Transferring Scout and records

[Buffalo Skipper]

OK, all you current and former professionals out there (and anyone else who wants to throw in their 2. I have some questions about how to receive records on a scout transferring from another council....

 

I just spoke to our council registrar and was advised that when a scout comes in from another council, they are starting fresh (records wise); that Scoutnet cannot "transfer" or "accept" his records from another unit and that he must be assigned a new BSA id#. Is this correct?(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

[kbandit]

Far from a scouting professional. Here's my $.02. That sounds just nutty. What about military kids? How many ID's will they accumulate during their scouting career? Dosn't make sense that we all have a nationally assigned number that will not follow us from council to council.

 

I would call your DE and see what they say. Maybe the registrar is new or just didn't understand what you were asking.

 

Does "starting fresh" mean they start at new scout? Are they previous councils records included in the fresh start?

[Eagle92]

It's been a while, but this is what I remember from my PDL-1 Class on SCOUTNET prior to it being released in '98.

 

SCOUTNET is suppose to allow the records of an individual to move with them, so that if they move to a different council, the new council has their records already. Since all records are stored in one central database, the new council just accesses the file and updates the info in it.

 

 

Now in theory that is how it's suppose to work. But I know I have had major problems with my records a few years back when I moved to 4 councils in three years. I had to repeat YPT a few times, and my records were not complete.

[Gary_Miller]

Having been in the military I have seen many scouts transfer from other councils. Usually they brought with them a copy of their records from Their previous unit, or the council contacted the last council for a copy. Its also my understanding now that the BSA ID# never changes.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm...

 

So I've sat next to our council registrar as she looked up a boy's records in another council and transferred 'em to ours. It needed only da former council name/number and the former troop number.

 

It can be done. Or at least it could be done at one time. With ScoutNet yeh never really know.

 

Now, I can't say it's a trivial process. Nothing in ScoutNet is ever as easy as it should be. So it might be that it's somethin' your registrar hasn't figured out yet. And I've heard tell that there are a host of "issues" with da online advancement reporting and TroopMaster and records transfers. I can't confirm that, but stuff like da TroopMaster upload would erase/replace the records that were transferred in from another council. So it could be da registrar is just trying to avoid all that hassle by making everyone "start fresh" and hand-enter da old records under a new ID.

 

Beavah

 

[ntrog8r]

That is incorrect. The former Council sends an e-file to the registrar to transfer the records. You can also call the previous Council and have the registrar send this file directly to you. That is all that is needed to transfer the records from one council to another.

 

We have done this many, many times. The most recent was last week.

[Buffalo Skipper]

Thank you all for the information. That is really what I was expecting to hear. It can be done, but it is not convenient to do. I will contact the original council and request the records to be sent to our registrar, but if she refuses to act on them there is little I can do. Prehaps I can request that be sent to me and I can try to upload that into Troopmaster as well. Eventually I can then upload that to Scoutnet, I will just have to do that with the new ID.

[rdclements]

Buff - if you're doing uploads from TM into SN, then you've got the answer. If you want something done right...

At the top of the application form, there's a space for entering a current member number as a transfer. Once you've got a complete and signed form, the scout is in your unit. Put his stuff into TM and when you do the upload at recharter time, scoutnet will pick him up as yours.

[Buffalo Skipper]

I have recieved no records from the SM or from the Registrar. I communicated with the registrar via email. I was advised that the scout was not reregistered last February, and that there was no advancement ever filed. The scout's HB shows the rank of Second Class.

 

I do not doubt the scout or his HB. In fact, he camped with us earlier this month, and I have to say, his skills are excellent. IO have FC and Star scouts who are less capeable than he is. And he has a great attitude. In fact, at elections he was selected PL.

 

So, the question becomes this. If I record dates from his HB in Troopmaster, so that our Advancement Coordinator can upload it to Scoutnet, we need to have our committee sign off on his BOR on the actual advancement form (which we are still required to sign and submit to the council. CAN our committee sign off on BOR another troop conducted (and according to his HB approved? It also means we have NO record of any MB earned, though he did submit to us a copy of badges he earned at camp with his troop this past June (the copy from the camp to the troop, no Blue Cards).

 

Any guidance on how to best proceed? He is a good and capeable scout. I would hate to hold him back in any way.

[Eagle92]

In the two cases where the local council's records were so screwed up, that a second source was needed to correct the council's records, the Scout's BSHB was used in both cases. In my case I submitted a copy of all the advancement sections which had dates and signatures of MBs and BORs. For me the MBs were all screwed up.

 

For my friend, they did not have him earning Star or Life. Again copies of his BSHB advancement section wer turned in.

 

My advice would be the following.

 

1) I would input the data into Troop Master as it is in the book. The book is the official record of advancement for the scout, not advancement reports, and not council records. Make sure to get a copy of the signatures too in case anyone challenges it.

 

2) If the BOR section is signed, your troop committee does not need to sign the advancement report. Instead fill out the advancement report as normal with the correct info, dates, etc, and mark on it "REPLACEMENT" in the signature section. I also would mark "TO UPDATE COUNCIL RECORDS ON A TRANSFER SCOUT" and submit a copy of the BOR's signatures attached to the report.

 

3) Make a notation to check Charter when up for renewal to make sure records are updated.

[cdroberts94]

Here's my two cents ... it depends on the council and it depends on what THEY were given. We had a military scout transfer here from CA. Nothing was ever transfered to our council. The scout was able to provide his book which showed Tenderfoot, First Class, Second Class, and Star and most of his merit badge cards. He was missing the blue card for Communications, but had the pocket card. I called the council and they had very little - I believe they said they had his Star rank and nothing else but a couple of merit badges. They suggested I contact the troop and gave me the number of the scoutmaster and committee chair. I figured the mother knew them best so I asked her to follow up. A YEAR later we finally got a blue card signed by the Scoutmaster with the words Troop Records written across the name of the Counselor and the date on the front for "qualified to begin working for merit badge" as April of this year. I just wanted to pull my hair out.

 

Troopmaster would not allow me to put any date in without the Scout date and he did not have any date for that. Our scoutmaster finally said to estimate since Scout isn't really a rank anyway, but the boy then remembered that he got it at summer camp and was able to come up with a date.

 

Meanwhile, we had another military scout who left us for a year and a half in Florida. I just checked him on Scoutnet and just about everything is showing up except one badge his Troopmaster form shows, and of course all his blue cards are still back in Florida in storage - ARG! But at least it's not an Eagle badge and all the ranks are there.

 

And I won't even start about the boys who earn Scout, but the shop won't give me a badge without an advancement report but they are not in the system yet to do it on Scoutnet so I hand write them and try and rememeber to put them in Scoutnet when they finally do show up on there.

[cdroberts94]

An interesting addition to my post above - upon further comparison of the Florida scout's Troopmaster report and Scoutnet, Troopmaster shows him earning only two awards since he left us (actually two years ago). Both were merit badges and the first was shortly after he left, and the other has no date. Neither of these badges appears on Scoutnet. If troops are using Scoutnet, I'm not sure we can blame council for those things being missing. I know there have been problems in the past with things not getting entered from paper reports but now all troops have the ability to check to make sure things are recorded and correct them before kids are sent off with missing or incomplete records.

[John-in-KC]

Units don't use ScoutNet.

 

The Boy Scouts of America uses ScoutNet. It is the management information system of the National Council.

 

Units using internet advancement upload data to ScoutNet.

 

When I was a unit advancement coordinator, once a year I asked my DE for a ScoutNet printout of my youth. I then crosswalked what they had and what we had on TroopMaster. Where there were discrepancies in favor of the Scout, I cut an Advancement Report and turned it in. Where there were (and there were) discrepancies against the Scout (awards he had not earned), I sent a business letter to the registrar, cc the DE.

 

The facts of the matter are:

- In most Councils, BSA ScoutNet is the database of record.

- Units provide the source material.

- Units need to keep independent, and very good, records on the youth in their charge.

 

My $0.01 (inflation, y'know)...

[Eagle92]

John,

Forgot one very important person who needs to maintain records, the scout. It's his advancement, his responsibility