Do Scout ID numbers remain constant when a Scout moves from Council to Council?

[perdidochas 658]

We have a new Scout to our Troop from another Council. Our Council registrar says that the membership cannot be moved from one council to another, but that they have to recreate a membership number, etc. in our Council. This seems strange to me, it would seem that the number would be a constant from one council to the next. Is this the way the system works, or does our registrar just not know how to transfer scouts?

[moosetracker 132]

 

Hmmm.. Interesting.. I know in the past what your council registrar said was correct. I know I use to get the District Roster and all the membership numbers were all in a consolidated grouping of numbers of the council handing out their parcel of numbers.. But, I had heard that that was changing, due to the on-line training system.. But, maybe that change is taking National it's usual 5 or 10 or 15 years to roll out..

[frankpalazzi 62]

I was under the impression that BSA ID numbers were issued by national, no?

[Eagle92 110]

That is correct, everytime you move to a new council, you get a new ID number. Ticks me off too since I was told in 1998 by the then national SCOUTNET 2000 director that your membership records would move with you every time you switch councils.

 

Since then, I've been had 5 moves into 4 councils, had 5 ID numbers ( I worked for national, hence the 5th one) and only when I returned to the first councildid I ever have a repeating number. Oh and I've had to resubmit my training records every single time I moved, and multiple times in a few cases.

[qwazse 4342]

I was under the impression that BSA ID numbers were issued by national, no?

Unfortunately, the memberid is nested within the councilid. Which means it's possible for folks in different councils to have the same memberid. That would be a fun nationwide game, finding your matching #s from every council.

[SSScout 1615]

Oh the humanity.

When I once tried to take a University of Scouting course, and presented the prerequisites, I was told I did not have them. Subsequent research and desk pounding discovered that (1) In the past, I had been registered (by Pack, Troop, Woodbadge, District) under three different variations of my name and (2) there were four other Scouters with the same first AND last name as myself in the NCACouncil. Took 3 hours with the Council registrar to sort things out.

I now counsel folks to ALWAYS use the EXACT same name when they sign up for anything Scouty. Always "John J. Smith" , not "Johnny Smith " or "J. J. Smith" or "Smitty".....

[perdidochas 658]

I was under the impression that BSA ID numbers were issued by national, no?

Quayze, are you serious? The member id I have is 9 digits just like ssn, and it's possible that someone else has the same number? No wonder we have such a problem with record keeping. Sounds like National set themselves up for this whenever they made the original scheme. I guess I need to forgive my local folks in my mind. I've been blaming them for being too ignorant to link records, guess that is not the case, it's National that made a seriously messed up system.

[chrisking0997 35]

how does looking up someone's training on myscouting.org work then, if there were multiple people assigned to the same number?

[moosetracker 132]

how does looking up someone's training on myscouting.org work then, if there were multiple people assigned to the same number?

Well they do as for not only your ID# but also your council.. Perhaps that's it, not sure.. I am more concerned about the mess of moving all the scouts advancements and all the Adult leaders Trainings.. What a mess..

 

But seriously our Council numbers are only two groups.. Like they were assigned a number grouping, used it up, and have now been working the new number groupings.. You either are in 61##### and then they stop that number grouping abruptly and then only have people within the group numbers of 128######