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Update to my own year old post. Here is what my.scouting says on the home page: "You can now transfer and multiple between units using your My.Scouting account National 11/16/2020 Now users are able to transfer from one Scout unit to another without having to take a new application into the Scout office. Unit leaders will be able to transfer youth by going to the new “Roster” feature in “Member Manager” and “Organization Manager” and select the youth who need to be transferred, then click the “Transfer” icon. This will create a transfer application which will be sent to the

I think this is a good thing. Taking and re-taking YPT is important for BSA as BSA is already is deep with a history of poor decisions surrounding youth protection. This is an easy step to take care of and an adult should be able to take the YPT class online, it really isn't hard to take IMHO. Agreed people need to reach out to them for keeping current with YPT and registration, it isn't a hard task but someone needs to do it. If you have an expert that you really want to talk and present to the youth about a particular topic, you can bring them into a meeting with other trained lead

My #1 concern is that the people holding themselves out as MBCs (and their troops holding themselves out as MBCs) are registered, criminally background checked, and YPT cleared. I don't give a darn how "competent" they are, if they cannot (or will not) get a criminal background check I don't want then around Scouting youth. Protecting scouts from abuse is a little more then "officiousness". You agree, yes?

I've worked with boys and girls and their tracking of things is indeed a high order of chaos. I'm not saying that the "blank ticket" approach is the way to go. I'm just using it to point out that there is a lot of non-essential print in BSA's supply chain. And much of that exists to make adults' life easier, but actually has ensnared adults in a vicious cycle of increased bean-counting. Compare how many adults in an average troop are involved in tracking a scouts' advancement today vs. how many when we were kids. But, given printed media, what has BSA done over the years, especially

I am so glad this is happening. I cannot tell you the number of MBCs in other units I've learned of where the Key-3 just made some random person a MBC in the Scoutbook system and allowed these unregistered (and therefore no criminal background check) people access to scouts. https://discussions.scouting.org/t/removing-unregistered-merit-badge-counselors-from-scoutbook/218461

We ran our own summer camp and had monthly outings AUG through NOV. Maybe average of 24 Scouts and 6 leaders per outing. Did aquatics, kayaking, backpacking, and AOL visit. We did have our annual 3 day Winter trip last weekend, to the swamp, visit to a National Seashore Island, and some other side trips. We have been meeting outside since August, but we always met outside so no difference. Been some challenge due to CO (church) being closed at times so went to park across the street. They close at dark, so winter is iffy. We have picked up some additional High School aged Scouts. B

Yeah. That should have changed a long time ago. How tools work is effectively another training mechanism. If ScoutBook allowed units to register their own MBCs, that exactly the same as BSA saying units can manager their own MBCs. That was never intended.

What WOULD stop that, would be a requirement that a MBC include a valid BSA registration number along with their signature on a blue card in order for it to be effective.

No. Scoutbook allowed units to name ANYONE an MBC. This was a residual aspect of Scoutbook; it was originally a UNIT management tool. BSA just bought it and is attaching it to Scoutnet piece by piece. As such, the unit management software allowed units to identify certain people as MBCs. The example was this. 1) Troop 123 has a scout that wants to earn Reading Merit badge BUT they have no reading MBC. 2) Troop 123's scout reaches out (after getting a blue card of course and the name from the SM) to Troop 456's Reading Merit Badge counselor based on the list the SM got from

QUESTION ... From what I understand, units could not assign the role of MBC. The change is that units won't be able to change the MBs counciled by an existing MBC. Is this right? I'm surprised this functionality was there before. MBC has always been a district / council setup role. Many of the comments above are 100% correct. YP and YPT is always our first concern. MB role in scouting needs to be re-thought. MBC role / selection needs to be re-thought. I'm hoping this does not happen, but if BSA really wanted to lock it down ... then require ScoutBook

There is a famous statement, I forget who said it, but it goes something like "debates and discussion are intended for the purpose of learning, not winning". I remember back when the BSA started requiring MB counselors to register; the explanation was the new policy was to protect the counselor as much as the scouts. So, I personally don't believe only protecting scouts from abuse ends the discussion. This is a complicated situation that forces the a look at the intention of the MB process as well of its benefits in the present day. The subject has to be discussed with some depth, a

This is NOT going to stop the practice units have of off-the-books MBCs without YPT, but I hope it mnimzies. And if someone gets dropped, then the answer is that they get YPT updated ASAP. Fingers crossed there would be a system where Scoutnet determines someone's YPT is, say, 3 months from expiring they get an auto-generated email alert.

Mixed emotions on this move. One the YPT side, I think it is VITALLY needed. Grant you I know of a few MBCs who have been "dropped" for various reasons, i.e. accidentally, YPT while current, expires in the new charter year and council drops, council loses paperwork ( in one case over a 7 year period) etc,. But Everyone needs the YPT training and background check. On the other hand, you got some experts who volunteer when they can, and if the dysfunctional council/district don't follow up and remind them they need to redo YPT for the next 2 years, we lose some very knowledgeable peo

So so true. It's why scouts are in scouts. Being active. Doing things. Making friends.

@eagle91-A1 Amen. Last year, my troop did 9 short term campouts in a year for the first time I was scoutmaster (in 3 years). The word does get out in the district that we are a troop that does outdoor stuff, which helps with recruitment. My boys troop is partnering with a girls troop on campouts, because two families have scouts in both troops and the adults serve both troops. I was able to recruit one of these families last fall using the partnership, the fact we have an active outdoor program, and the fact I contacted them once my troop's scout pin sent me a notification. Newsmax had a

Seen personally? The few girls I've met were plodding along just like our boys. I'm inferring that the are plodding along just like our boys of a similar age. BSA just loves to hype the overachievers. Case in point: there are no stories about # and age distribution of Tenderfoot badges.

Speaking of monopoly, or rather charters, isn't it time to remove all the charters and end all of these issues about the rights to a word, scouts, that predates both the bsa and gsusa? It seems to me that everyone else in the world treats the term scouts as generic and hence no copyrights. Anyway, how many problems have occured because the bsa and gsusa thought they had a monopoly and didn't need to listen to their customers? Maybe adding some competition might just help the people the charter should be helping, the youth.

What concerns me is that this places the largest denominational sponsor of Scouting units and many of the local churches in a potentially adversarial relationship with the BSA. There will be hesitancy to continue to sponsor units at the present time in this type of environment. Many of the United Methodist Churches have sponsored Scouting for decades. A whole new group of church leaders are now working with the packs and troops today and have had no understanding of their role and accountability as an "Owner" of a Scouting unit(s). Unfortunately, most of our COR's have not been trained, do

We've not been as active as my sons would have liked. We're meeting outdoors for an hour, once a week, but trips have been non-existent outside of one October trip out to PA. I wish we could do more, but the real issue for my boys right now is summer camp. My older one outgrew his scout shirt, and as we were taking patches off to transfer them to the new shirt, he suddenly realized that he was going to be missing his 'full circle'. There's a round Sabattis Camp patch in the middle, with rockers for each year surrounding it. Due to the camp closure las summer, he'll be missing 2020, a

I'm calling BS on this. At a very fundamental and traditional level, recruiting counselors is a district/council responsibility. Blame the units all you want, but this but if the council doesn't have the personnel in place to handle the additional paperwork, what makes them think units would have any more capacity? And, to be frank, for a while we had a registrar who basically chucked our unit councilors ... all fine people ... all whose YP is current ... all who are registered in other unit positions ... all who have paid to maintain their registration. Why aren't they still also registe

Stopping discussions with self-righteous declarations isn't going to contribute toward a working resolution. Don't you agree? Barry