Welcome! This forum has a treasure trove of great info – Scouters helping Scouters! Just a heads up, though - all content, information, and opinions shared on this forum are those of the author, not the BSA.
In an attempt to keep from highjacking a thread, I am creating a new post.
I just read a thread where the OP was dealing with a bug and was asked whether his council was set up to accept Online Registration for new youth and he said yes.
Can someone tell me more about this? I had no idea that there is online registration available. As far as I know, our council’s version is that we can go online to print off three copies of the paper form instead of having to have a triplicate application, either way, we fill it out with a pen and turn it in to the council office. This is for youth or adults.
How do we get our council to use online registration? I am a new Scoutmaster and have had a great deal of frustration dealing with many of our paper applications getting lost on someone’s desk and never getting into the system. When they don’t get lost, it takes weeks to have people actually get processed into my.scouting.
@AngelaKoch - since you are a k3…I would check the unit setup. I have to honestly admit that our pack has missed a number of prospects because neither the CC and COR are that in tune with the process. I am a k3 delegate so I am out of the direct loop and an tempted to turn it off for the pack.
The council and district volunteers and professional staff also need to be “in tune” and trained. I estimate my district may have had up to a hundred prospective members (youth and adults) lost in 2018 due to personnel turnovers (DE moved away, district chair and commissioner passed, a relatively new district membership chair.)
“Every Scout deserves a trained leader” also applies to volunteers in support roles. How to use tools requires training (or at least guides to read) in addition to basic position-specific training.
Agreed! I accidentally found two prospects from BeAScout because I was clicking through all the random menu options on my.scouting wondering what they were. The email I sent to the prospects sounded foolish because I couldn’t even explain how I had gotten their email addresses. I certainly hadn’t been told about the tools or how to use them, so I had no way of contacting them trough my.scouting. One of the prospects was more than 3 months old when I found it and we had only been a Troop for 4 months! Why BeaScout would be active without anyone monitoring it is beyond me! I took all the training that was required of me, and no where was BeAScout even mentioned.
Honestly, I am more concerned about having the ability to make it easier for my adult leaders to get processed. All year we have been talking about the need to make the applications available online. We have leaders who have had to fill out the paper application multiple times because of lost paperwork. All I have heard, all year, was that the BSA is not moving to online applications while it looks like it has actually been available since October! How that information gets lost instead of being widely disseminated is beyond me.
My council allows applications for both youth and adults to be scanned and e-mailed to the registrars provided there is money in the registration account to cover the fee. I would check with your registrars to see if this is an option.
The online registration system and paper youth application approval requirements are the same. There are a few others that can sign approval in the unit leader’s absence. I do not know if this approval method has been implemented in the online registration system.
Per the Registration Guidebook, July 2018, p. 22:
Youth Application Requirements
The official youth application, paper or online, is always required for registering a new youth. The application must include the following: …
Signature of the unit leader or designee (The designee can only be the executive officer/institutional head, chartered organization representative, or the committee chair if the unit leader is not available.) …
Youth Application Approval
The unit leader signature or online approval on a youth application or a unit charter renewal certifies that the member(s) meets all joining requirements and has parental/guardian consent.
