Recycling 

 Completed

As an employ of an organization that touts reduce, reuse, recycle it would be great if the national organization created a partnership with a recycling company. Many states provide free outdoor recycle bins, however finding the smaller version for your desk at no cost is impossible. As an employee of a large council I would like to see the vast quanities of paper we toss, put in a blue recycle can. So how do we make this happen?

Friends of Scouting  

 Completed

Many times we receive donations that have both the husband's and wife's names on the card. Something needs to be done so that both names can be printed on the pre-printed donation cards. Perhaps on the demographics screen a space could be made for both names. We get donors that are very adament about having both names on the card. Something needs to be done.

Exploring Post Internet Rechartering 

 Completed

Its been a long time coming, but Posts need the ability to renew online. Traditional programs have had this service going on three years I believe.

Exploring is the one program where all your Post Advisors will have access to the internet, even in rural areas (Police & Fire Posts), and be able to renew online. How much longer do our Posts need to wait for this most needed service.

Thanks...

Asking churches to do second offerings on behalf of Scouting 

 Completed

A district chair in our council had a wonderful idea that has been working really well. He has started a campaign to ask churches to do a second offering on behalf of scouting. At his church alone $865 was raised in new money just last month! 2 other churches are already on board to do the same thin6 in November. It is really helping us to raise the money we need in a down economy.

Note: Some churches are in the middle of their own campaigns for their 2010 budget but I have received 1 firm commitment from a church to do a second offering on Scout Sunday (February 7, 2010). I plan to use this with many other churches that day. The Methodist Church has been particularly responisive to this request.

I am attaching some materials a Senior District Executive, Mary Beth Wilfong, came up with to support this campaign.

Donor Designated Gifts to United Way 

 Completed

I know that donations made to the United Way and designated for BSA are not put into FOS - the donor gets a contribution statement from United Way - not us. Unfortunately, many of our donors don't understand why they can't pay their FOS pledge with their United Way gifts.

I'd love it if there was an "information only" field to get these folks into PAS so DE's have the information as to who has donated through UW and similar organizations. The gifts would not be posted to the GL as FOS income. No contribution statements would be issued. But - it would give us a more complete picture of our donors.

Training 

 Completed

An idea that was proposed to me at a recent commissioners meeting. With training becoming mandatory in the near future, the idea is to eliminate the "Trained" strip. Instead, make all unit position patches restricted. When someone completes their training, they are eligible for the patch. If they switch positions, then they need to be trained in their new position before receiving the position patch for their uniform.

Events Registration 

 Completed

It would be wonderful if the assistants could be cc'd on emails concerning events registration, i.e. Top Hands, National Meetings. This would help us and those we support be more organized.

New Funding when United Way goes away 

 Completed

Our council usually received about $98,000 each year from United Way (UW). Three days before Christmas 2006 I was called into UW office along with several other non profit agencies; our council was cut 50% for our 2007 allocation. We received same in 2008 and on April fools day 2009 the mayor walked into my office with letter stating that the council would no longer be receiving funds from UW. In three years we go from $98,000 to $0. But it was just not us; the following agencies have been totally cut: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, CASA, Campfire USA, Teen Shelter, Friendly Door senior center, and the Arc (Association of retarted citizens). In May 2009 we decided to see if the other agencies would be interested in starting our own "funding group". Well it worked! We now have a non profit group called Hands to Hands Community Fund. See our web site at www.handstohandsfund.org

We have no paid staff, offices, or building upkeep, and it is donor directed.

We have a very stong President, VP, Secretary, and Treasure two of which are on my council board.

We have hired a professional company to help us market our program and get our name out to public. All this marketing has been under written by some very generous donors.

We have very professional material and are making presentations to businesses and the funds are rolling in.

When thrown an obstacle such as this, we rallied together and are making a difference.

Be happy to visit with anyone about this.

Internet Tiger Advancement 

 Completed

I am getting reports from volunteers that Tiger Cub is not an option on internet advancement for those operating manually. Apparently Packmaster and other programs work fine, but I am told that there is no spot to manually enter a boy's date that he earned Tiger Cub. If so, can this be remedied?

Finance Impact Department Resources User ID's and Passwords 

 Completed

There are several online resources (websites) available until the Finance Impact Department Resource's heading. It would be great if the user id's and passwords were available either on MyBSA somewhere or on the main FID's webpage. I never can remember the user id's and passwords for all the different sites that the professionals have access to. If the information can be placed somewhere that is easy for us to fine, it would be very helpful.

Membership email reminders 

 Completed

This is submitted on behalf of the COR for four of my district's more than 200 units:

"Here is a possible suggestion. Since you have the boys' birthdays, can they send out automatic emails about once a month that tells the email recipient (COR) that certain individuals need to be transferred between units or something like that. If it were automated, it wouldn't create work for anyone in the scout office and you might see registrations/transfers occuring at the right time."

It could help us to retain youth who may be aging out of one program into another, and remind our CORs of their ongoing role in the management of unit membership. It would of course be relevant only to chartered organizations who sponsor more than one Scouting program, but this is a market segment that we want to support in any way possible. Is it desireable for his request to be accomplished?

General Ledger Detail Report 

 Completed

When running an account detail report from the General Ledger (#11 in reports), it would be helpful to hav a choice to run summary OR detail for Membership, Fundraising, Cash Receipts, and Cash Disbursement transactions. This feature is available in the Bank Reconciliation section, so implementing it in GL reports should be feasible.

Scoutstuff.org more user friendly 

 Completed

While I very much appreciate the improvement that has come from scoutstuff.org within the past few years I think it's time to take it one step further.

Would it be possible to allow a site-to-store order/pick-up option through scoutstuff.org?

I think this could be extremely useful for advancements.

In addition, I think the website can be slightly confusing, I think it needs to be a little more user friendly. It can be easy to find merchandise when you are just browsing but when you're looking for something specific it can be difficult. In addition, scoutstuff.org does not represent the full BSA Supply Catalog.

Why is it so hard to get training records for Volunteers? 

 Completed

We should be able to run training reports for all volunteers for a specific unit or district. It should list the leaders, their position, what training they have taken with the dates and then what training they need to become a trained leader. We have volunteers come in to our office on a weekly basis looking for this information and we are unable to give them useful reports. We either have to spend time printing person profiles for the whole unit (because this is the only way to get training with dates) or we try and run a Training Complete and a Training Not Complete reports. Trying to get those reports are very difficult to obtain. They either take hours to run or time out and you need to go back and request the same reports again and again, until they finally work. Who has the time for that, I know we don’t at our council. If you are lucky to get the reports they are not useful. They only list codes with no dates. The volunteer has no need to know all the codes our system uses and if no dates are listed what good are they to the volunteers anyway.
And, why doesn’t training have expiration dates? For example; we have a Scout Master that registered 10 years ago took all the training and was conceder trained back then. He has not been a leader for the last 8 years and then once again is called to be a Scout Master, he still shows as trained. Why? I know training has changed in the last 10 years. Another reason we should have expiration dates; we have people that show trained on the roster so you go and look at what training they have taken, now where does it show under the training tab any of the training required to be trained for that position but it stills shows them trained and no way to remove it.
Youth Protection should be required to be conceder trained? The tour permit requires leaders to have taken Youth Protection in the last two years; if it is required ever two years then it should expire automatically two years from the date taken and then send them a reminder to take it again if they still are a registered leader. It would be nice too if once you entered a new leader in the system that it generated a letter or e-mail (if entered) thanking and telling them the importance of being a trained leader and how to obtain such training’s. The system sends a thank you letter to all new Scout Parents, why can’t we do the same for registered leaders?
We put so much information in to ScoutNET but we have such a hard time getting it out, I have never seen a data base program with so little options for custom reports. It is so frustrating for us to have to tell the professionals no sorry we can’t do that or pull so many different reports and spend the time combining them in to what they want. I honestly don’t think our council uses one report straight out of the system. It is even more frustrating when you go to the training provided by the region and they tell you that we are not important enough to listen too. They only want to listen to the Scout Executive. When you go to these trainings it is a great opportunity for them to take back to National on how to improve the system from the people that work in it every day. Not be told to play Solitaire when the system is slow. (And yes that is exactly what they told us).

Registration data entry 

 Completed

When entering in youth applications, the address copies to the bottom/parent portion. That is very helpful, and it would be even more efficient if the e-mail address copied as well.

BSA Medical Plan 

 Completed

I was distressed to read the recent letter describing Benefit changes to the BSA medical plan for 2010. The letter basically states that we professionals who make healthy decisions and work hard to remain fit are going to be punished by the "many of us [who] are clinically overweight and/or have existing conditions. . . " If the BSA is serious about reducing its health care costs and more importantly is serious about living up to the Aims of scouting, than a wellness policy should be implemented to reward those meeting personal health goals. Many corporations have implemented this type of wellness program and demonstrated successes in encouraging healthier lifestyles and reducing costs. I can only hope that the recent health assessment is a step in that direction, if not shame on us.

Uniform spin cycle 

 Completed

Building on the idea of used uniforms, why not advertise for parents to turn in clean, old uniforms (in useable condition of course) that their child has outgrown to Scout shops for store credit? In turn, new parents (especially financially challenged ones) could provide their child with the required uniforming for less. The recycling of store credit vs. reduced uniform prices would still generate revenue while providing a much-needed service.Several parents new to Scouting have expressed an interest in this approach.

Relationships Resource for School Principals 

 Completed

So many school principals, whether new or experienced, simply don't know that Scouting is an educational resource for their students. In many schools, we're seen as "just another club" or someone else wanting access to their students for their activity. In order to stand apart from the rest, we should have a resource geared towards school administrators to educate them on the values of Scouting, the content and purposes of each of our programs (Cubs, Boy Scouts, Venturing, etc.), the benefits of Scouting (as determined in the Harris and other studies), and how we can have a partnership with the school. We have a lot of great resources out there, but one single resource to provide the schools would present a strong selling point and a door-opener to some strong potential. This can be further developed based on public and non-parochial private schools, Christian schools, military schools, etc.

Belt-Loop Packaging 

 Completed

The packaging for Cub Scout Belt-Loops needs to be redesigned.

I think it is inconvienent for a customer to be asked to cut their own Belt-Loops according to what they need.

At the very least, if the current idea of strips of 6 is kept the strips should be perferated in between each loop to eliminate the idea of hanging scissors on the shelf next to the Belt-Loops.

Organizational Trays for Customers in Scout Shops 

 Completed

Scout Shops need to be supplied with professional looking organizational trays for customers when they are shopping for advancements, i.e. Merit Badges, Pins, Pocket Certificates, etc.

The shopping baskets provided have holes which merchandise can easily slip through and isn't useful for these smaller items.

I've seen Scout Shops use ice cube tray's and egg cartons for this purpose but I think it's time for something better to promote uniformity and professionalism.

Errors on Scanned Applications 

 Completed

I would like to vote in favor of the "old" method of showing defective applications - that is - highlighted in pink once we go in to proof-read what has been scanned. Correcting the errors on the screen is far preferrable to entering manually, or rescanning. In this very large council with scanned batches that typically number 20 applications or more, making corrections on the screen would save a lot of time.

A Better Way to Get Boy Scouts Noticed! 

 Completed

When was the last time you saw a commercial during prime time on are regualar station about Boy Scouts? We need to advertise like Geico!! Use different aspects of Scouting during each commercial, Tigers, Cubs, Eagle, Venturing. Most youth don't even know what Venturing is or what it does, ages or that girls can join.

We need to advertise year around and especially during Back to School events and camp season.

I also never hear commmercials on the radio. What a better way to get our Brand out by having Eagle Scouts talk about what Scouting has done in their lives. Let boys of all ages and girls in Venturing get involved in getting the word out. The radio stations that cover everything from rock, country to classic, not just Radio Disney.

We are a Great Organization and we need to let the World know about it!

Scouts Ring Bell at the NYSE in 2010 

 Completed

I think it would be a great idea for Scouts to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on the Anniversary of Scouting in 2010. I am not sure how far in advance they reserve this honor but if we could secure a date within the Scouting Anniversary week, that would be ideal. This will help raise awareness and possibly bring in more financial support. What is more American than Scouting...

Jean's Day for United Way! 

 Completed

I think it was a great success for the United Way Campaign this past week.

I like the idea of being able to wear jeans! What a better way to so - a donation and a reward after (jeans).

The idea came up in my mind. We should be given an opportunity to purchase a "Friday - jean's day pass" for the week, for a minimum price of $2. Making it beneficial for the United Way campaign and adding fun to the work environment.

This idea gives people the opportunity to participate that didn't get a chance to do so.

Consolidated Den Leader Training 

 Completed

Currently there are 3 Den Leader training courses offered: Tiger, Cub, and Webelos. There is really only about 10 – 20 minutes worth of different materials across these trainings. Why not consolidate these into “Den Leader Training” and cover all levels? This would allow a leader to serve at any level without having to return for another training course, which they are unlikely to do anyway.