How can we mark down the leadership our scouts are doing in the OA. I have a scout that is our chapter chief and I would like to make sure it is listed in his leadership.
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That is what Lodgemaster software is for. OA Leadership does has no impact on Scout Advancement which is the core purpose of Scoutbook.
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When will there be a bridge to Lodgemaster then? Many of these youth are doing more leadership in their lodge then most youth in a troop and they should be able to get credit for it.
What do you mean get credit? There have been some discussions with the LodgeMaster Volunteers but there are no plans at this time.
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They should be able to use Chapter Chief etc for rank advancement in my opinion. Like I said many of them are doing more leadership in the OA the boys in a troop. Even if they don’t get to use it for rank advancement leaders should at least be able to list it under their “Leadership” in scoutbook so everything they have done is in one location with one record of their scouting journey.
Mitchell,
Chapter Chief, etc. does not qualify for rank advancement in Scouts BSA. This is the life Position of Responsibility requirement:
- While a Star Scout, serve actively in your troop for six months in one or more of the following positions of responsibility (or carry out a Scoutmaster-approved leadership project to help the troop:
Scout troop. Patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader, senior patrol leader, troop guide, Order of the Arrow troop representative, den chief, scribe, librarian, historian, quartermaster, bugler, junior assistant Scoutmaster, chaplain aide, instructor, webmaster, or outdoor ethics guide.9
Venturing crew. President, vice president, secretary, treasurer, den chief, historian, guide, quartermaster, chaplain aide, or outdoor ethics guide.
Sea Scout ship. Boatswain, boatswain’s mate, purser, yeoman, storekeeper, crew leader, media specialist, specialist, den chief, or chaplain aide.
Lone Scout. Leadership responsibility in your school, religious organization, club, or elsewhere in your community.
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I understand that which is why I said above that “Even if they don’t get to use it for rank advancement leaders should at least be able to list it under their “Leadership” in scoutbook so everything they have done is in one location with one record of their scouting journey.” For example I have a youth who is APL in his patrol and is Chapter Chief. We should be able to at least list it in scoutbook as a record for what he has been doing
I can add the request to the backlog but I do not expect it to be scheduled for development any time in the foreseable future.
thank you. I understand but wish there was a way to track everything lol.
Speaking as a chapter adviser, the Lodgemaster interface is Byzantine at best. I’m sure it makes sense to those who’ve been using it for a while, but for many of us it’s a pain. Getting it to play nicely with Scoutbook is likely to get us something that’s more like what happened with training logs: a link to the LodgeMaster interface.
I would agree that having a true SSO interface to Scoutbook, my.scouting, LodgeMaster, discussions.scouting, and other BSA systems would be great. It does not, however, appear to have worked as planned. Even though I’m on a laptop as opposed to a mobile device, I typically have to log in to each of these systems separately, although there’s not currently a link between the credentials database for LodgeMaster and the one for my.scouting, so that’s not a surprise.
Putting aside the fact that the advancement requirements specifically identify unit-level positions that qualify, I’m personally torn about the idea considering leadership in the OA for advancement in the unit. I see the argument that the scout is getting good experience, assuming he or she is performing their duties to the best of their ability. In fact, that’s one of the things I “sell” about the OA: your scout/venturer/sea scout gets a chance to lead youth and adults from outside of his or her own “bubble”, learn from them about how other units implement the program, and test out his or her own ideas. That youth can then bring the best of those ideas “home” to his or her unit.
At the same time, as the hypothetical Scoutmaster/Adviser/Skipper I could see the difficulty in evaluating how well that youth performed his or her duties in terms of satisfying the requirement to “serve actively” in that role. Those unit-level leaders generally don’t see the day-to-day activity of the youth leaders in the chapter and/or lodge. They may not even be arrowmen themselves, and thus may not see the results of that leadership in terms of program implementation. I suppose one could defer that duty to the chapter or lodge adviser, who might themselves defer it to another adult who more closely advises the youth arrowman, but I’d be uncomfortable assuming that the expectations would necessarily be the same.
I get what you are saying about adult leadership not being in the OA or able to evaluate how the youth is doing. In my case I am a scoutmaster and a chapter advisor. I have watched these youth plan and run meetings, staff lodge events and run our districts camporee. I can tell you that they are doing more work and leadership then most of the youth in our troop. Take quartermaster for instance…usually ours are not doing that much.
Like I said, I’m on the fence. I’m an ASM, so I see the levels of effort put in for each “house”. Sometimes we have arrowmen who are killing it, other times, I want to say something like “Come on, y’all. The PL for our new scout patrol coulda figured this out by now…”.
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In the OA the Mantra is Unit first then Lodge. If you do not keep unit going there is no lodge. That is why OA leaderships counts for nothing other than lodge leadership, which is needed and great - but if the unit is lost there is no OA.
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I totally get that and agree. When you do have a great running unit and youth doing OA leadership you should be able to log and track that service/leadership.
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