Archive for Unit Functions and Guidance

No More YPT Hassles

Like most other things in adult life, paperwork always seems to be what ‘gets in the way’ – and when it comes to recharter or wring-out, encouraging well-intentioned and actively serving adults to renew their YPT training used to be arduous.

But in 2015, YPT management is much easier due to the new Scouting Tools:

1) REPORTING: Unit Leaders (Key-3 and their Commissioner) can now run a report that shows when everyone’s YPT will expire. Check out my earlier blog on exactly how to run the report.

But there are two other big advancements (pun intended) worth noting:

2) NOTIFICATIONS: Any adult whose my.Scouting.org account has their email address registered will be notified when their YPT is about to expire. So the easiest thing that a leader can do is print out the email roster for their unit from Scouting.org and ensure that everyone has an email address registered in the system.

So, now both the unit leaders and the adults have multiple ways to find out if their YPT is ready to expire. And if the adult takes the online YPT training, it will automatically update in the system. But what about those who take YPT in-person? You folks get good news too!

3) TRAINING UPDATES can now be done by your unit key 3 – they can add training to any of their adults’ records, if the adults bring proof of participation.

How to Update Someone’s Training Record

– Log in in http://my.scouting.org as one of the Unit Key-3 or as a Unit Commissioner

– Go to Training Manager on the upper-left corner’s pull down list of Scouting Tools

– Look on the top of the right-pane of the screen and click on the small certificate with a green add symbol (the leftist most icon of the three).

– On the Add Training screen are three pull-down options:

  • Program – Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, Venturing and Other (e.g. YPT)
  • Course – pull down and search for the course that the adult showed proof of attending
  • Date – what was the completion date of the course

– With the class information entered, you can add one or more adults.

  • For YPT, you’ll likely only have one adult to enter
  • If you are an instructor, you can enter several participants at one time

– And click [SUBMIT]

You’re done!!  Note, even as a Key-3 leader or Commissioner, you cannot enter information about your own training. A Scout is trustworthy, but … 🙂

Hope this was helpful,

November is time for Wring-Out !!

It used to be that “R&R” used to mean rest and relaxation … but if you are a Committee Chairperson or Advancement Coordinator, then R & R stands for Recruitment and Recharter. For many units, your main recruiting efforts are complete and rechartering is “months away” — so you can take a break, right?

In reality, like the old academic adage, there are really three R’s:

  • Recruiting
  • wRing-out
  • Recharter

November is Wring-out and if done right, wring-out is the single most important thing that you can do to ensure an easy recharter in a few months.

WRING-OUT

Wring-out is to ensure that everyone in your Pack/Troop (Crew/Team) is registered with the BSA (and vice versa) — it’s a simple comparison between your list and BSAs.

And it really is simple; just take whatever list you use — a DOC, an XLS, a Packmaster/Troopmaster export, etc. — and send it to Council via your Commissioner. They will compare it with what is on the BSA system and then follow-up with any discrepencies. Important hint — while this may be obvious, the only list/roster that you should not use is any kind of export from a BSA system (e.g. my.scouting.org) … because that is the same database that the Council will use.

RECHARTER PREP that could not be any easier

That being said, this is a great time to try out the new my.scouting.org tools. You are certainly welcome to compare the lists and do your own wring-out comparison, but more importantly — look at the YPT report. One of the best new features in the BSA My Scouting site is a YPT aging report that tells you when every adult member’s YPT will expire. This is huge because the single hardest part of recharter is chasing adults to re-certify.

To gain access to the awesomely helpful YPT feature:

  1. Log in to my.Scouting.org as a Unit Key-3 member
  2. From the upper-left corner, pull down the list and select the “Training Manager.” Note: if you are also registered as a District or Council team member, you may have extra options, but under the banner of your unit, there is a “Training Manager” link.
  3. The pie-chart on the right is the YPT aging report, showing:
    1. Green – % of adults whose YPT is valid for at least 90 more days
    2. Dark Red – % of adults whose YPT will expire in less than 30 days
    3. Bright Red – % of adults who have never taken YPT

MyScouting-YPT-piechart   

There are two blue buttons on the top of this window:

The right button changes the view from a pie-chart to a more detailed aging report

MyScouting-YPT-aging-listThe left button is where all of this gets HUGELY HELPFUL

You can now generate a report of whose YPT will expire.

KEY POINT – Recharter will happen sooner than you think, and only thing less pleasant than chasing down volunteers’ YPT renewals during the holidays to be the volunteer being badgered to recertify. So, do them and you a big favor — pull your report and give then November to recertify before the holidays get busy.

If you do the hardest part now (while it isn’t that hard), then recharter is a few signatures and cutting a check (give or take).

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