Eagle Tips - Feathering Your (Eagle) Nest By: webmaster

Have you noticed in recent years how Presidents and presidential candidates often speak in front of a group of VIPs or firefighters or schoolchildren? Using people as a backdrop makes for good footage on the evening news and communicates subtly that the candidate has a lot of what he considers the right kind of supporters.

Depending on the space you have available for an Eagle court of honor, you can achieve a similar effect. Create an “Eagle nest” area at the back of the stage and fill it with past and present troop members who are Eagle Scouts, as well as any other Eagle Scouts in the audience. They’ll have a great view of the ceremony and demonstrate to the rest of the audience that the new Eagle Scout is joining a select brotherhood of successful men.

While you could seat Eagle Scouts in the Eagle nest from the beginning of the ceremony, I recommend waiting until shortly before the actual badge presentation. That way, they won’t feel like they’re in the spotlight for the full 45 minutes or an hour that the ceremony takes.

In our troop, we wait until all the Eagle Scouts are assembled and then go down the line, asking each one to give his name, home troop number and city, and the year he earned his Eagle Scout Award. And since some guests may be unfamiliar with the tradition, our master of ceremonies warns them to be ready during his opening remarks.

Republished with permission of Mark Ray at http://www.eaglebook.com/

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Eagle Tips - Feathering Your (Eagle) Nest
@Mike Walton (settummanque, the blackeagle) on 05/03/2012

A variation on this I've seen is that for all of the awards up to Eagle, it is done in front of a blue curtain. At a point in the program, the lights are dimmed and a powerpoint slide show is displayed of the candidate. This is the cue for those Eagle Scouts to assemble behind the curtain, so when the lights are lifted and the curtain is raised, the group of Eagles are displayed behind the candidate and his family. I thought that was really impressive.