Help Parents Find Local Scouting Unit for Their Kids- Populate Your Unit Pins!

The National Office has rolled out a great internet tool to help parents find a local Scouting unit for their son or daughter. BeAScout.org puts units on a Google Map. BeAScout helps parents and volunteers locate the packs, troops, and crews nearest them and request information about Scouting opportunities in their area.

So now it’s time for you to update your unit information!

How to populate the pin

Unit leaders have a very important task. We need you to populate your unit pin so that useful information shows up on the Google map. So how do you place information about your unit on the Google pin?

The unit leaders who can access BeAScout to set up the pin are the Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, or Crew Advisor, along with the unit committee chairperson and the chartered organization representative.

Step 1

You will log into MyScouting and select BeAScout from the Unit Tools section on the left. There are two options:

• Unit Pin Management: Unit Leaders use this to edit pin information.

• Unit Lead Management: Unit Leaders use this to manage incoming requests for information from parents interested in Scouting.

Step 2

First complete the Unit Pin Management screen. You will notice two important items on this view.

• At the bottom left is the “Fields Displayed on Google Pin” area. You must select contact person rather than Council information before assigning a unit contact. Also select other information that will appear on the pin.
The Pin preview box will only display the information that the unit leader selects in this box.

• At the bottom right in the box outlined in red is a preview of the Google pin. This is what the parent will see. Now when a parent puts in their location they will find more detailed information about your unit and are more likely to join! Parents are searching now so don’t wait to update your information.