OA LEC/LLD Meetings and Tour Permit Question

[Bluecasper]

Do Lodges need to file tour permits for local OA Events? Our Lodge does file them to attend section conclaves and to attend COC meetings, but we have never filed them for regular LEC meetings (that I am aware of) or when LLD Training has been scheduled. I have been a member of our Lodge for two years, and this is the first time this topic has come up. We are having an LLD Session this weekend and ending the session with an LEC meeting, and I was told by an adviser yesterday that this needed to be done (that adviser has been around the Lodge for three or four years and this is the first time they have mentioned it.) I have read through the GOA and the FOG and cannot find a reference to tour permits regarding LEC meetings or LLD training events.

[mdutch]

If i am not mistaken (and I very well may be), the rules for when local tour permits are required varies from council to council. So I would say if the Council wants you to file one, then you do, if they don't find it neccesary, then you don't.

[derf56]

A tour permit is not needed for an OA lodge meeting or Lodge training. As An OA member since 1975, and a past Advisor I have never heard of such nonsense. If it was needed it would be the responsibilty of the Lodge Chief and the Lodge Advisor. Have your meeting and don't sweat it.

[scoutldr]

I was going to say that too...in my council, tour permits are just for units. OA is an individual activity and not a unit activity.

[Bluecasper]

Thank you for all your replies! As a follow up, I called a member of our Council's Risk Management committee and was told the following:

No, we do not need to file a tour permit to hold the event, but we should be collecting/charging an "insurance" fee (I think in our Council we usually charge about $1.50 per day per event) and include this as a budget item for the event. I do remember seeing that mentioned in either the GOA or FOG. We were also told that if any parent or adviser is driving more than one scout and at least one scout is not their child, then those driving need to file the tour permit. If the parent is driving only their scout, then they do not need one.

[scoutldr]

"We were also told that if any parent or adviser is driving more than one scout and at least one scout is not their child, then those driving need to file the tour permit. If the parent is driving only their scout, then they do not need one."

 

Sorry, I have to raise the BS flag on that one, too. Council has no jurisdiction over an unregistered parent giving someone else's kid a ride. They may be ASKED to file a permit, which MAY give them some insurance coverage (if not, then why bother?), but the Council can't require it.

 

[Beavah]

Scoutldr beat me to it, eh?

 

Yeh gotta love da random and bizarre answers yeh get to questions sometimes.

 

The $1.50 charge should apply only to boys or adults from troops that didn't sign up for unit accident insurance (aka "Health Special Risk" supplementary health care coverage). And if they're goin' to bother chargin' for that at every district or council activity, yeh should suggest that the council just pay for it for everybody for the year and add it to the recharter fees. It's cheaper, and certainly easier. That's what a lot of councils are doin' these days.

 

The notion that a parent has to file a tour permit to carpool is a real stitch. Someone had to have made that up on da spot, eh? I wonder what they'd say about a 17-year-old Lodge member who drove himself to the meeting? G2SS violation? Strip him of his membership on arrival?

 

Just put a tag line on your event/meeting announcement that "Members are responsible for their own transportation to and from the event".

 

Beavah

 

[scoutldr]

I always wondered about the insurance fee. When I was Training Chair, our "Staff Advisor" said that training fees (around ten bucks per person) included an "insurance fee" and a "council administrative support fee". The remaining dough was to go into a fund to replace training materials (which I never saw). I always held training at a church or school, the students were all registered Scouters, and I paid for my own copying. Council did nothing for me, other than to collect the training forms and put them in the DE's mailbox, and cash the checks. So my conclusion was that these "junk fees" were just another way for council to profit from the volunteers.