Welcome! This forum has a treasure trove of great info – Scouters helping Scouters! Just a heads up, though - all content, information, and opinions shared on this forum are those of the author, not the BSA.
I would like to be able to display all merit badges with a list of counselors who are registered to administer those merit badges. This could be in the form of a list of MBC names or even something as simple as a count of how many MBCs were returned for the given range.
This would address two scenarios:
When parents ask “What merit badges need counselors???” Finding an answer is really difficult. First you have to do a search within a range and then compare the resulting list to find which MBs are missing MBCs. You do this by writing down the MBs that each person can teach and then looking for MBs that don’t have a counselor. It takes a lot of time for something that could be addressed in seconds with a db search.
When a scout asks what merit badges we have local counselors for, the answer is similarly challenging. I would like to be able to show a list of MBs that have local counselors for - and then have them pick a few they want to go after. Right now, we play the game of asking them to pick a few MBs out of the complete list and then go research whether there is a MBC close enough to support it. It would be a lot better to say - here are all of the MBS that have counselors within 10 miles. Which ones would you like to work on?
The Guide to Advancement prohibits giving a Scout a list of MBCs. The process is when a Scout wants to work on a MB, the Scout goes to the Scoutmaster who provides the name of one or a few MBCs for that MB.
What I do is do the search then recommend a few MBCs that I know to the Scout and either let them write the contact information down or email/text it to the Scout and parent.
Thanks for the pointers - what you are describing is what I was planning to do, too.
I understand not over-sharing the MBC info. That makes sense and protects the MBC personal data. That’s why I suggested returning a list of names or even just a count.
In highly populated areas where there are lots of MBCs, it would probably work well for scouts to “pick a MB out of the whole list” and get matched to a counselor. In more rural areas, you often have to tell the scout that there isn’t anyone within a 30 minute drive for that badge.
Of course - if it were easier to find out which MBs need coverage then I could tell my interested parents which MBs to become MBCs for and improve things on that end.
Doesn’t address your request, but wanted to make the suggestion of looking for online opportunities for your rural scouts. There are a lot of Councils, organizations, museums and individual mbcs outside your council that will work with scouts on merit badges virtually. Here’s a couple museums and there are several Councils that offer them regularly too.
Frankly, what my unit does is maintain a parallel list (available only to registered scouters), of adults associated with the unit who are registered MBCs. It is periodically updated, and cross-checked with the list in Scoutbook to verify current registration and YPT (i.e. if you disappear, you get flagged on our list as not usable until we know why you disappeared and it gets remedied in the official list).
We ask that any adults who register (or add new badges) as an MBC to let us know so we can verify it in Scoutbook and add the info to our list. This approach sorta helps with what you asked about, by tracking which badges are covered. Anything not on the list (or that gets "over-subscribed) is nominated for additional coverage, assuming there aren’t other MBCs in our area in Scoutbook.
This is highly unit specific though. I am willing to bet there are not that many Bugling or Surveying MBCs out there, but does your unit really ‘need’ a bugling or surveying MBC? Chances are you really need eagle required MBCs because you know most of your Scouts will need these badges. So you can simply search for local MBCs for those 14 badges.
Ask the Scouts which badges they need and concentrate there.
Thank you Melissa - you are right! I just saw an invite come through about someone offering the chess MB virtually. That’s a great suggestion! I wonder if BSA could put a registry together of people willing to do virtual trainings.
