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Never understood Arrow Points. When a Cub earns all he can get, in order to display them proudly at a Pack Meeting he has to keep his uniform shirt untucked. The leaders all tell him to tuck in his shirt and then he has to hide all of his Arrow Points. I'm sure we're smart enough as an organization to fix that one.
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Currently if a member in a unit needs to replace a membership card, I can go into the unit, highlight their name, and print a card. Easy.
If a non-unit registrant, such as a District Chairman, needs to replace his/her card, I must go into the Registration Print Que and go through the many steps needed to find that individual in order to print a card. Not so easy.
A PRINT CARD option on the person record would eliminate all of these extra steps. This would also show me which position their primary registration is in the event that they wear more than one hat.
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National and Region should be able to track the following and share it with councils monthly on MyBSA: the number of Family FOS gifts, the percentage of families giving, and what the average gift is. This info has been helpful for our council. We know what our numbers are but it would be helpful to compare to councils our size. But the Region and National does not track this info down. I checked already.
Something like this is available for membership on MyBSA why not FOS?
A council could see how well another council is doing in Family FOS and call them up for ideas on how to improve.
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I don’t think it is a good security item that passwords are needed to be given to anyone from the end-user for their assistance when there is a problem, the computer security community (outside of scouting) has spent years telling users that they should never have to give out their passwords. However I have been told (by the help desk) that we have a system that for them to be helped requires us to ask for a password. We are trying to instill confidence in our security procedures for personal information and then have a policy such as this? For good security the Help Desk and/or the person at the local council should not have to ask for a password from a volunteer for trouble shooting an online service center (Internet Advancement, Internet Recharter) issue.
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Monmouth Council has developed several sources of sustainable and diversified revenue through innovative use of the council's assets. In the Scout Service Center's back space, the council has partnered with Garden State Rocks, an indoor state-of-the-art rock climbing center and has a 5 year lease. The council also leases office space at the Service Center. Through the camp properties the council has several sources of diversified revenue from leases, including a laser tag business operation, a new cross-country camp for middle school-aged youth, and a hunting club. Through these partnerships and sources, the council adds over $50,000 to the Operating budget each year.
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How about the ablitity to send out texts to people the same way mass email is an option. More and more texting is used. Another tool to reach those that use Texting.
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As we use mobile devices to access the internet, mobile website options would be good to be able to access and view the various websites.
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If you look on the old uniform, there was a patch that said Boy Scouts of America. It has since been replaced with glued on letters. These letters begin to fall off after awhile. I think we should return to having the Boy Scouts of America placed on a embroidered patch that will last. It looks horrible when you put on a shirt that says Boy cout of America.
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Would it be possible to have prior year total on a prospect list? There are many times when my District Executives are looking to wrap a campaign and need a list of their unworked prospects and giving history. At this time they have to go through the list and add up last years giving history total. It would really help them to have that amount already on the list.
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Unfortunately, the Adventure Base 100 traveling exhibit will not be stopping in our council. However, it will be traveling through our council twice. Our folks are disappointed about it not being able to stop here, but understand the scheduling and time constraints involved. They are hoping though that it might be possible to get the schedule of when the exhibit will be driving through our council and its route so that we could provide the opportunity to our scouts and scouters to fill various highway overpasses so that they can see it go by and wave. This could be an exciting opportunity for scouts across the country in other areas where the exhibit will be unable to stop.
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The Youth Membership Application asks for the School's name. I do not know of a place where this information can be manually entered into Scoutnet.
Recently, one of my District Executives asked me for a breakdown of his units, by school / school distrist.
I think it is very important information and can be helpful in many ways, especially recruiting and FOS.
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The incompatability with Internet Explorer v. 8.0 needs to be addressed. When purchasing new computers it will be difficult to downgrade the browser to a prior version that was never installed in the first place. That puts us in the position of retaining old, outdated computers in order to maintain compatability with BSA software. Not the best solution....
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As a Venturer, I promise to
do my duty to God and
help strengthen America,
to help others, and
to seek truth, fairness, and
adventure in the world.
There is something odd about those last two lines. In our other Scouting Oaths and Laws, we promise to guide our actions in certain ways. In these two lines we are expecting the rest of the world to act in certain ways; to be truthful and fair. News Flash! The world is not fair and often folks are not tuthful. We have no control over how the rest of the world acts. The oath should be focused on what we can control, our own behavior. I suggest changing the oath to read:
'to be truthful and fair and to seek adventure in the world'.
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There are great resources and training put into the development, retention, and growth of our executive staff yet there is very little for local council support staff.
In every local council the support staff play a key role in the success of a council. Executives come and go but it seems that support staff have a much longer tenure in their position and interact with volunteers from all over. A high performing council has a strong executive staff and support staff. In larger council's the office manager who oversees the support staff may have the largest number of direct reports but has little or no BSA leadership or management training. Although you can send an office manager to FTSLO or PM this seems like success by accident and not by design.
Most executives do not have experience managing support staff until they become Scout Executive. How to effectively manage support staff, proper support staff flow chart, and best practices are currently no where in our Talent Management system.
Develop a training track for support staff that would include job skill development such as use of MS Outlook and Office, customer service, the role of district executives and basic district and council operations.
Something that would give local councils a way to improve and build a high performing support staff, including best practices from local councils. A tool for local councils to evaluate the structure of their support staff to evaluate effeciency, mode, and performance.
A first generation of this could be as simple as an on-line training video for support staff on basic district and council operations and customer service.
Training for FTSEO and Senior Leadership that talks about support staff managment and development. Right now we are not successful with half of our staff by design, we are perhaps successful by accident. A design for success with our support staff who are the backbone of our organization.
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When entering/creating a new record for a leader (or youth) there is no field to enter the cell phone number on the screen. In order to add the cell phone number you must get to the point where you can 'maintain person' and then go through the steps needed to add a "mobile" number. Could a cell phone number field be added to the screen? The phone number field on the app could even take the same format as the email addresses.
Also, when an email address is entered, could it default to primary? Often I have to go in to the record and mark the email address as primary before I can proceed.
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I've noticed that there is a distinct lack of mention of Varsity program. Just here in the Ideas site alone there isn't a category for it. To my knowledge there hasn't been any recent literature or training to support it. Maybe revamp it to make it more appealing to the youth:
- Triathlons
- Cross Country Races
- Mountain Man competitions
- BMX and/or skateboarding
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Training Completed/Training Not Completed Reports Yes, if these reports had email addresses we could more easily contact people et cetera. In addition, this could be one way of getting email addresses into the council system without having our people manually entering in data, which consumes so much valuable time.
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Technology series merit badges . Also, make this a whole group, like the citizenship group.
Scouting Heritage Merit Badge. Studying history of our organization will develop greater meaning and appreciation for those who are interested.
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On-line tour permits have been a welcome addition, but why are leaders able to submit their tour permits without having Youth Protection and Hazardous Weather training?
We get a lot of tour permits without this information and we are left to follow-up and resolve these issues immediately, because after all tour permits generally aren't submitted in a timely manner.
Can we change the on-line tour permit program to not allow tour permits with missing information be submitted?
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There is a trend w/ companies adopting a "Green Friday" policy that would make sense for the BSA, too. For Green Friday, the company closes on selected Fridays throughout the year to conserve resources. During the designated Green Friday weeks, employees are expected to complete the week's work in four days. This gives employees several three-day weekends that they wouldn't otherwise have.
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There are a number of people making suggestions for things they would like to see added to the unit roster list. I on the other hand find that many times I wish it had less.
With Youth Protection concerns and Identity Theft becoming such prevalent issues today, our Council has had to set up guidlines on when a unit roster can be given. This has been a challenge since mush of the data it contains isn't sensitive at all, and is needed in so many ways. To resolve this issue, it would be very helpful if we had a selection screen to tag what data we do or don't want included on a Unit Roster based on what it is needed for (with the default set to produce the roster as it is now). Examples include:
Omitting addresses, phone numbers, and/or birthdates.
Including email addresses and/or trainings.
Selecting only Tiger Cubs in a Cub Pack, or Life Scouts in a Troop.
And many, many more...
One size rarely fits all, and with many other reports permitting us to pick and choose what they contain, it would be very useful if the Unit Roster could be tailored to offer a similar custom fit.
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This is not a high priority item except for when you are the employee just hired and you have no checklist who to call to get set up correctly. A centralized tool with staff assigned for each process in place would help make sure the employee's transition is smooth. This centralized orientation system needs to be in the form of a welcome packet with forms, checklist, roster of who to contact, explanation of benefits; such as this position warrants this type of car and you are eligible for this size of rental car. A copy of employee reimbursement manual, the position profile, org chart, etc. The orientation staff assigned need to be trained and need to know this orientation is part of their duties. The employee needs a mentor or someone assigned to help them through the process.
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It would be create if you could search through your incidents for the answer you got before. I look and there is no history under my incidents
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If we're supposed to be turning out the best of the best as Eagle Scouts, can anyone tell me why Scholarship Merit Badge and Public Speaking Merit Badges are not required for Eagle rank?
Scholarship goes without saying. An Eagle Scout should be a decent student who works hard in school. To not make it required suggests that the Organization doesn't value good scholarship in our youth. If you don't do well in school, don't worry, you can still be an Eagle Scout.
Public Speaking should at least be optionally required with something else. How many Eagle Ceremonies have you been to where the new Eagle Scout got up to speak and had no idea what to say, or how to properly present himself? I'm not saying we can create the perfect public speaker, but we should encourage our young men to learn the basics of talking to groups. It's a skill that will carry on with them their whole lives.
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I believe a lot of our issues could be solved if we teach volunteers how to identify, recruit and train other volunteers. Part of the process should include recognition/incentives (I know that we have a recruiter patch already-but the following idea goes a little further). In our council, we are thinking about an experimental knot to provide recognition for volunteers that distinguish themselves in recruiting and to have a little fun in the process. Here's the idea:
The Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot
The Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot is awarded to Scouters that distinguish themselves in the area of recruiting and training new adult volunteers at the unit, district, and council level. The award consists of a figure of eight knot on a red background. The knot and border will be white, silver, or gold depending on the number of volunteers recruited.
Qualifications
A registered Scouter may earn the Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot by identifying, recruiting, and training three or more adult volunteers over a 12 month period. New recruits must have been approved by the appropriate individual(s) prior to being recruited, must accept an assignment to a committee and agree to serve at least 12 consecutive months, and must complete training for their position.
Unit Level Volunteers All unit level volunteers must be approved by the unit committee and chartering organization.
District Level Volunteers Approved by the district nominating committee and district chairman or district commissioner.
Council Level Volunteers Approved by the committee chair and vice-president for committee members. In the case of board members, individuals must be approved by the council nominating committee and council key 3 and must be elected by the current board.
Award Levels
White Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging three volunteers in a 12 month period.
Silver Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging five volunteers in a 12 month period.
Gold Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging seven volunteers in a 12 month period.
Each knot award will also include a framed certificate.
The Scout Executive will review and approve all applications and personally present the award at an appropriate occasion.
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