I have a few questions, as I need to email several parents about scout renewals.
Let’s start with the first. My own son is up for renewal, this is the first time up for renewal online instead of a pack covering it and then getting paid back.
Renewal takes me to my.scouting.org. Do I make my scout his own account to login to renew? I have my own account as Committee Chair and my son is linked to me in Scoutbook, but nothing shows up in my account to renew him. I saw another post online that I could add a member id and change to his as primary to pay and then change back to mine after payment.
Is that the process all adult parents would need to do? Non-leaders? How to make it easy to explain to parents?
My other question is I got a few dropped scouts. I spoke to the council about this because I saw a few of them paid. But they looked into it and they never actually paid or didn’t go through. They recommend I reach out to those parents and tell them to check their account to complete the process. Not sure exactly what they need to look for?
I’ve been having this issue too. I thought it was a one-off but have found a few more parents whose cubs are not showing on my.scouting so they get antsy when I tell them to click on the bell alert to renew.
How I think it’s supposed to work is that cubs show in the adult account under my applications—> my renewals. That’s where my cubs were. I had the computer ninjas here help with connecting a cub to the adult. @DonovanMcNeil to be exact.
I don’t think these parents ever received the email renewal prompt either. It’s been tricky.
@chrisapallas hit most of the high points. :^)
No. Only a connected parent/guardian account can do that online.
This typically only happens when the parent/guardian has more than one SA Member ID (which you might as a registered scouter and parent). The SUAC folks may be able to identify that as well.
Hopefully not? It’s more common either for folks who are both registered scouters and parents or have moved between councils. In both cases, an individual can end up with more than one SA Member ID, which is like being a totally different person, as far as the database is concerned.
The only way that parents get the email notice/see the scout in my.scouting is if they are connected in the AKELA membership database (not the same thing as Scoutbook/SB+).
The only way to add a connection in my.scouting for the renewal is to have the council registrar make it. Generally, there is one connection between the scout and whichever parent was on the Youth Application (however far back in time that happened), but that email address may have no relationship to whatever email address the parent is currently using. There is hardly ever a connection in AKELA between the parent/guardian not on the Youth Application and the scout without the relevant parent/guardian asking the registrar to make it manually.
Generally, if you post SA ID Numbers (not names, please!), the SUAC folks can at least find out if a parent is connected and which one it is.
ETA:
I’m not sure, because my scout aged out this year, so I didn’t get to experience the whole renewal experience. One of the SUAC might know, but generally the directive from national is that all registration/renewal questions should be routed to the council professionals for support, since they can make contact with the national support teams on this (even if via a relatively slow process of submitting a MemberCare ticket).
ETA2: Here’s the other thread that I think is being referenced:
https://discussions.scouting.org/t/renewal-cub-not-linked/465799/6
So I do have two BSA accounts and it was only done by accident a few years ago. I had my original one but I don’t remembe why it had issues, so someone at council fixed me and I got another login. That new login that i been using is the BSA ID used for my leader stuff, but my old one has my kid on there for renewal.
Should I leave it as-is or ask Council to combine them?
So, if you need to renew your scout urgently and know your other SA ID, you can:
- Add your “old” SA ID (to which your scout is connected) to your current SA ID as a secondary ID.
- Make sure you’re logged out of all other SA systems (Scoutbook, SB+, SB app) and then switch the “secondary” ID to primary. That should give your current login access to your scout for renewal.
- Complete the renewal process.
- Switch back to the “correct” (registered scouter) SA ID prior to logging into any other SA systems.
You should also contact the council registrar and ask that they use the registrar tools to move the parent relationship to your registered scouter SA ID number, and remove it from any other SA IDs. Otherwise, you’ll probably see this issue again come next renewal season.
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