What type of data can I get about my district?

[moosetracker]

I just took on a new role at district level in Training.. At first I offered to be Training Chair (not knowing there was a hierachy of jobs on that committee, and none of them was filled. Later, I offered to be registrar of training records, because the data intrests me the most, and all the Training positions have been open for so long, I would be overwhelmed trying to Take it all on when I don't know anything..

 

I have gone to council training about the Training committee (I thought it to be open to anyone on training committee, but seemed more geared to the Training Chair.) But learned alot.

 

Anyway, currently we have on training committee many trainers, but no one in Chair, Vice Chair, or the overseers of BoyScout, Cubscout, Venture program.. (and until I took it, no one as recorder.) been that way for over a year.

 

Found out from one of the Trainers that 2 weeks ago we were to have an outdoor leader training. But no one organized it.

 

I had a meeting with DE about training and found out we are supposably scheduled with training schedule for about 2 years out, and supposably he wants to INCREASE the number of trainings we have due to the new National rules that adults need to be trained by registration time, or don't get reregistered. We also talked about statics of data, he wanted analysis of trained verses untrained and if I get the data I could do this by units as well as over all... He talked about it being in Excel.

 

Then when I took the training course it was run by the Training Chair for the council. She seemed to think I could only get data in sort of a paper format or on Adobe Acrobat. (Neither is data you can move into Excel.)

 

Someone else named a software (sort of like TroopMaster) that is at the council level.. (Not wonderful, but I know that you can extract data out of TroopMaster into comma delimited. That can then go into excel.)

 

Our District now has no Program chair, No committee chair, and now the DE was moved to another District (which was good for him and our district).. But, now no District Exec either.. We are now beeing overseen by whoever oversees the DE's, but I am sure he will be busy.. And we may get a DE with experience if the slide a dE from another district in, but I fear it may be someone brandy dandy new.

 

When asking for data, I got little from the DE before he left. I would just like to know what to ask for, so whether I am talking to a new guy or someone with little time (because he has other duties and is just overseeing our district).. I would love to know exactly what I should be asking for from him.

 

So what data can I get about my district regarding who is trained in what, and what adult leaders are registered at what positions?? And what is the best way to keep that data as up-to-date as possible, as unit leaders come and go, and leaders take on-line training, training out-of-council, as well as training in-council (provided we can get our program up and running again.)

[Eagle92]

moose,

Welcome to training. The reports that SCOUTNET can give you are the TRAINED and NOT TRAINED REPORTS for each level.So there would be 8 reports total: CS Trained and Untrained, BS trained and untrained, Vent trained and untrained, and district trained and untrained.

 

Be advised that I am willing to bet that they are 95% inaccurate. Great example, I've done the old SMBLT, CSL Basic, Exploring Self Study, etc. I wasn't listed as being trained at all. Good friend of mine who was a 3 beader, wasn't "trained," and another friend was a trainer at PTC, but was considered untrained.

 

What we did in my district, then later my council. was create a form that leaders can fill out listing their training and submit it for the SCOUTNET records. The current form, found at ECCBSA.ORG under training, doesn't list every course that SCOUTNET has a code for, but 99% of them have codes. I was told my registrar had questions about mine since I had a lot listed, but most of the training I went through was as a DE, and one of the FDs was still around when I came back into the area.(This message has been edited by Eagle92)

[jhankins]

Welcome to Training paperwork and reports!

 

Eagle's spot on. Most of the numbers are inaccurate for many reasons, the most notorious being that MyScouting doesn't always get recorded to the database because the ID number is missing, or group training online. A lot of that will be changing in the next 3 years.

 

MyBSA will also do trained reports now into Excel by position and unit -- so you can see who's listed with and without training. If your DE, FD or DFS don't know how to do this, let me know and I'll write out a step by step explanation

 

As the training chair, I'm polling each individual unit, emailing that unit's info to the COR, CC, and CM/SM and asking them if the leaders that aren't trained indeed are. If they have trained cards, or information on when the course was, I do the research then get back to the unit.

 

If the person is indeed trained, there's a handy little form in your Training District Booklet that you fill out and send to your council staff member in charge of inputting the info. I do one of these for every unit as the data comes in.

 

This is going to be important in the coming years, as it looks like training chairs will get input privileges to put stuff directly into ScoutNet. It's best to get the records up to date now before we get more tools and toys to play with.

[jhankins]

Troopmaster makes a district software program I would love my district to use. I downloaded the demo and LOVED it!

[moosetracker]

Good news that Scoutnet (if that is what we use) will pull info out into Excel).. When I read Eagle92, that it was only paperwork, the time to initially put paper into Excel was scary! Then to manually verify the changes each time I got an update, scary still!

 

So info is still inaccurate, but now it is the individuals who are not using the on-line training correctly. We need to educate the units to use the software correctly. Hmmm.. roundtable is tonight, I wonder if I should go and make an announcement there. Better may be to wait til next roundtable and put out flyers. I know my unit just elects someone from the troop to go. (The SM is too busy otherwise.) The lady is good about reporting what she learned to the SM. But a flyer gets to the correct person our troop "training coordinator".

 

I think (hope) that the BSA online training has fixed part of the training issue. The one where people take the training and don't put their number in. I know in the past you could take the training. Then plug in your number to get credit. Now you need to get a number to create a login. You can't take training until you have a login. My son's girlfriend just joined and is waiting for a number, in order to take the training. We will be calling the council for it, they don't give it out until next rechartering. This would not solve group training though.

 

I also am surprised that they do not have a way for me (as the registrar of training records for the district) to not be able to plug in those who took the district course lead training. Even before on-line training our council was all messed up because of this. Council blamed the district training volunteers that they never got them the info. The Volunteers swear the council got the info (multiple times) but no one was entering the data. (seeing that it was ALL districts not one or two, I tend to belive there were one or two districts sending in the info.)

 

Anyway we went through the asking units to tell us who is trained and using the "honor" system.. I was troop training coordinator then. I had to send it at least 3 times. I don't think it was ever straightened out.

 

I would imagine the software produced by the makers of Troopmaster would have a way to give access to each person in the district to update their own job's info. So that would make it nice. Problem is it probably came out much later then the current software being used, and councils are reluctant

to change due to cost & the time for the learning curve.

 

I spoke to someone in our district that was training chair during that time period and that issue was why he left the position. He got fed up with looking like the unorganized bad guy, and taking the heat for something he had no control over.

 

Sounds like SCOUTNET might be what we have, since the Council level training chair did not know that it could produce info in EXCEL either.

 

Jhankins thanks for the offer to get me the directions. I will get back to you to let you know if I need them.

 

[Eagle92]

I hate to say it, but ALWAYS keep a copy of what you submit to council. Perfectly good example when I did the training survey, I not only kept a copy of every single survey, I also kept a copy of the code summary that I did on each person. When information was missing, I had a copy. When someone said they turned it into me, I was able rto show them my notes that stated he mailed the form directly to the office.

[moosetracker]

What exactly is a training survey?

 

Seeing that there is no one in my district who can direct me as to how to proceed with this job (all jobs above this one are vacant), What do you think is the best practices in order to try to keep you and your district records as accurate, and as in sync with each other as possible?

 

[jhankins]

Your council training chair should be a resource for you. In some councils, this person has resources and knowledge that can help the entire training committee. They'll be better suited than we are to fill you in on council happenings and how things are done.

 

Let me correct something though -- MyBSA has the excel advantages, not ScoutNet. ScoutNet is mostly raw data that has some ability to tweak, but it's all command line computer stuff from the stone ages of computers (No offense Eagle!). My BSA is all web-based with new filters built in. The information is still coming from the same place, just a different filter.

 

A training survey is just what I do with my units, contact each unit, find out who's trained and not trained, codify it (PM Me and I'll send you a code sheet), and then make sure it all gets recorded at council.

[moosetracker]

Thanks I will PM you tonight when I get home.. I think the Training Chair for our council will be a resource for me in some things. But :

 

A) She is the one who did not think I could get anything in Excel, and she openly admits she is not good with the computer, so whatever policies she has is using a hardcoded report.(ICK)..

 

B) When I took the council training for the Training committee, I was told by the DE we had at the time, it would be good for me to go. She was teaching it, when she found out I was not the Training Chair she was apprehensive of me getting trained. That is until I said we had no chair, and I was it for my district.. So how much time she wants to spend to train me, knowing when we get a chair, she may need to repeat the process I am not sure. But, I would hope she would be willing to spend time on at least the aspect of the recording of training information (yet still, I will need to take her instructions and automate it.)

[ScoutNut]

>>" I know in the past you could take the training. Then plug in your number to get credit. Now you need to get a number to create a login. You can't take training until you have a login."

[moosetracker]

Thanks, Scoutnut.. I was just going by what my son told me. His girlfriend wants to take the training, but he told me she couldn't get a login id with out the membership number. So this will still be a problem I guess.

 

From what I heard I already figured I can't just input myself. I know troopmaster allows troops to setup a common area, and allows all leaders in the troop to look at the data, but gives access to specific people for the job they do..

 

I have figured out that ScoutNet or MyBSA is not that sophisticated, from the info I am getting. But if they can quarterly give me an excel dump of what is in their system. I can create a program that will compare what I have to what they have. I can then automatically update their info (with date and that I recieved info from council). And then automatically identify what info I have that they either did not get, or have been given but they never updated the info from me. I can then automatically produce a list of what they need from me, in order for them to manually do the update.. And if they continue to not update it, they will continually get the infromation from me everytime I send them info, until they do update it..

 

I can also then do statistical analysis, on what troops need training and what troops don't..

 

I can also create seprate reports for each troop listing what training we have on their leaders. That way they know who needs to get trained, and can report any inaccuracies that we have.. If I don't have email, for the units, I can send it off to be stuffed in their boxes at round table.

 

This is my imagined plan.. But it all hinges on them giving me the data in EXCEL, and not on a piece of paper..

 

I am also unsure if I have any holes in my plan given I really have no idea of what problems I am facing..

[jhankins]

MyBSA also runs the stats, it's kinda cool. When I first saw my district's YP training at a whopping 13% I almost had a cow. But this includes the two years lapse my council has on the YP training. Simply after 3 months of reminders in email and RoundTable the number went back up to 47%.

 

Direct input for training chairs should be coming in a few years, I hope that gets a follow-through.

[Eagle92]

Sorry been away on vacation.

 

A training survey was basically a double sided sheet of paper with every single training that SCOUTNET has codes for. I got the list form both the District Training pamphlet, sorry can't quote exact name but it is VITAL in training role, and the registrar. I created the sheet, passed it out to the troops at RT and told them when I wanted it back by.

 

I then did a spreadsheet with name and training codes only to help the registrar out, and sent a copy of all surveys and and the summary to the registrar.

 

if you go to ECCBSA.org and look under training, the council training chair came up with a much nicer version than the one I made.