Re: New Rules for Local Tour Permits?

Apparently the requirement for filing tour permits varies from council
to council. I'll have to check with our DE to see if OUR rules have
changed recently. (Mr Dave?)

As far as I know, IN OUR COUNCIL:
- a local tour permit IS NOT required for a one day activity within the
6 county area covered by the council;
- a local tour permit IS required (I think) for a one day activity that
travels outside the council boundaries;
- a local tour permit IS NOT required for an overnight campout on
council owned property, the reservation for the campsite with the
council office is sufficient;
- a local tour permit IS required for an overnight campout anywhere
other than on council owned property.

As far as insurance coverage goes, IN OUR COUNCIL, I *think*
- you're *probably* covered without a local tour permit as long as you
don't violate any other policies;
- you're *probably* covered with a local tour permit if you accidentally
violate some policy;
- I won't attempt to guess at whether or not you are covered if you
accidentally violate some policy and don't have a tour permit, but would
not count on it;
- and if you knowingly violate a policy you are *probably* *not* covered
whether or not you have a tour permit.

I say *probably* because I know of a few "small claims" that have been
covered, not in the context of small enough to be handled in small
claims court, but as in the context of a scout's parents filing a claim
for actual out of pocket medical costs without an attorney getting
involved to sue for pain and suffering and punitive damages. This is
probably because it's cheaper to pay the claim than to litigate it even
if the council wins the litigation. I'm not aware of any "large claims"
in our council, but probably wouldn't learn of it unless it involved one
of the scout leaders I see regularly or unless it made the headlines in
our local paper.

All that having been said ... I agree with the posting that said "when
it doubt, fill one out" ... even for a day trip even if you don't file
it; and file it for ALL overnight trips whether or not it's required.
It *is* a good sanity check to help avoid those accidental violations of
policy.

And even though the official statement is to allow two weeks for
processing, I've often hand carried one in to the office (usually two or
three weeks in advance, just in case), had it eyeballed for the right
number of signatures and to check that there are no obviously "wrong
answers" anywhere, had it stamped as approved and been on my way in less
than 5 minutes. (I won't promise that every unit gets such good
service. Maybe I've just been lucky.) It's an unusual week if I don't
drive past the council office at least once while they are open, so it's
no hardship to file them. I've never had one take more than a week to
process. (Except for the one month when the office was closed for major
remodelling and the entire staff was on vacation for the whole month.
We were prepared to do the campout anyway with a tour permit in hand
even though it hadn't been stamped as approved ... when I again got
lucky and encountered one of the DEs at the grocery store, and I
happened to have the permit in the glove box of my car.)

I'll close with a war story of the time when having both an approved
tour permit and a blank form came in handy. While on a week long white
water canoe trip on the Delaware River, we were unable to reach our
intended camp site due to thunderstorm activity. We found a suitable
camp site on private property, but the SM's negotiations with the owner
were not going well. (I was only an ASM at the time.) He had many
prior problems with trespassers camping there, some who *claimed* to be
scouts (and may or may not actually have been - he didn't say whether or
not they were in uniform or had uniforms or tour permits with them). I
don't remember whether or not either the SM or I was wearing our
uniforms that day, but we both had them with us as did most of the
scouts. The owner said that anyone could easily buy a scout uniform, or
get used ones real cheap at the Salvation Army / Goodwill / etc. The SM
and I showed our membership cards and the tour permit and asked if the
other "scouts" had offered them; he said no. Either I or the SM gave
him a blank tour permit that one of us just happened to have with us,
and the SM explained that any "scouts" who wanted to camp there in the
future *should* have one with them. The owner's final concern was that
the other "scouts" had left a real mess behind. The SM assured him we
would do a good job on cleanup and that he was welcome to inspect the
site before we left. We had of course offered to pay for the use of the
campsite, at the same rate we would have paid at the campground where we
had reservations, and the SM and I had already agreed we were willing to
pay more than that if he asked for it. We had finally given up and the
SM had told the scouts to shove off and see what we could find
downstream, although it was already almost dark, and I was pleasantly
surprized when the owner finally said yes we could camp there, at no
charge.

We were ready to leave the next morning and the owner had not yet shown
up to inspect the site. We waited for just over an hour and a half,
using the time to pick up litter not just near our camp site but along a
100+ yard strech of river bank. We finally left without being
inspected. Late that afternoon, about 6 hours later, we neared a boat
ramp and saw the property owner waiting for us. He said he'd been
waiting for 3 hours. I expected him to be angry at us for leaving
before he inspected the site. Not so. It turned out that he wanted to
thank us for doing a great job on the cleanup, and insisted on putting
it in writing in the space on the back of the tour permit. He explained
that he used to be a scout himself once upon a time, that his now
deceased father was the scoutmaster, and that overnight he had gotten to
thinking about how disappointed his father would have been at his
unfriendly and unhelpful attitude toward scouts in trouble. He even
offered a $20 donation to the troop, which the SM declined with an
explanation that his thanks on the tour permit was worth far more. He
said that it was great to see that boys "today" (now almost 20 years
ago) still follow the Scout Oath, Scout Law, and Outdoor Code; and that
scout units with a tour permit were welcome to camp on his property any
time. He even remembered the Scout handshake as we said good-bye.

At least ... that's the way I remember it ...

YiSS;
Mark Ritter - RitterME@stny.lrun.com - Committee Member
Sea Scout Ship 90 - The S.S.S. North Star - New Milford PA
http://www.seascout.net/ship90

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message
• Maybe in reply to
• Next in thread