Please allow us to access Unit Meeting Info by a URL Feed. XML would be nice.
For example:
http://scouting.org/xml/unitmeetings/[council#] will give information like:
*Note: please replace scare brackets below with angle brackets.
[council number='047' name='Golden Empire Council'][district number='011' name='Iron Horse']
[unit type='troop' number='1']
[meeting place='LDS Church' street='100 Main St' city='Sacramento' state='CA' zip='95821' time='7pm' /]
[/unit]
[/district][/council]
Please make the URL extensible to add a district # and even a unit # to drill down to the information.
We already have ScoutNET designed to store this information. What's the point if nobody can access this information? It's meeting info that Councils are forced to then duplicate on their own webpages. Then when the unit's meeting info changes the DE has to change it in ScoutNET (no point currently in doing this) and then ask the webmaster to update it. This new idea would allow the DE to simply update the info in ScoutNET and then the change would be made across all systems that get meeting info from ScoutNET.
Councils could then make some really sweet (and up-to-date) unit maps using Google Maps.
Your zip code thingy at thescoutzone.org has major flaws for my district. Half the suburban city has zip 956** and the other half 957** so when a person puts in 95661 they get all of the Sacramento metropolitan area, but they don't get across the street in their own city. Plus the results offer little in the way of useful information (no address or time, but just unit numbers for a good portion of California?) and it's all textual. Why all text and no map? Please give us the requested feature and we can make our own maps with even more valuable features that National just doesn't have the time/resources/innovation to make. Example, make a "get directions to unit" link for each unit on the map.
See http://ironhorsebsa.org/councilmap to see some of these ideas in action, just it's not hooked up to the info in ScoutNET so only the Iron Horse district has much of anything. There's even a YouTube video in the bubble of one of the packs. And the DE's email address is in every bubble. And a Council logo that is clickable to the website. And a date when last updated.