What to do with new Scouts and Adults during the 2 month plus (it was about 2 months and 5 days, over 1/6th of the year) time from when we submitted our Charter until entered? We had the Scout and Scouter register online. They did so about 3 days after we submitted our charter. This went smoothly. They were in my.scouting membership and in Scoutbook. Things went well for the next 2 months. Once our Charter was processed, poof! They are gone.
As a new troop, we don’t want to put up any bureaucratic issues to lessen a family’s desire to join.
How should we have done it? Our CoR said we should have done paper forms, but how would that have helped? We need them in Scoutbook for advancement, meetings, communication, permission slips, RSVP, calendar, etc.
Matt,
I had a similar issue but with paper applications. I notified my district executive so he could make sure the registrars were aware of the new Scouts when the recharter was processed.
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I guess that would be it. If the recharter is so manual anyway, if the registrar was on top of it, they would process the recharter and add the nene people right then.
The only way paper apps could have helped is the registrar could have processed them right away and then also tucked them in with your recharter paperwork or some other stack to work after recharters. It depends on your registrar’s work process.
One challenge is you need to pay for them for 2020 (unless they registered after Jan 1, I guess). And you probably paid for recharter when you turned in your paperwork. It’s not a showstopper, but a detail to be worked out.
I guess the paper would be a reminder, but too bad it can’t stay all electronic.
Yep, it’s definitely an opportunity to improve. And I’m sure the paper apps aren’t fool-proof either. An organized registrar could probably handle the electronic apps.
That’s really a question for your local council as each has its own procedure and capacity for handling paperwork.
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Yes and no. With my.scouting, online registration, and Scoutbook, old local council procedures may need updating.
What is the model procedure? How should it work? Many don’t realize how it meshes.
Many of the past procedures assumed it wasn’t a big deal for a charter to linger 1 month and 3 days after the first of the year. Now, there are implications they may not realize like not being able to do online applications during that
time.
Matt
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No, it really shouldn’t shouldn’t be. Local council policies shouldn’t be overriding the national online registration system.
That’s nonsense.
That should be a question for the local council to ask national. How do we handle this, because our current system doesn’t work.
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Online applications only work for the current charter year. Your recharter packet deals with those folks you want on your new charter year. The problem is the overlap - recharter is turned in before the current charter year expires. So a person could register after recharter paperwork is done, but before it is processed. And there seems to be no built in red flag that a person has been registered, but is not listed in any place in the recharter packet. (The recharter packet has lists of continuing registrations, changes, and dropped.)
The work around for now seems to be to turn in a paper application for all those who register online after recharter has been turned in, but before recharter has posted. This paperwork needs to be marked as an addition to the recharter, so the registrar can process them together. And, yes, your recharter fee just went up.
Also, if you turn in a paper application after your recharter paperwork is done for registration in December, please add a note to also append it to the recharter paperwork. We had three scouts slip through the system - registered for 2 weeks of December and worked fine until recharter posted in February, when they disappeared. Took a bit to find out what happened, because I did not know the process.
@DougWright,
@Matt.Johnson can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s what he’s describing.
I think what happened is new scouts registering in January for the first time, as 2020 new members, were wiped from the roster when the registrar entered the recharter for 2020, because it essentially set them back to January 1st and deleted those that had registered online since then.
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Matt, I think there are two distinct scenarios here; both may have problems.
- Someone registers online in December after the recharter packet is complete. Unless the recharter packet gets a note about this, this membership ends when the packet is processed.
- Someone registers online in January/February before the recharter is processed. I have not seen this, so don’t know if there is a fail safe in the system because the person paid for the full year. I think there is something, because I have the impression that it is difficult to end a paid membership before it expires. Maybe a current registrar can give us details.
What happened was the recharter “electronic paperwork” was filed in late Nov. Due to how slow any application is processed, especially between recharter being mentioned and charters being processed, we had the Scout and Scouter register online. This was on Dec 1st, let’s say.
I guess we should just have contacted the registrar with printouts of the online info and said please add to the recharter in 2 months when it is done.
Even though you must turn in recharter paperwork in November or December, councils cannot start processing them until after the charter for the previous year expires. In a “normal” year, my council has setup all recharters to auto-process on the earliest possible day, typically around January 6.
This year, with the fee increase, my council required all units to submit paper recharter and had to process them manually. This allowed my council to subsidize the fee increase for any units that turned in their recharter paperwork prior to December 31, This has caused recharters to be delayed. The last I heard they expected to be finished last Friday. I do not know if they met that goal or not.
This is why whenver I have a new application turned in prior to my recharter being processed, I notify the registrar and DE so they can make sure the new Scout is not dropped.
So, I guess after all of my words and the back and forth, the lesson is this (@edavignon correct me if I am wrong):
To have the best luck with new applications after the recharter is submitted, but before it is processed, notify the registrar and DE about the new members. They can make sure they are not dropped. This notification will need to include providing funds if the unit doesn’t have available funds in a “unit account”.
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That is what has always worked for me. Hopefully the situation improves at some point in the future, but I don’t envision anything being done in the near future.
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@DougWright, I stand corrected.
Hi, I am a registrar in The Spirit of Adventure council. Here is what happens here (no 2 councils are the same, remember). We shut off allowing paper applications on December 1 and it is not turned back on until the charter has gone thru the final processing. I can’t remember if National shut it off earlier, but I am pretty sure once 12/31/2019 rolled around, online apps were shut off until the charter was posted by us… All 360+ units are to turn in there paperwork that supports their charters by 12/10. All charters expire on 12/31/2020. This year, because of the fee change, we couldn’t begin to process charters until Jan 6. Yes, units add people ALL the time after turning in their charters. We have a spreadsheet that tracks when the charters were turned in and all kinds of stuff. We tell everyone that once you turn in the charter just do paper. I take the paper applications, find the charter, write it on page 1 of the charter and clip it to the rest of the paperwork. If the charter paperwork hasn’t made it to the office, I put the stray bit of paper in the infamous red folder. Everyday, before my co-worker starts to do the processing, we go thru the red folder searching for paperwork that might have slipped by me and look for the matching charter. We did try to check the online system for folks who had units turn in the charter paperwork in October, but then added folks via online. It was a NIGHTMARE! We do check for paper applications that might have been processed after the turn in date that didn’t get matched to the charter. Slows things down.
Best bet? don’t do online after physically turning in the charter paperwork. Send it in with a bright colored note: PLEASE ADD TO CHARTER and add the date when you turned the paperwork into a DE or whoever. Keep a copy of the application for your records by the way. We ask that apps get scanned and emailed. See if the registrar in your council will allow that. If that is acceptable, again, include an approximate date it was turned in. Helps find the charter and get the paper in the same binder clip.
Oh and please don’t be THAT unit that ONLY turns in applications after hitting submit. Trust me it makes life so much harder for us and for you…
not sure how much this helps, but it might shed a bit of light on a convoluted painful process.
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Could you clarify what you mean by this?
Thank you! Having some insight into the process (even if for only one council) helps.
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