Being a Scout leader or team manager/coach is lots of fun, but can also be frustrating and time-consuming, especially in the area of communication with parents and members.

teamr.com has created a very cool online web-management system that you can use for free to help make this process easier. If you are volunteering your time to help a group of kids, there is no reason it should hard for you. This software makes it a lot easier. Imagine being a couple of hours away from an important practice and looking at the sky, which is about to fall, and wishing you had a way to contact everyone at once to postpone the practice. With teamr, you can. And that is only the beginning.

The software, which you can access from any browser including your Blackberry or other web-enabled phone, keeps track of your roster game, meeting and practice schedules and fees. It also offers automated reminders for anything you can think of.

I have been using the Scout version for about a year now and it has improved with age. There have been numerous features I have wished the program had, and several of those have already been added, some at my direct request.

Perhaps the best thing of all is that the parents absolutely love it! They don't want to miss any Scouting events, but keeping up with all the meetings as well as sports, school, and church functions can be a daunting task for any mom or dad. With MyScoutLink, they know that the six-day-ahead email, the two-day-ahead reminder and the two-hour-ahead SMS text reminders will always be there. They are like clockwork.

With the year I've had (ten Webelos I Scouts) I don't know if I could have done it without MyScoutLink. Check it out. This is really cool!