General question that I can’t get a straight answer on yet.
We are starting a new Venturing Crew at the end of the month. We have enough leaders and youth. If I have existing Scouts BSA members that are chartered with a troop, is there a fee to add them to the new Crew? Is it just a new application that needs to be completed? Thanks as always.
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@RobertEberhart this is more a Council question as Councils are different - but they would be a free national multiple outside of Council or unit fees
@RobertEberhart - having submitted my recharters on 15 November, the multiple scouts/scouters paid the fee to one unit only. In the case of our crew the multiples from the troop paid their fees on the troop side and nothing on the crew side.
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@Stephen_Hornak - Did the scouts need a new application for the Crew?
@RobertEberhart - yes we had applications filled out noting the multiple on the app, and at recharter noting the multiple there as well
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If I recall correctly, we had to have a minimum number of youth (and maybe adults?) who were primary in the crew in order to charter/recharter. As @DonovanMcNeil noted, these kinds of questions and issues are good reasons to talk to your council about this. They should know what “gotchas” are out there.
Are the troop and the crew in the same council? Or in different councils? If they are in different councils, then most likely each person will need to pay each council’s fee, which is separate from the National membership fee.
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Same council, district and charter org. I would ask our council, but you folks are so much faster with answers and giving me an education about the fees and whatnot. When my council finally gets around to answering my emails, I feel better prepared for action. Thanks everyone.
One pitfall I recall in starting a new Crew, as mentioned above by @CharleyHamilton, was the minimum number of 5 PAID members, but that number can also be 2, with CSE approval.
The Document that addresses this is the “Registration Guidebook of the BSA”. It can be found at: Scouting Forms from the National Council | Boy Scouts of America
It is the only link under “Registration Resources”.
The complete answer, outlining National’s policy, lies on page 19 (PDF page 21). It is the last paragraph under “Unit Position Requirements”.
The key phrase is - A transferred membership is considered a paid registration, multiple registrations are not. Here is an excerpt from that: I hope this clarifies…
"There must be at least FIVE paid youth members in a pack, troop, crew, or ship. If special circumstances exist, the Scout executive may give permission to allow a unit to register with as few as two paid youth members.
A transferred membership is considered a paid registration. *
No unit can register with fewer than TWO paid youth members. Units with more than 100 or fewer than five youth members at registration must be approved by the Scout executive"…
If senior scouts want to join/form a crew, they can ‘transfer’ into the crew and multiple back to the troop. This way they can keep their registered status with both units. A multiple registration does not show up as additional membership in the council, only primary, paid registrations count.
All registrations show up in Akela the BSA person database. If a Scouts record does not show both units then they are not properly registered.
I started a Crew Summer 2023 (Aug 1, 2023 is the official date in Scoutbook) with youth from Troops who had just earned Eagle or were about to.
Our members all want to be primary with the Crew but Council is saying we need to register with our Troops as primary again for one more year. I cannot find where this rule is stated.
Page 14 of the Guidebook (below link) suggests we should all just pay with our Crew (as primary) this coming year and not Troops (they would be the secondary) if that is the wish of Crew members. What is the answer?
I do not believe your Council is correct. They can change the primary unit for anyone at any time.
You have the option to register and pay multiple places… council/national will be happy to take your money but you only are required to pay for one primary registration. You can multiple register in multiple units. The only reason I know that council wants to primary youth in more than one unit would be to beef up their membership numbers. I knew a Scout Exec that every December he would have his registrar Primary all the multiple youth in the council so his end of year numbers would look better. I have a very poor opinion of that particular SE.
Hi
It is in Akela that a multiple registration is dealt with?
Can anyone explain literally how to do this in the software? Our Council says they can’t do this…maybe they do not know how?
We are trying to recharter Crew members and adults with multiple registrations and our Council says we have to wait a year to make the Crew the primary…so in 2024 the Troops they were in during 2023 still have to be primary?? This seems odd.
Your council staff has access to the internal BSA workgroup. If they do not know how to change the primary registration for a Scout, they should ask for help there. Registrars from other councils will be able to help. Because we are volunteers and do not have access to registrar tools, we can’t provide assistance.
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Thanks all! This has been really helpful.
