Hooooooooooooooooooooowdy, y'all,

Starting this coming Monday, January 22nd, I am going to be hosting Merit Badge Mondays at Chez Sonnick. We're going to start out focusing on Eagle Required merit badges and we'll do one at a time. As we wrap one up we'll start another. My, what short, choppy sentences.


Here's some information you need to know:

1. It's every week you're in school from 7:00 - 8:30. I put it after dinner so y'all will be less hungry and I won't have to cancel or postpone due to work.
2. It's only for guys who are serious about working on the merit badges and completing them during the 7:00 - 8:30 timeframe. I don't want partials because I generally don't have the time to help people wrap partials up. When I say a scout should be serious about working and finishing the merit badge, I'm getting at the following things:
   
   • If you decide to come to Merit Badge Monday (MBM) for any particular MB, it needs to be a high priority for you. As in, other than grievous bodily harm or unforeseen familial responsibilities, you need to be at every meeting for the MB you're doing. If you have foreseeable familial responsibilities (sibling's confirmation, family trip, &c), you need to clear them with me ahead of time. I don't think any merit badge will take more than a month to complete, so you should probably have a good handle on those sorts of responsibilities ahead of time.
   • There will be some homework. Not tons and you'll know about it well ahead of time b/c I'll have a syllabus that I hand out before the first meeting for each MB. That syllabus will detail very clearly what we will cover each week and what you will need to have done to prepare. A lot of times it will just be reading information or studying the stuff we've already done so you can get it signed off really quickly at the beginning of the following MBM. Regardless, if you're not willing to come prepared, I'll ask you to consider not coming.
   • I want to start at 7:00. Being there a bit early is a good idea. Being even a little late is not.
   • For some MBs there might be a $3-$4 fee because I'll want you to have the merit badge book from Council. This won't always be the case and if it is you'll know before you sign up.
   • There is a time and a place for everything. Usually, the time and place for fooling around and acting like a juvenile is at my house. Not during MSMs. It's not going to be Marine Corps boot camp, obviously, because I can't help but goof around a little. I will, however, generally expect you to behave as well as you would for that teacher who terrifies you and whose sideward glance is enough to make you want to flee for your very life.

Hokay. That's it. As I mentioned above, the first MSM is at my house next Monday night from 7 - 8:30. The first MB we're going to do is Citizenship in the World. The syllabus is attached. You will not need a MB book for this, so there's no fee.

Link to the requirements: http://www.usscouts.org/mb/mb004.html
Link to the work sheets: http://www.usscouts.org/mb/wkbks/mb004.pdf

*** IMPORTANT NOTE ***: The requirements at meritbadge.com are *NOT* correct. They're the 2004 revision and the badge was changed in 2006. Please be sure to use the links above to look at the information you need.

I hope a bunch of you are both able and inclined to come but really--don't sign up if you're not going to do the work or if you think it's just going to be a pizza party at Sonnick's every week. I'll try to keep it fun but we need to be serious about making it through the material. Finally, please let me know by Sunday if you're coming.

Thanks and see you all soon,

Sonnick