Every advancement night we have a lot of scouts who are working on various merit badges and they can only be signed off by a merit badge counselor. Any parent can be a merit badge counselor for as many badges as you feel competent counseling.
First, be familiar with the steps the scouts use to earn merit badges - summarized here.
You will need to know your BSA ID# and the date that you last took Youth Protection Training. If you don't have that information it can be found here: my.scouting.org (You will need your my.scouting login credentials)
NOTE: For those of you who have previously registered but it is not showing up in TroopMaster - if you have an email or hard-copy confirmation from the District that shows the merit badges you were approved for then please forward or scan that document and send to the committee chair of the merit badge coordinator. We can then make sure that TroopMaster is updated. If you don't have this information or are registering for the first time then please follow the procedure below.
Here is how to do register - follow this link:
http://seattlebsa.doubleknot.com/registration/calendardetail.aspx?ActivityKey=2337491&OrgKey=3694
You will see a form open up and it's largely self explanatory but following are a few items to remember:
If you are already a registered adult with Troop 626, then you DO NOT need to fill-out a BSA Adult Application
You will need your BSA ID# and the date you last took Youth Protection Training ("YPT"). If YPT has not been taken in the last year, you will need to take it again. The Council requires that YPT be taken every year. If you need to take YPT, then go to my.scouting.org, sign-in and take the YPT modules. At the end you will be able to print out your YPT certificate or save it as a PDF.
OK... Assuming you now have your YPT date and your BSA ID, after clicking on the above link you will do the following:
The How Many? at the top is likely just 1 as you are registering for yourself.
Enter in your name, address, etc... on the first page and click 'Continue' at the bottom.
On the next page: 'Where are you registering' = Cascade, Enter your BSA ID, Unless your name shows up in the list above then click 'This is a NEW registration', If your name is listed above and you want to add more, click 'You are UPDATING your list of badges', What positions are you registering for = 'Merit Badge Counselor', What is your primary registration = 'I am registered with a unit', What unit do you have a registration with?.. Unit type = 'Troop' (it's in a dropdown), Unit Number = 626, Fill in the date when you last took YPT.
Then there is a section where you can click the boxes for the Merit Badges that you would like to be registered as a MBC.
For each Merit Badge that you clicked, there will be a box below under 'Please provide qualifications to be a counselor for each Merit Badge selected'. Just enter a short explanation of why you are 'qualified' to be a MBC for those badges.
Click Continue
Click Checkout and finalize... there is no charge for this.
Final steps:
Keep a list of which Merit Badges you signed up for - just for your own records.
Once you receive your email confirmation that you have been registered as a merit badge counselor, then send an email to the following people :
Jacqui Orgovan: jacquiorgovan@comcast.net (Jacqui is our District Coordinator for Merit Badges among other things and this will be her cue to confirm the submission to the Council).
The Troop Committee Chair and the Troop Merit Badge Counselor Coordinator (so we can ensure that you will be updated in Troopmaster. NOTE: We will need to know which Merit Badges you signed up for and if you can also forward the confirmation email/document that would be great.
PLEASE NOTE AGAIN: If you do not send the emails as noted directly above, the we WILL NOT know that you have registered as a MBC as the systems do not link and we only have access to MBC records through our District Merit Badge Counselor Coordinator (Jacqui Orgovan). So, please let us know when you have completed everything.
It's important that we have as many adults as are willing to sign-up as MBCs to help our scouts through their rank advancement and to foster parent involvement in our Troop.