Commissioner Service
Roundtable for December
A quick reminder that Roundtable is Thursday night at Second Presbyterian at 6:30 pm.
Sharla Merrick our Cub Roundtable Chair will have a session on “Making a Holiday Themed Woggle.” (If you don’t know what a “woggle” is British English for “Neckerchief Slide.”)
Commissioner’s Staff will have an open discussion of the new Boy Scout Requirements for 2016. Come prepared with questions!
Rechartering Update Dec 1st
Congratulations to North Star District! We have 100% of our units have turned in their Applications for Rechartering as of this morning!
To make matters even more exciting, according to Council’s report published this morning, we are the district with the most units having completed rechartering, including dues payments, JTE reports, and member applications.
Thank you to the work of our dedicated scouters to make this possible.
At this time, the following units have had their Applications for Recharter approved in their entirety:
Pack 0018,Pack 0171,Pack 0586,Troop 0018,Troop 0056,Troop 0073,Troop 0174,Troop 0343,Troop 0358,Troop 0586,Troop 0804, and Crew 0408.
The following units have completed their paperwork and are simply waiting on the Council Registrar to approve the Application for Recharter:
Pack 0035, Pack 0064, Pack 0084, Pack 0098, Pack 174, Pack 0175, Pack 0830, Pack 3582, Pack 3583, Pack 3584, Troop 0035, Troop 0069, Troop 0269, Crew 0069, and Crew 0358.
The remaining units have been contacted about outstanding issues. We expect quick resolutions on all remaining issues. Thank you for that!
The following units have submitted their Journey to Excellence Reports for 2015:
Pack 0018, Pack 0035, Pack 0084, Pack 0105, Pack 0171, Pack 0174, Pack 0179, Pack 0358, Pack 0514, Pack 0586, Pack 0830, Pack 3582, Pack 3583, Pack 3584, Troop 0018, Troop 0035, Troop 0056, Troop 0069, Troop 0073, Troop 0174,Troop 0269, Troop 0343, Troop 0358, Troop 0514, Troop 0586, Troop 0804, Crew 0358, Crew 0408, and Crew 1121.
Out of this list, we have 21 Golds, 5 Silvers, and 1 Bronze (with one submitted report that has not been included in this list). This adds 150 points to our District’s Journey to Excellence score and is Gold-Level performance.
Thank you again to our units for such dedicated work!
Rechartering Updates 11-21-2015
Note about this report’s completeness: This report is based solely on information available to the District Commissioner as of the date of publication. Due to lags in information-sharing from the Council registrar or information communicated to other Commissioners, there may be missing information in this report. Sorry for any confusion that these information-gaps cause. Your assistance in filling gaps is always appreciated. Pack 625 is intentionally omitted from this report. Troop 191 is only included for purposes of Journey to Excellence reporting.
As of Saturday afternoon, here is the current status of North Star District’s Application for Rechartering and Journey to Excellence Reports.
First, the units that have turned in their Applications for Recharter include
Thank you again to our units for moving rechartering along quickly.
In the next report, we will be looking at any units that have been officially marked as “Completed Rechartering.” This means that these units have completed all necessary paperwork, YPT reporting, JTE reporting, and payments of dues. Our goal is to have 100% of our units “Completed Rechartering” before Thanksgiving this week. Council Commissioner’s deadline for completing rechartering is November 30, 2015.
(Read below the fold for reports on Journey to Excellence results in the District.)
Rechartering Turn-in report 11-13-15
UPDATE 11-13-15 at 10:00 AM: new tables inserted below.
Thank you to the units that have now turned in their rechartering applications. (Pack 625 is intentionally omitted from this 
report.) This report is as of 9:00 AM on Friday, November 13, 2015 from DE Con Sullivan. (If your unit has turned in documents at the Registrar’s office in the final hours of Thursday, the paperwork may not have made through office mail to Con’s desk yet.
I am pleased to announce every single unit who is rechartering has logged into the system and reviewed their roster. That is an important step to completing the process.
Boy Scout Insurance
Since we are finishing rechartering, insurance is often fresh in everyone’s minds. What is boy scout insurance? Who pays? Who manages? How do we make claims?
Each member of the BSA, youth or adult, pays $1.00 per member to the local council. In our case, we pay the Crossroads of America Council.
As we discovered in the last several days of rechartering, this fee is not included in the national internet rechartering system. Those only cover national dues. The local insurance premium is added on, by summing up the Paid Adult, Paid Youth, and Unpaid Tiger Cub Partners (if the partner is not already a BSA member) count. These premiums are due and payable alongside the national dues.
If an accident occurs or a lawsuit is threatened, the unit key 3 need to immediately file a claim with the local council office using the form in the appendix of the Guide to Safe Scouting, which is like the BSA’s insurance policy terms and conditions document.
These claim forms should be used whenever there is a emergency room visit or other involvement of professional or emergency services personnel.
To learn more, read more in the Guide to Safe Scouting.
Rechartering Turn-Ins Report
UPDATE 11/11/15, 12:30 pm: Troop 269 and Crew 358 have scheduled deliveries.
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Thank you to the units that have now turned in their rechartering applications. (Pack 625 is intentionally omitted from this report.)
The following units have turned in their applications:
The following units have scheduled to complete their charter applications:
This means that this is our current statistics:
For the units who have not turned in their application for rechartering, we need to get this wrapped up this week. Please contact District Commissioner Jeff Heck or Lead Unit Commissioner for Rechartering Mat Gerdenich to schedule a time to pick up the Recharter Application and supporting documents this week. Their contact information is on the Rechartering email sent to the unit Key 3 on or about September 29, 2015 from Council.
Rechartering: Final Charter Turn-In Date
The Final Charter Turn-In will be next Tuesday, November 10, 2015 from 6:15 pm to 9:00 pm.
We will meet at Luke’s Lodge. This is an outbuilding on the northeast corner of the St. Luke’s United Methodist Church campus. The church is located at 100 W 86th St, Indianapolis, IN 46260.
Turn-In will be first-come, first-serve.
Your unit will be expected to have a completed package that conforms with the checklist on the September 29th Rechartering Email Checklist. See Rechartering Updates and other Recharter blog posts for further details.
This includes all completed and signed Adult and Youth Applications, Recharter Applications, Journey-to-Excellence scorecards, and dues payment (or authorization form to debit Scout Shop account for dues).
If you have questions, comments, or concerns that need to be addressed prior to this date, please contact District Commissioner Jeff Heck or Lead Unit Commissioner for Rechartering Mat Gerdenich.
Thursday Roundtable
This Thursday we will hold a Boy Scout and Cub Scout roundtable. We will meet on the fourth floor of second Presbyterian church as always. The general session and district news will begin at 6:30 PM with breakout sessions beginning at 7 PM.
Merit Badge Counselor Registration Open Forum
The Boy Scout round table will focus on merit badge counseling registration, education, troop counselor list maintenance, and related troubleshooting. The district merit badge counselor registrar Mike Yates will lead the conversation. We will focus on identifying problems, solutions, and procedures for maintaining a reliable District Roster of Merit Badge Counselors and their Badges going forward.
Cub Scout New Program Review
The Cub Scout roundtable will focus on “the New Advancement Program: How’s It Going So Far?” The discussion will focus on how to improve and clarify understandings.
Training our Chartered Org Reps
As noted in a recent blog post, North Star District is making a big push as a part of Rechartering season to get our leaders trained for their position or reclassified to avoid the need for new training.
At this point, our Chartered Organization Representatives still are nearly 2/3rds untrained.
This is easy to fix through Council’s online training. Just follow the link, read the PowerPoint slides and report the training through the link in the training. That is it.
It will take Council nearly two weeks to update records, so print out evidence of training for Rechartering.
Merit Badge Counselors: Annual Renewal
Did you know that
- Merit Badge Counselors are considered part of the “District Staff” and not as an adult member of the Troop or Crew that enrolls the Merit Badge Counselor? Consequently, this position does not appear on the unit’s recharter paperwork.
- District has a member of its Advancement Committee, Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates, whose primary duty is to maintain an accurate list of Merit Badge Counselors living or serving within the District?
- District has to recharter just like any of our units?
- Merit Badge Counselors who have not maintained their Youth Protection Training are scheduled to be dropped from the list?
- As part of that process, Merit Badge Counselor staff are subject to a drop-add from membership in the district rechartering process?
- While District Executive Con Sullivan is primarily responsible for the District Rechartering, he relies heavily on the accuracy of information from the units and Mike Yates?
Background
You may remember in July of this year I published an article about why many long-time Merit Badge Counselors suddenly in 2015 found themselves no longer registered as Merit Badge Counselors. This de-registration was primarily due to the District Rechartering process and our prior District Executive’s adherence to the Guide to Advancement’s procedure (section 7.0.1.5 page 47), described in that article, for determining if Merit Badge Counselors are willing to serve in the new year.
Current Status
Our District Executive Con Sullivan has begun the process for rechartering the district for 2016 in cooperation with the District Chair Steve James, Advancement Chair Mark Pishon, District Merit Badge Counselor Registrar Mike Yates, and District Commissioner Jeff Heck.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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