. Workbooks for the previous requirements are also still available through links from the pages showing those requirements.
We don't announce the changes until BSA does and/or they release the book for sale. The wiki on Meritbadge.org uses a coding format that can't be edited and and saved off line for future release, as I'm able to do on the usscouts.org site. So the material on that site can't be prepared in advance. Therefore, the requirements on that website have NOT been updated yet, and the revised workbooks are not available on that site yet either. Hopefully, the material on meritbadge.org will be updated shortly.
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Yours in Scouting,
Paul S. Wolf, PE (Ret.), FITE mailto:pwolf@usscouts.org
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Secretary, U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc.
http://www.usscouts.org
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