They didn’t. Oops, don’t. Still.
Neither one.
My council: WLACC requires it to be done yearly:
This is because California state law states it must be done yearly:
Sources:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1432
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I received a warning that my YPT was expiring the last two times this occurred. But then I keep my BSA profile up-to-date.
As a council/communication person I have observed there are people that do not have email or do not read email. In my district I have members that only read text messages on their phones. I have at least one that uses his wife email on my.Scouting Tools. There are also adult membership who do not own or use computers and smart phones.
Email security programs now may require users to unblock sender addresses. So this issue may be one that BSA cannot fix, but one the member may need to fix on their communications devise.
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Here is a list of functional roles that can be assigned for our district.
Also I am an assistant District commissioner and have 5 units assigned to me. I have a visit with each one monthly, even if it is just an email to see how they are doing. Also do a detailed assessment on each one annually. I can say that the commissioner corps has been highly underused for some time. Until I started with my district we didn’t really do much. We are starting to build it back up.
I suspect you also need to be registered as a unit commissioner.
Actually no you don’t. Only if you are trying to get the Unit commissioner awards. Really I am only assigned units until we get enough commissioners. I only assign my commissioners 2 units so that they can provide better service to them and that is the ultimate goal for all of our units.
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My district has a district commissioner doing unit commissioner work.
I think I am taking a broader picture than you are. I am thinking about access to more than one tool. Unit commissioner and roundtable commissioner (and an Exploring district service team member) have different roles, The district commissioner is a key-3 leader a usually given access to all tools. However I can see a tool developer forgetting to include access for assistant district commissioners now and in the future.
So each level has the tools from the levels below (commissioner tools) plus their own. Assistant has the same tools as the district commissioner. As far as Key 3 they do not have the same tools in the roster. I’m not sure what the differences are between the unit commissioner and the roundtable commissioner. My guess would be that the unit commissioner doesn’t have the roundtable tools, but I don’t know for sure.
I was thinking about other tools, for example Training Manager, and perhaps others in the future, not just Commissioner Tools.
It is more likely that roundtable commissioner has fewer tools than the unit commissioner.
I suspect Exploring data may still be in a separate database. I believe some tool integration is going on now or planned for the future.
Yes, if you are luck enough to happen to get the one single email BSA (maybe) sends out, that’s great. i keep my profile updated and, at best, my YPT alerts are hit and miss. Same for many that I know who are tech savvy and keep things updated.
An organization that wants to keep it’s membership should be actively doing everything in their power to alert people. As I said, multiple emails. Alerts in SB, etc. Not just a single email that may well be lost or never even sent.
I want “we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty” level of contact attempts.
I’m a Scoutmaster and a District Advancement Chair.
Per GTA the council Advancement Committee is responsible for approving MBCs. In my council, we have 7 districts. The council committee has delegated MBC approval to the individual District Advancement Chairs who make up the committee. I used to have a district-level list because I kept and produced the list. I use the list when I’m asked to complete the annual recharter for MBC registrations. Our council registrar used to have 2 or 3 paid assistants. Today it’s just her and she is doing more than she ever did before.
Having a list of what badges a counselor teaches helps with managing council limitations on the number of badges a single counselor can teach. When someone wants to counsel 30, 40 or more badges or even just every Eagle Badge, that becomes a situation that is about the adult, not about providing quality scouting to the youth. There are exceptions, but in general, the thought stands. This sort by person list is also invaluable with the re-charter.
As a Scoutmaster, I’d love to have a list of who in my unit is a MBC and what badges they counsel. It’s hard enough to encourage Scouts to interact with live adults vs online classes for badges. Being able to point them to an adult who they already know would be helpful. Many Troops try to cover many of the badges ‘in-house’. Is that good or bad, who knows, but it simply is. Having an accurate, up-to-date list at the unit level of registered and approved counselors would be very helpful.
The statement that Scoutbook is a Unit tool is wrong. Scoutbook is a BSA tool that focuses on units and doesn’t support the needs of other registered volunteer leaders at other levels. That in-tern does not help us to support the units. The fact that these requests come up all of the time on these forums is proof that there is a need. I find it strange that there is a reservation to give me access to a list of data that I approved in the first palce.
You can look up who counsels what badge in Scoutbook. Yes, you have to “back calculate” who is in your unit, but it can be done. When a Scout comes to you after deciding what badge they want to work on, it is very easy to see if a MBC is in your unit.
What we’ve done for this is to coordinate on our end with adults in the troop to tell our MBC coordinator (currently me) that they want to serve, or are currently serving, as a MBC, and for which badges. It’s time-consuming, but feasible, to verify the current MBCs via the Scoutbook listing. I keep a Google sheet of names and emails that is available to our unit leaders of who affiliated with our unit is currently (at least as of the last verification date) a MBC for which badges.
In exchange for working with us, the MBC coordinator assists the counselors by facilitating the prospective MBCs registration and periodically checks (generally quarterly in my case) to make sure that the MBC role hasn’t “fallen off” of the adult’s registration. We’ve discovered several over the year whose MBC role was unintentionally dropped when the council uploaded a new list to Scoutbook, and reached out to the council to get that corrected.
A unit leader can also see adults in their unit that are merit badge counselors by going to their Roster in Scoutbook and selecting Print Roster.
MBC list for councils and districts information is here:
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Hi James- did you share your project ever? I’m the ‘webmaster’ for my daughter’s troop (681, Seattle), and we were just debating just HOW we could get a reasonable list of MB counselors. And we were having difficulty obtaining one. Example: a scout was looking for a counselor for “Rowing” but coming up blank. In any case, I’d be interested in using the tool you’ve developed. (we often use google-drive and sheets…). Thanks! John Kushleika, johnkush@msn.com
Your district or council advancement chair should provide one to the SM. The lists are then used by the SM when meeting with a Scout after a Scout indicates they wish to work on a particular badge.
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As @Matt.Johnson mentioned, the district or council advancement committee is the place to go. Does your council use Scoutbook? That’s the simplest method currently available. If not, you may have to get info from the advancement committee.
My tool really isn’t for individual units (that’s what Scoutbook is for). My tool is for district and council advancement folks to track people.
@JohnKushleika Are the leaders in your daughter’s troop not able to get some Rowing MBCs by using the MBC Counselor List search tool in Scoutbook?
I got a hit in 98075 (admittedly the far side of Bellvue from Seattle proper) for a Rowing MB counselor, and I’m outside of Chief Seattle Council. So, unless folks there have their visibility set to Worldwide, I won’t see them at all.
It sounds like they ARE able to do that… it’s just difficult. And I don’t think all the scouts know to look there. Thanks for the reply!
John
