Event Carpools, Volunteer Shifts & Duty Roster

Three tabs on every event help you run the logistics around it: Carpools, Volunteer Shifts and Duty Roster. Open an event from Events, then pick the tab from the event’s section menu. A link ending in ?tab=carpools, ?tab=shifts or ?tab=duties opens the tab directly.

Carpools

The Carpools tab (under People) lists the cars for the way to the event and the way home from the event. Adults offer rides, families ask for seats, and a leader places anyone still waiting.

The riding rule

A lone Scout is never placed in a car with only one household’s adults unless the driver is that Scout’s own parent or guardian. The platform checks the whole car every time anything changes, and the rule has no override for any role, a unit admin included:

A car may not hold exactly one Scout when that Scout is not the driver’s own child and every adult in the car is from one household. The car needs a second Scout, or an adult rider from a different household than the driver.
Two or more Scouts together are fine, and so is one Scout plus an adult rider from another household. An adult rider from the driver’s own household (a spouse, say) does not count as another household, and an adult with no household link on file counts as a different one.
A parent or guardian driving their own Scout is fine.

“Their own” means one thing only: the Parent or Guardian link in the household in this unit (or the older single parent link on the Scout’s record). Brothers and sisters, a household member marked Other, a shared last name, an emergency contact and a household in another unit never count. If a grandparent or step-parent should count, link them as a Guardian under Households & Family Links.

When a change would break the rule it is refused with this message: A Scout cannot ride with only one household’s adults unless they are that Scout’s parent or guardian. Add a second Scout, or an adult from a different household, to this car. The same rule is printed above the Carpools tab and in the Offer a ride and Request seats dialogs, so you see it before you hit it A family that asks to join a car the rule would not allow is not turned away: the request waits for a leader, and the car the family asked for is remembered.

Nobody is ever blocked from leaving a car. If someone cancels, a driver takes a rider out, or a registration is cancelled and that leaves a lone Scout with only one household’s adults, none of them the Scout’s parent or guardian, that Scout goes back to Waiting for a car in the same moment, and the Scout’s parents, the driver and the unit’s leaders are told in the app.

Offering a ride

Any adult with an active seat in the unit can choose Offer a Ride, pick the trips (to the event, home, or both), the number of passenger seats (1 to 14, not counting the driver) and a note about where and when they leave. Other adults in the unit see the note, so please do not put a home address in it. A driver can Withdraw Ride at any time; everyone in that car goes back to the waiting list and is told.

A youth cannot offer a ride.
A member whose seat is suspended cannot offer a ride.
A driver must be at least 21 by the date of birth on file. If an adult has no date of birth on file they can still offer, and leaders see Age not on file on their card.

Asking for seats

Request Seats is for an adult and their own linked Scouts. Choose who needs a seat (everyone must already be registered for the event), the trips, and an optional note. Join This Car on a card asks for that car specifically: when it has room and the car still meets the riding rule, the seat is confirmed on the spot. A Scout cannot ask for a seat for themself, and a parent cannot ask for another family’s Scout.

A parent sees the cars, their own offers (with the riders in them) and their own family’s seats. They never see other families’ riders or requests. A Scout sees only their own confirmed ride: the driver’s name and where they leave.

Placing riders (leaders)

Adult leaders who can see attendee details (the same permission as the emergency-contacts export) see everything: a Waiting for a car list, which RSVPs said needs a ride or can give rides, and on each driver a YPT current, YPT expired or YPT not on file chip, plus Age not on file when it applies. Tick the Scouts, choose a car and Place selected. The move is all or nothing: it is refused if the car would break the rule, if there are not enough seats, or if moving a rider out would leave a Scout alone in the car they leave. The parents of everyone placed are told, and a parent can cancel their Scout’s seat at any time.

Youth leaders who hold Event.Manage (a patrol leader or senior patrol leader) do not see this list and cannot place riders, because it shows families’ transport details. YPT is shown to adult leaders only and never blocks a ride.

Choose Print for a one-page sheet of the cars. It ends with a reminder: If only one Scout arrives, do not leave with a Scout who is not your own child unless a second Scout or an adult from another household is in the car.

Cancelling or rejecting someone’s registration also releases their seats, withdraws rides they offered and removes them from volunteer shifts and personal duties, so the boards never list someone who is not coming. The same happens when a member is removed from the unit, archived, switched to inactive, suspended or transferred to another unit, when a parent’s consent is withdrawn and that switches the Scout off, when the under-13 consent catch-up flags a Scout, and when an administrator’s clean-up or duplicate merge removes a record (including a suspension carried over when two records are merged): their seats are released and rides they offered are withdrawn for every event that has not ended yet (the riders go back to Waiting for a car and the people affected are told). Restoring a suspended member does not bring any of it back; they sign up again. When two member records are merged, any car that moves to the kept record is checked against the one-household rule again, and a Scout who would be left with only one household’s adults goes back to Waiting for a car. A rider who was moved into the kept record’s car and is then also sent back to the waiting list (because the kept record is suspended, or because of the one-household rule) is not also sent the merge notice. Events that are already over are never rewritten or announced: the combined record simply takes over the other record’s cars, seats and shifts there, deleted ones included. If both records drove the same leg of a past event, the second car is marked withdrawn so the first can stay, but its riders still show in it on that event’s carpool board. If the follow-up check for a merge cannot finish, the unit’s leaders get a notice naming the events to check by hand, or, when it could not tell which events, asking them to open the Carpools tab of each upcoming event the combined member drives or rides in.

Volunteer Shifts

The Volunteer Shifts tab (under Run) is for adult help: gate check-in, kitchen, driving, clean-up. A leader with event management rights and adult-outreach rights chooses Add Shift and sets the role, when it starts and ends, how many adults are needed (1 to 50) and any notes.

An adult chooses Sign Up or Withdraw for themself at any time. The shift shows who has signed up.
A full shift says Shift is full, and an adult cannot take two shifts that overlap on the same event.
Scouts cannot sign up (their jobs are on the duty roster), and a member whose seat is suspended cannot sign up.
When someone withdraws and the shift drops below the number needed, the unit’s adult leaders get an in-app notice.
Lowering the number needed below the number signed up removes nobody; the card shows over by. Deleting a shift tells the adults who had it.
Short shifts also appear on the event’s Roster tab as Volunteer shifts that need adults, with counts only and no names.

Duty Roster

The Duty Roster tab (under Run) gives each day’s jobs (cook, clean-up, water, fire, quartermaster, grace, flag, or anything you type) to a patrol or to one person registered for the event, for a meal or for the whole day. Everyone in the unit who can open the event can read it. A Scout’s name always shows as first name and last initial, for every viewer.

Anyone with event management rights can edit it, including youth leaders running their own campout. Choose Edit on a day, add or remove duties, pick a patrol or a person for each, and Save. Saving replaces that day.

Build a Starter Roster fills every day with Cook and Clean-up at breakfast, lunch and dinner, rotating through the patrols on the event roster so no patrol has two jobs at the same meal. It works only while the roster is empty, needs patrols on the event roster first, and needs at least as many patrols as duties. Edit anything afterwards.

Print opens a plain page for the trip binder.

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