• The first dialog is for basic information on your unit. If your official unit number is different than your unit number within the program, you should change it here. You can also change the unit type, if necessary.



• The next dialog (Recharter Selection) is used to select the adult leaders and scouts you want to charter. For each adult whom you wish to charter, highlight the name and click the Paid, Multiple, or Transfer button. A Non-Registering button is also available for the very rare case where you have an adult for whom you want to send data, but you don't officially want to register the person.



• You do not have to charter all of the adults/scouts listed on the recharter selection lists, but you do have to charter the key adult leader positions and the scouts who are not leaving your unit. Only adults who have been assigned at least one leadership position are included on the recharter selection list .



• If an adult is assigned to more than one leadership position, he will be listed more than once on this dialog (unless the BSA position codes are the same for both positions) so that you can decide which position(s) in which to charter the adult. In some cases, you can charter an adult in more than one position; for example, the Chartered Organization Representative and the Executive Officer can be the same person. If you select an invalid combination of positions, the program will present an error message when you generate the report.



• One of the key adult leader positions is Executive Officer and you must select this person for rechartering. This position used to be called Institutional Head. The Executive Officer does not have to pay--he is always chartered as a Multiple.



• Regarding fees, some councils require an additional $1.00 for insurance. However, insurance is not part of ScoutNET, so you must handle insurance through your council separately.



• The training codes for your adult leaders on the printed report are based on BSA criteria. There is a separate FAQ on this subject. Training codes only appear on the paper report--they are not transmitted to ScoutNET.



• There are two fields that appear on the paper report that cannot be set from within the program: Unit Status and On Time Unit. Both of these will be completed by your Unit Commissioner.



• If you are an LDS unit using TroopMaster, it will apply LDS rechartering rules when it validates your recharter report. For example, under LDS rules, Boy Scouts must be age 11-13, Varsity Scouts must be 14-15, and Crew members must be 16-20. This usually means that you must create a separate recharter report for each group, making sure that you select the right set of adults/scouts for each report. For example, when you charter the crew you must include a Venture Crew Advisor. If you charter the same adult on more than one report, he should be marked as Paid on one and Multiple on the others.

Here are the current BSA criteria for Trained status for Troops (courses for Crews, Ships, and Teams are slightly different):

Boy Scout Leader Basic Training

or

Scoutmaster Fundamentals

or

1) For Scoutmasters/Assistants: New Leader Essentials, Intro to Outdoor Ldr Skills, and Scoutmaster Specific Training

The advancement rules in the Boy Scout Handbook and the Boy Scout Requirements book are different for Star/Life than they are for Eagle. The categories do not apply until the Eagle rank. For example, on page 445 of the Boy Scout Handbook it states that the scout must earn 6 merit badges of which 4 must be from the required list for Eagle. The footnote states that, "A scout may choose ANY (my emphasis) of the 15 required merit badges in the 12 categories to fulfill requirement 3."

Here is what the program is looking for when determining OA eligibility:

• For scouts (and adults less than 21 years old), 1st Class or higher
• 15 nights total camping since the date you specify
• The 15 nights must include one (and only one) long-term camp of 5 or 6 nights.
• The remaining 9 or 10 nights of the 15 total must be short-term camping.
• BSA has stated the cabin camping may be counted. TroopMaster will count those nights if you select that option on the report generation dialog.

Yes, we provide an add-on for the program (TroopMaster DotNet) which will allow multiple leaders to work with your unit database. DotNet allows you to host your database in a central location on an FTP site so that multiple leaders can access/update these files from separate computers. The Database Management dialog also allows you to specify which functional area(s) (i.e., advancement, OA, adults, activities, etc.) each of your leaders can update. All of the leaders can see all of the data and print any reports needed, but each can only update the area(s) he has been assigned. DotNet allows you to divide up these responsibilities and automatically handles all file transfers to the centralized database on the FTP site.

TroopMaster fully supports Venturing crews. It tracks the Venturing awards and there's a corresponding set of Venturing reports. Also, since male Crew members who earned at least the 1st Class rank with a troop can continue working on advancement, we're not sure how different a separate Crew version would actually be.