I’m trying to find information on Explorer Posts in our area and the search options are 10 miles or 20 miles. We’re on the edge of our council and I know there were a lot of other ones on the list from our council that I’m not able to find online. In BeAScout, if I look for Sea Scouts, it pops up a note that there aren’t any within my selected area and shows me everything within 50 miles. But since there are multiple Fire Explorer Posts near me, I can’t trigger that. Is there any other way to expand the search?
I wouldn’t personally want to travel more than 20 miles, but families drive that far for their travel sports all the time and career exploration and that line on the college application is something that might motivate families, so I want to make sure our families know that Explorers is more than just Fire.
I just had what I thought was a brilliant idea. None of the posts less than 10 miles from me accept online applications so I checked that box and it DID give me the “here are some units within 50 miles” page.
Unfortunately, it looks like there are only 5 units within 50 miles of me that accept online applications, and none of them are for the more unusual career tracks.
@ChristyDryden - was there some technical issue you were looking to solve…
Is there any way within BeAScout to find units more than 20 miles away? There needs to be.
That is a Question for your Council - there is no one on forums for that - Council can send in a MemberCare Ticket
Not ideal, but you could enter a different zip code.
True.
I wish there was a better solution, though. It’s not uncommon for people to post in the Facebook groups about how they feel trapped in their dysfunctional unit because “There’s only one pack/troop in my area” and for some of them, I’m guessing that if they could see just a little bit farther, they would have options. I’ll suggest the zip code trick to them, but for everyone who posts there’s probably someone with the same problem who isn’t on Facebook.
Thanks.
I don’t disagree. However, only your council professional staff can submit the change requests to IT.
I’ll reach out to them
Christy, only those Exploring units (Post or Club) that set up their unit Pin will show up in joinexploring.org (the Exploring equivalent to beascout (which forwards Exploring inquiries to joinexploring.org). Any commissioner, or other volunteer with appropriate access to the Roster Tool in my.scouting can run a report that will show all Exploring units in your council. If someone on your council staff wants a list of Exploring units in adjacent councils, they can contact me at jeff.schweiger@scouting.org or exploringmarketing@exploring.org.
I think what she is saying is that for potential new members, having the ability to see more units in a wider area would be helpful.
Thanks for trying to help clarify my point!
I did manage to dig around and find our council’s page of exploring posts - but I only knew to do that because I already knew the posts existed. Anyone not already affiliated with scouts and hearing about these things at the fall kick-off would assume that whatever shows up in the list is what the options are.
We have a new staff member working specifically on Explorers this year, so I’ll follow up with him about this issue
This is actually easy to do, if you know how. And this works for all unit types, but I’ll stick with Exploring for this example given OP’s topic.
Here’s an example link for an Exploring Post (and Clubs) search:
https://joinexploring.org/list/?zip=90210&program[0]=post&program[1]=club&miles=20
All you need to do is change the URL to have a different number of miles. For example:
https://joinexploring.org/list/?zip=90210&program[0]=post&program[1]=club&miles=150
That would give you all Exploring Posts (and Clubs) within 150 miles, up to a hard limit of 199 hits.
That is amazing!
I was a bit confused at first that it was showing me posts in California, then I saw the zip code it was using as its center. And literally LOL. I’m guessing we must be roughly the same age…
If I need to use an example zipcode, I almost always go with 90210 (a TV show that I never watched, but remember the ads for) or 60652 (Scruff McGruff’s zipcode).
Christy, please invite your new Exploring staff member to attend the monthly Exploring Live Hours, Exploring Live Hour - Exploring.org .
I agree. The points I was trying to make were (1) the units have to activate their unit pins in order to show up on the zip code search (example, I have 18 Exploring units in my council and only 12 show up on the joinexploring.org site). (2) There is a report on my.scouting via the Roster tool that will list Exploring units if you have the correct access. To do more than one council’s units required a greater than council level access (which I have as a National level volunteer).
