You become “invisible” as a MBC as soon as your YPT expires. At least that’s been my experience. If you have a counter example, I’d be interested to see it.
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I’m REALLY confident that it’s plural.
For districts, you have to be registered in multiple districts and then SB will allow you to pick one or more of them.
NP, we all make mistakes.
Do we know when “the system” (whatever the current one is) will allow councils to propagate this information from the “white sheet” into SB?
As it stands now, there’s no place for the council to input the info on units or districts that appears on the MBC application. At least that’s my understanding.
The only system the BSA has to store the MBC’s desired visibility is Scoutbook. ScoutNET has a check box for Troop Only but no way to specific WHICH troop so it is not useable. This is why MBCs need to set their own listing preference in Scoutbook.
Trying to keep 3 databases in sync can be pragmatic especially when data can be entered in multiple databases. The ideal solution is to eliminate the duplicate databases and the necessity for a sync at all. The BSA is hoping to ‘sunset’ ScoutNET by the end of the year or shortly after. That should resolve a lot of the issues you are seeing.
Position training as in Den Leader, Cubmaster, committee member, Scoutmaster, etc.
MBCs must list their qualifications to which some district or council volunteer (with a snazzy made-up title that BSA doesn’t use) approves their application.
That whole counselor approval process is pencil whipped.
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Agreed. There should be only 1 DB. If that’s not possible, there should be a single “source of record” and everyone else PULLS from that. In other words, people shouldn’t edit info in SB if ScoutNet is the “source of record”.
It’s crazy to me to think that the YPT and ScoutNet records are not the same.
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And my question was when will “the system” (whatever that eventually is) allow councils to propagate the info already included on the white sheet so that people don’t have to navigate the nearly impossible maze of menus in SB to figure out where to set their visibility. Which, BTW, we don’t ever tell them they need to do and we already asked them for this info on the registration form.
Again, my goal is to make being a MBC (or a volunteer in general) as frictionless as possible. BSA seems to have the opposite goal, to put as many barriers up as possible.
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There is MBC training as well. You specifically said mandatory training for all positions. I rashly assumed you meant all positions, of which MBC is one.
I’m sure many councils pencil whip approvals for all sorts of district and council positions. MBC is definitely one that gets overlooked frequently. In our council we attempt to vet those badges that seem most important while letting others (e.g. “reading”) slide a bit.
GtA 7.0.1.1 says “People serving as merit badge counselors must maintain registration with the Boy Scouts of America as merit badge counselors and be approved by their local council advancement committee for each of their badges.”
I assume then that you consider Council Advancement Committee Member a “snazzy made-up title that BSA doesn’t use”? What would you have BSA call them then?
District Merit Badge “Dean”.
I know one such “dean” and they don’t have a clue.
So do you just object to the word “dean”? Should they call them “head counselor” instead?
GtA 7.0.2.1 “It is the responsibility of the council advancement committee to maintain a current list of registered and approved counselors, although this may be delegated to districts. To get started, the council advancement committee should consider organizing the badges into logical groups, such as business and industry, natural science, communications, and public service, and recruiting a head counselor for each group.”
Or are you referring to the ability of the council to delegate the management of MBC lists to someone on the district level? What would you call this person or persons since BSA doesn’t name them anything in particular?
GtA 7.0.1.4: “The council advancement committee is responsible for approval of all merit badge counselors before they provide services, although it is acceptable to delegate authority for this function to districts.”
I’ll grant you that many of the volunteers (and professionals) in Scouting are clueless. I’ve dealt with many on both sides of the aisle. I don’t think calling them “dean” or “coordinator” or whatever is the biggest problem we have. I see getting quality people as the goal, no matter what title you give them.
BSA has titles, position codes, use them.
If BSA doesn’t have a title/code, people should not make one up.
Here, here.
Case in point: Your personal struggle to get access to a list of MBCs. If you are authorized it should not take brain surgery, not require a rocket scientist to grant you access.
It’s mind-numbing. It doesn’t have to be this hard, we should be enabling volunteers, not disabling them.
Ok, but “member at large of the district advancement and recognition committee with responsibility to coordinate merit badge counselors” is a bit of a mouthful. Can we at least shorten it to MALOTDAARCWRTCMBC? Or maybe merit badge counselor coordinator?
Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with “making up” names for people’s functional positions. We do it all the time since there are very few official “positions” on the district committee. In fact, the list of registration codes for district members is quite short. Basically there is the district chair, district commissioner, and everyone else is a “district member at large”.
I think it’s clear that we agree on making things as frictionless as possible for the volunteers. They are, after all, the stakeholders in the organization and the ones paying the salaries of the professionals. Without the volunteers the organization would cease to exist.
There it is! District Member At Large.
Commissioner Service is just that, service. They serve the Scouters in units in their area of responsibility. They should be regularly reaching out to unit Key 3 and communicating the resources they bring to the effort.
One doesn’t need a special title for that.
BSAs current commissioner corps is in dire need of getting back to basics. I’ve met just one in 10 years who actually came close to performing the role specified in commissioner training.
Saying MAL doesn’t help. You then have to explain what your specific area is (membership, finance, advancement, etc.). It’s much easier to say “district advancement chair”, “district membership chair”, “Eagle coordinator”, or “merit badge counselor coordinator”, etc. There’s nothing wrong with describing your position.
You are doing better than me. I’ve gone 25 years without a visit from a commissioner, much less anyone actually performing the role specified.
111 years and as an organization we don’t have functional titles.
Those are more perfect!
I can feel your pain.
I did meet a “Merit Badge Dean” who was also a troop committee chair. A long time chair. Along with the Scoutmaster they had no clue that the unit’s ASM could not sit on BORs as they had been - for over a decade.
Surely a place and situation for a skilled commissioner.
That “dean” didn’t have access to the current MBC list…
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In many councils ypt is only valid for 1 year to comply with state law. I think that is why they said that is expires each year.
From BSA’s perspective YPT is good for 2 years. I’d be interested in seeing some state law that says a Boy Scout leader has to take BSA YPT annually. Can you provide a link?
Doh! How were they expected to do their job!!!
