Tour Permits

[9009scoutmaster]

I know what our troop is going to do this weekend, but I would like to find out if any other scout troops run into this problem.
A local tour permit was turned in for a camping trip for this weekend at our local districts scout shop 4-5 weeks ago. Tour permit has not been returned from council main office located 45 miles from district scout shop. I never know if we are going to received tour permits back. Over 50% of the time we do not.
I have never had any other problem with any other paper work turned at the district scout shop.
I know that the tour permits were carried to the council main office which is the only office that can approve local tour permits. I do not feel that mailing the tour permits would change council office ability to return the approved tour permits to our unit.

The only other option is to carry tour permit to council main office and have it stamped when turned in, but no one with unit works or live anywhere near this office and the only day that this office is open when we are not at work (at our real jobs) is Saturday morning. Hey it is only and hour a week!

[Mrw]

Our tour permits are faxed in to the office and faxed back. And I think the typical turn around time is within a day. At least with a fax, you would have the confirmation sheet that you know it had arrived!

[mt_goodrich]

I like the fax idea. Can't wait until Tour Permits go online. Save a lot of time.

[9009scoutmaster]

When we send in a camp use permit to use local scout property along with local tour permit we have never had a problem with camp Ranger receiving the camp use permit from the office.
Camp use permits are due in office 2 weeks before event. In some of these cases we have not received tour permit back.

Above tour permit was filled out on line then printed to be turned in.
local tour permit cost $0.19 at scout shop they started charging last year. therefore we print our own.

[FrankJ]

How tour permits are handled is very much a council thing. Our council is pretty responsive. If I hand deliver it, they will review & approve as I wait. We have also faxed them to council.

I would talk whomever reviews tour permits at the council. It might be the permit never gets from the district office to the council. Mailing or faxing it to a specific person might work better rather than depending o the inter-office mail. If you cannot get anybody at council headquarters to talk to you, I would ping on your professional.

If you follow their directions for turning it in & do not get a response then i would proceed as if is approved

[scoutaholic]

Our council has the main office and 2 satellite offices that can approve tour permits.

All 3 have a fax that we can send to and it will normally be processed the same day.

I usually walk into the office and they approve it for me immediately. (I've even done this with the scouts in the car on the way to camp.)

They will sell me a book (20) of blank tour permits. I think it was $6. I haven't bought them for a long time, because they keep changing the forms and I can get the current ones free online.

[WVBeaver05]

How tour permits are handled is very much a council thing. Our council is pretty responsive. If I hand deliver it, they will review & approve as I wait. We have also faxed them to council.

Same here. Turn around on faxed permits is typically a few hours.

I would agree that you need to discuss with "someone" and find out if there is something that you can do to "help".

YiS

[Nuts4Scouts]

We need to give our council a good 2 weeks to process a Tour Permit. They will usually mail it back to the requester, but not always in a timely fashion (USPS is not always very reliable either). The original is sometimes put in the unit's "mail box" at the Service Center and can be picked up in person.

We can fax the permit into the council office, and request that they fax it back when it has been processed.

If you have not received your permit 2-3 days before your outing, I would give the council office a call and find out what the hold up is and ask them to fax it to you before the end of the day.

[deweylure]

Our council requires it 2 weeks prior to the trip. It is a good rule . After all the Troop is supposedly planning the event. If you forget you can hand carry it to the office for approval.

Dewey

[fritz1255]

We fax ours in, get them back the same day. The person who handles this at the Council office has one specified day each week (Thursday) when he approves them. The Tour Permit is in my opinion pretty much of a useless piece of red tape to begin with; sad to hear that some Councils are making the process even more difficult.

[ThunderingWind]

In this day and age of modern electronic document processing, I think the BSA needs to work in electronic signatures.

Just use a software plug-in that is registered and certified.

It becomes part of Troopmaster or whatever program you are using to fill out the form. Then the when the "button is clicked," it becomes part of the
of the document in the signature block. usually shows name, time date and something like "certified electronic signature."

Then it gets e-mailed to next person that needs to sign it and they do the same. Then the can get stored eletronically at the Council office and the
unit has one as well.

Another option is to use a secure link via TroopMaster to the Council office to "prove" it is really the unit submitting the tour permit.

This is not rocket science or brain surgery. it is just deciding to use electronic signatures and then obtaining the software. There are "freeware" versions that
are good enough. And I am sure there is some firm that would love to be the BSA Signature Software Vendor of Choice and give it to us for free.

[wagionvigil]

It will come slowly. Look at the problems with the Jamboree registration they are having. ANd they paid a company to develope that software.

[FrankJ]

There is a non working link on my myscouting.com for tour permits so BSA is going is going down that road. Secure signatures would not be that much of a problem since you have to register there any way. I would think that there would be that much of a problem with units filing fake tour permits any way. Just getting units to file them is a bigger problem.

[wagionvigil]

it is my understanding that eventually all tour permits will have to be done on My scouting

[wagionvigil]

Our Council Notified all Units that Beginning January 5,2009 Tour Permits can be done on Line. They also said in the emaqil that within the next year it will be mandatory to do them on line. You will do this in My scouting with your id number. It explained things that all approvals will be done at your local council.Also remember that the new tour permits has more slots that Must Be Filled IN.

[smtroop168]

Signatures still required or is it assumed that if they are done through myscouting, they are good to go?

[wagionvigil]

All through My Scouting

[smtroop168]

Wagion...Please send me the notice your council sent their units. I'd like to provide to my council and see if they are going to do the same. Happy New Year.

[Cowboy]

One problem that I see with using the Troopmaster system: In our Troop, only the Scoutmaster and the Advancement Chair(s) have access to that system. This means that instead of the Outdoor Co-ordinator doing his/her job, either the SM or AC has to take this duty over. I know from personal experience that neither of these positions has the time to do another "job."

[wagionvigil]

This is not troop master, it is BSA My Scouting. This is found on scouting.org
From the letter we got from our council

All registered unit leaders will have access to Tour Permits from MyScouting, accessed on www.scouting.org. Councils will approve or return the permit applications using MyBSA.



The MyScouting account verifies that the owner is a BSA leader associated with a unit. Within Tour Permits, the leader has access only to his unit. This authentication replaces the physical signatures on tour permit applications. Other unit leaders are notified via e-mail when an application is submitted and approved.



The volunteer can submit both local and national applications, for either traditional units or Learning for Life posts. Once approved, each tour permit will have a unique tour ID number.



Unit leaders enter all the necessary information for the tour, and rules specific to tour permits are applied. When appropriate, helpful messages will advise the leader about any missing information. Once the tour permit has been submitted, the council will evaluate and approve it or return it for further work. Online features allow easy entry of driver information for transportation and required training supervision.



There will be automatic notification at all appropriate steps in the process to the permit creator, the tour leader, and the assistant tour leader. The unit committee chair and unit leader will also receive e-mail notifications if they have MyScouting accounts.