I have a new youth with a birthdate of 12/17/2011. When I attempt to add him to the new charter, I get the error “Invalid age for new position”
He’s going to be 11 in a few days, he’s in 5th grade, and he will cross over in the spring.
I am also getting this error for existing scouts who are the same age and grade.
Why is this error occurring?
We’ve seen that those are warnings that allow you to proceed for existing scouts. Is it different for the new scout? If so, you may have to send that to you Council to add them outside of recharter.
Wonder what the criteria is for “invalid age”. Sounds like a bug in the system
No, National says new 11 yr olds are supposed to join a troop, rather than pack. That’s not to say that councils can override it.
But I agree the warnings on existing scouts are unnecessary.
No. Sorry. That makes no sense. This child is in 5th grade. He’s the same age as all of his friends who have been in Scouts since Lions. All of them have either just turned 11, or are about to. He joined because of his friends, and will cross over in March. Yes, 11 year olds CAN join a troop, but that is not a hard rule. If the system popped up a warning, and prompted you to make sure, I would understand that. But to prevent a legitimate registration is a poor system design.
I understand the situation and don’t necessarily disagree with you. If the system throws an error that prevents you from proceeding, your path forward is via your council.
This may perhaps be what prompts the warning
How old (or young) can a youth be to join Scouting? | Boy Scouts of America.
Yep. First sentence.
Cub Scouting is for youth in kindergarten through fifth grade.
The system should not prevent you from entering a new scout.
@MichaelJohn - i get that but look at the Scouts joining ages. It makes me think they have that as a limiter.
There is a weird quirk in joining where a scout can join at age 11 OR if they earned arrow of light. My son fell into that where he was not 11 yet when he crossed over, but had earned arrow of light in webelos. I bet council could help you out with this, since they don’t want to lose scouts.
We had the same problem. It requires a paper application and your council can put the child in the pack. The online system does not make allowances for kids who started school late or were retained before starting scouting. ANY 5th grader can be in the pack regardless of age (according to my council)
I had this exact same problem. I let my DE know and it’s been corrected. It’s a bug in the system I believe for AoLs th turn 11 before the new year when you are rechartering.
In October our pack had a fifth grader parent fill out an online application and the boy was assigned to our troop. The troop had to transfer him to our pack and emailed me his details. I believe the council had to process the transfer. Although he was successfully transferred to our pack and was on our roster in my.scouting.org, he never appeared on Scoutbook. Since his name never appeared on Scoutbook, I had to add him myself.
@LINDAFARRAG I would guess that scout has a duplicate account now, and you can’t approve advancement. We can check if you provide their bsa member number.
Hello
I am sorry for my late response.
(Name removed by moderator)'s member id is 14568099. I compared the charter draft and the final charter and don’t see a duplication but perhaps this info is only coming from my.scouting.org.
Thank you for your email.
YIS
Jane
Now that the problem has been identified, ie 10.5 year olds are being blocked from registering on line as a new Scout into a Pack. How does one make a request to have it changed? Asking the question is fine, but then allowing it to go through is necessary.
@ConstanceKnie Do you have a screenshot of a 10.5 yr old being prevented from joining a pack? I’ve never heard of that being the case.
Yeah in recharter there is a warning but it allows you to proceed
Why? This is not the rules. A system is supposed to reduce the amount of manual work required. These arbitrary system design features create manual work. A LOT of it.
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