<p>In our community a card is appreciated and gifts of cash in the $10-25 range are the norm from parents who have known a scout for a long time. Scout to scout gifts are unheard of. </p>
<p>We have frequently given gift cards to someplace like REI. (DH is a leader and gets invited to LOTS of ceremonies.)</p>
<p>I dont think the Eagle COH is required. Nor does it have to be big and fancy. We went to a small, emotional one in the family’s backyard. </p>
<p>On the other hand, we went to a huge one for 5 boys at a local outdoor ampitheater.</p>
<p>I am an Eagle Scout and I received a variety of different gifts, all of them amazing! Here are some:</p>
<p>1) Not really a gift, but the state Attorney General (Eagle from our troop) spoke at my CoH – very impressive guy
2) From my Scoutmaster – a beautiful commemorative knife for 100 years of Scouting
3) Cash
4) A belt buckle in the form of an Eagle
5) Some books on leadership, one of which was “Legacy of Honor” – stories and interviews with Eagle Scouts compiled/conducted by a man (some examples include Bill Gates Sr., Sec. of Commerce Gary Locke, Ross Perot and his family, etc.). Truly excellent.
6) The company of the people who have supported me through Scouting</p>
<p>My S’s troop has had the same Scoutmaster for years, and he’s a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy. The troop meets at the local Elks Club hall. The troop has one Eagle Ceremony per year for however many boys made Eagle that year, and it’s held on whatever day the Elks are willing to provide a dinner (free, which is very generous of them), generally chicken, pasta, salad and rolls. Eagle parents provide drinks, dessert and decorations. The Scouts making Eagle and their parents have ZERO input in what day the ceremony will be, it’s usually over Christmas break. The boys are allowed to chose who they want to speak, but the Scoutmaster usually takes over and runs the very-long ceremony anyway, and with his long-winded asides make it even longer.</p>
<p>The Scoutmaster and his iron-fisted rule is the main reason S never set foot in a troop meeting or attended anything the troop did after he made Eagle as a Senior. (Except to attend a friend’s Eagle ceremony the following year). Sadly, S is not alone in his “thank-God-I’m-done-get-me-out-of-here” feeling, very few of the boys have anything to do with the troop once they make Eagle. I have also refused to have any contact with the troop - I’d have bowed out a lot sooner if S hadn’t been so far along in his Eagle process. I kept my mouth shut and did what the Scoutmaster told us to do until S made Eagle. </p>
<p>A friend of mine ended up screaming at the SM after he delayed and delayed approval of her son’s project, then got on the kid’s case for not being able to do the project on the day the SM wanted (the scout had wanted to do it on any of a bunch of weekends 4 months earlier). In the end, the scout’s grandfather, who he was really close to, died before the kid made Eagle. We had a similar problem, the SM insisted that things S couldn’t ask for letters of recommendation until his project was finished even though we couldn’t find ANYTHING in the Eagle paperwork that said it had to be done in that order. S did his project over the summer, but he ended up having to do the paperwork and ask for letters of rec in fall of Senior year, when all the teachers were slammed with college recs, instead of in spring of Junior year like he wanted to.</p>