Backroads

Wowzers. I'm guessing there are no past rank advancements, are there?

Yes, by all means, wash your hands of it. That Eagle registrar either is crazy or has no idea what he is going to get into.

Now, I work for a council, and I've seen kids go for years without being registered. Usually a slip on someone's part. And yes, during that time, stuff gets written down by some one in the troop with the good intent of eventually officially recording it. This is a wild case where it happened pretty much on purpose, but I can see how it can get that far.

First off, any back registration anyone would try to do is going to take FOREVER.

Second, you are probably going to get some major approval to have any of those past never-officially-recorded things recognized.

I'm sorry Billy did everything action-wise and I hate seeing the boys punished as well, but I think this is a life lesson for all involved.

Congratulate the kid on all his hard work, but that's about it.

And I truly hope this isn't a council that just sells stuff. Our Scout Shop is separate from the council and they've fired employees over selling stuff without the proper documentation.

Has ANYONE heard of this or have any idea what it is? Our Scoutmaster is insisting it exists and is trying to find a counselor for it.

It is not American Cultures. It is not Disability Awareness. It is not any of the Citizenships.

I've Googled it, but there doesn't seem to be one that ever existed. So I'm assuming it's a different name.

As a registrar (who happens to deal with registration only and sees no Eagles, training, etc.) I say to never hand a registration form into anyone put me. I actually have a system I've been complimented multiple times upon. And it works so much better for volunteer and employee when those involved in the exchange can speak face to face rather than going through the rumor mill.

Most of the time, we have someone call/email/walk into the office and tell us so-n-so has changed positions within the unit. I pull up the unit roster and change the position right then and there. I think I might look for a little more clarification if we didn't serve so many LDS units (where the information on changes gets passed around at church without too much thought on any process). I suppose that would depend on your council, whether or not you can just let someone know "hey, so-n-so changed positions". But National doesn't seem to mind.

I've never had to deal with a dual registration 'tween councils before. I might to have to call on that, to see just what the rule is.

And no, one should NOT need another form to simply change positions within the unit.

However, in Hawk's defense, some units work so closely together that no one bats an eye at the decision to move Joe Scouter from the Webelos Leader to the Assistant Scoutmaster.

Unfortunately, as these are two separate units, a new application is needed and that's where problems can occur.

The only solutaion I can think of for that problem is to have a better alternative to a "brand new application" that is a more obvious transfer form.

As for SCOUTNET records, I've been told that councils only have access to the ID numbers they create. They do not have access to other councils' records. Hence you get a new number everytime you move.

Tis most irritating true. I really have no way of accessing information from another council (other than calling/emailing that council).

Still, the standard should be that one should have no more than one ID# per council.

As for those numbers, I guess I'm still not sure what they have to do with Great Outdoors having his myscouting password changed on him. I can't fathom who besides the tech people at National would have been capable of doing that.

Wow, ntrog. Bad move on that registrar.

In my mind, I can't figure out why her choice would have been "easier". Seems like it would have taken more time.

My favorite camp recently expanded its range... there would be plenty of room for everyone and their guns.

BSA24 is kind of right...

As far as I in my office am concerned, all your district does is determine which file drawer your stuff goes in.

And since we're largely LDS units, your district might affect what slot your stakes' receipts for billing goes.

BR: I assure you, multiple registration numbers are not only possible, but not that unusual.

Believe me, I can testify to that! At my office, it's like playing detective to confirm someone has NOT been registered before, and it still happens. The biggest influx of duplicate registration numbers usually happens during online chartering, which is what my council is going through now. I'm running a duplicate list everyday to help me check for things. We have a lot of intra-council movement, people going from unit to unit, and that's when we try to encourage people to use their given name on each application for each unit--not nicknames.

Still, that shouldn't impact the myscouting registration at all unless an individual himself is registering himself there multiple times with different registration numbers. That's where I'm confused.

See, the myscouting database and the database for your council/National are pretty separate. They can link into each other, but that's about it.

(Unless... other councils set up myscouting profiles for people? Mine leaves that up to the individual Scouters...)(This message has been edited by Backroads)(This message has been edited by Backroads)

Short answer: Yes. The technical process (on the computer) is very simple.

Further: You will probably need a good reason. There's usually rhyme and reason to districts.

Nike, thanks, those are great tactics.

Get Outdoors, how did they change your account number? I'm assuming you did your training on myscouting... which only National can touch and change things in...

Having seen very similar situations in both your BSA camp setting and your standard crew...

1. Camp thing: In my experience, let 'em share a married couples' cabin. I've seen it time and time again with 21+ and not-quite-21 couples--without any drama over anyone turning them in. Seems the marriage rule does indeed trump any others in that scenario. I could be dead wrong in my advice, but I've yet to see anything go wrong there.

2. I agree, this will be a variation on #3, though I'm not opposed to a simple "have one of them drop out of the unit". If marriage would be the trump in the standard crew, it would only begin at marriage.

We have, currently a total of 2 girls in the crew. They are pretty much just another addition to the boys, but I've talked to other crews and found this comadry is rather rare.

How do your boys and girls get along?

Late to the game here...

Bouncing charters sucks for everyone involved... if you are positive your leaders will get trained (but schedules and whatnot are creating delays), I would check to see what your council's policy is. We will post any and all charters with the deal training will be done in 60 days, and our DEs are pretty good about seeing that through with everyone.

Thank, ntrog. I really had no desire to show up as a witch on here. I am a people pleaser who can't stand the idea of a volunteer walking away upset. I have plenty of answers and solutions and apologies when it is the council's fault. I'm just at a loss with how to respond to "Why didn't my unit tell me I had to do this?" without blaming the unit. I did get some good tips on here and from some other sources. My council does its rechartering with the calendar year... so stuff like this is popping up frequently right now, leading to further loss on what to tell people.

So far my decided tactic is to explain registration is done through the unit (without blaming the unit for not doing it), hand so-n-so an application and go over it with them, hand him my card if he has further questions, wish him a great day, and realize and accept he might not be leaving comletely happy still.

All right, I have to admit something: I'm rather hurt by some of the assumptions made on this thread about me. I suppose it's my fault for saying in the title I was "bugged". Bad move.

However, my entire question was on just how to brush up on my customer service skills. Some of you gave me some tips, but many of you simply said that I was horrible at customer service without having ever have stepped into my office. I simply wanted to know HOW to calm down a volunteer who is upset finding out he was supposed to register/his leader was supposed to have him register.

Yes, I have worked as a Scouting volunteer for 7 years.

As many volunteers I know regularly use online advancements to print out updated rosters once or twice a month, I have trouble believing any leader would have difficulty knowing who is and is not registered.

Thank-you to those who gave tips. As for the rest of you, responding with "Improve your customer service skills!" to the question "How do I improve my customer service skills?" is completely moronic.

Sorry, I reacted too harshly to your earlier comment and my reply was inappropriate.

But such an attitude would only a problem if I spoke to volunteers in a professional setting that way. I doubt I'd have worked where I do for as long as I have if that was the case.

I do believe volunteers' frustration isn't necessarily directed at me, just at the realization they need to do something more than than they thought they did. It's just hard when I'm getting the f-bomb thrown towards me and I don't have a satisfactory answer.(This message has been edited by Backroads)

Speaking as a former educator...

It sounds like your actions for all things legal are fairly taken care of. Others more highly trained than you are handling the "big stuff" and you are planning to review the YPT materials. I think it's good.

As for social interaction with the boy... I think others have had that covered. You are in the invaluable position of knowing a little something more about this boy and can offer sympathy and support. But in general, let him experience a healthy boyhood experience.

If Mom is willing, you might consider upping the communication with her, the two of you exchanging signs of anything being wrong or abnormal in his behavior.

(This message has been edited by Backroads)

We have a response in attachment to our logging policy in relation to paperwork people KNOW were filled out not making it in. If someone calls with such a report and we can't find the stuff on our logs, we often ask a variation of "Do you know who brought it in?"

99% of the time, we later find out so-n-so had yet to make it into the office.

"We have done internet recharter for years.....It fixes all the issues if YOU invest the time to actually do it.

I fixed the Packs....took a bunch of adults off and out whose boys weren't members.....Took 5 or 6 hours the first time thru it."

The bugs seem to come in if you don't do it straight through... like, you try to go back a few pages to fix something. It seems innocent enough, but it gets pretty screwy!

Our council usually advises people to have the current roster up-to-date so you won't be doing much when you enter Internet Rechartering.

Thanks for the clarification. Checked into it (easy enough as I work for a council) as far a council policy.

We have no limit per Scout, but we have a council limit of 10 badges per counselor due to what was apparently a horrible trend back in the day of people single-handledly getting Junior his Eagle.

Yes, I find it very wise such policies be made on a local level.

Mr Roads, I see you are in Logan, Utah. I was there about 10 years ago and found the best name for a Fossil Shop ever, it was called "Remains to be Seen", always thought that was the best name of a store I ever saw. I bought something just for the bag. Is it still there?

And I don't know how gently to ask you this, so I shall just plow on. Do you know if the units who cannot just seem to get paperwork in are LDS units who have leaders who get "called" to be leaders and the ones who get paperwork in are the units with leaders who have volunteered for their positions?

Alas, I believe that shop closed a few years ago.

As for your other question, no offense taken (heck, I'm LDS myself). It's about 50/50. The LDS units that fail on this are probably taking "callings" lightly, and the other ones probably don't know about it: Our roundtables and whatnot tragically tend to wind up LDS Scouting-themed no matter how hard the DEs try, just due to the council being roughly 70% LDS units and therefore very few people bother to show up to meetings/trainings.

Ah, so I'm not the only to notice the vanishing Venturing uniforms.

I have a grand total of two girls in the crew--which is relatively new to the organization--and they're both ones that trickled in after working at summer camp. A little tougher. I like to think camp culled out the week.

I wasn't going to respond, but this post struck a nerve. I know what the office staff go through and the hard work they do. Heck I even offered to help out one time back when I was a pro.

But maybe it IS the office's fault. I'll give you a few examples.

...

Personally I am hoping and praying that INTERNET RECHARTERING will fix those problems. BUT as I mentioned, we do have units that have poor or no internet access. Heck I did the YPT online version at a commissioner training out in the boonies, and it took over 4 hours to download the training!

Yes, what do all those legitimate office errors/laziness have to do with a unit never bothering to get the process started? How can I lose a registration form that was never filled because a unit, intentionally or unintentionally, never bothered to see that it was done?

If I'm reading you right, you're suggesting people are much more likely to blame the council after past negative experience. Which is certainly fair. But what I don't find fair is when volunteers choose not to their jobs as a result.

As for rechartering... LOL, but don't hold your breath. The Internet Rechartering is as buggy as ever. Third year on it, and I still haven't figured out all the tricks when something doesn't go according to plan.(This message has been edited by Backroads)