Starting with organization of leadership:

While on the trip how will the organization work?  Who makes decisions as needed?  Who makes sure everybody does what needs to be done?
Who is in charge of discipline?
Who will get the food?
Who is the head cook?
Who is in charge of the gear?

What will your rules be? You can find our rule book in the resources section. We called ours a guide book and it included a lot more than rules.

Some things to consider:
Discipline, leader organization, electronics, alcohol & tobacco use, sleeping arrangements, safety issues, required forms, schedule, money issues, food, medications, expectations, etc..

Here is our sample rule book - Sample Rule Book

You will need to stress everybody’s personal space to help resolve issues in advance, especially if there is a mixed group of female and male.  It is tough to get that much needed space on a group trip weather it be in vehicles or campsites.  Make sure you have rules in place to give the separation for Male & Female facilities and places for changing (if sleeping in a group room)  We did mostly tent camping so everybody was down to a 2 to 3 person tent which helped that out of course they needed to get along with their tent mate.

What safety concerns are there?

Animals, Travel precautions, specialized safety (like whitewater or high adventure activities), youth protection training, first aid training, wilderness training, etc…  Look at all of your activities and see where all of the safety concerns lie.

Wildlife:

Will you be going to a place where wildlife is a concern?
Most every place has some concern with wildlife most are nuisance but some can be life threatening like bears and wolves.  Or dealing with large animals like elk and buffalo.
Since we were in an area with predatory animals, we adopted a strict policy on food and gear:
Food – all food was stored in vans or gear truck after cooking all kitchen items were packed back into the gear truck.  People could store personal food in the truck with their name on it.  Under no circumstances was food to be in the tent.
Also concern with was clothes with food odors on it, they should have separate clothing for sleeping and keep the rest in the truck.
All personal gear (duffels) was to be kept in the truck, people could get out what they need and put the gear back when done.  Personal hygiene items like toothpaste can attract animals.
Back country participants needed to hang their gear from trees.

You will have some sort of training required, here is our list:
Youth Protection,
Medical (First Aid and CPR) not everybody needed  it just a handful but your organization might be different.
Back country training – to make sure people can handle back packing in their gear.
Hikes to get people used to the level of activities
A certain number of required camp outs to make sure the participants can handle our way of camping.  We wanted to make sure the non regular parents and siblings knew what they were getting in for.

Training for non-organization members?

So you have let some parents come.  Do they need training?  The Boy Scout organization expects all people to be registered in order for the BSA insurance to cover them.  Thus we made all of our parents fill out applications and register with Boy Scouts so there wasn't’t anybody on the trip non-registered except some siblings of scouts.

Bottom line is know your organizations rules for what they expect for people participating in anything your group does.

If you have parents who come along who are not part of your normal leadership, you will need to make sure they know how your system works.  Also you will want to make sure they know the do’s and the don’ts that are placed on adults in your organization.  Items like smoking, drinking of alcohol, profane language, youth protection, etc….

The dreaded P word, you will encounter some paperwork no matter what you do.

Things like: Permission slips, waivers, permits, insurance, rental agreements, etc…
You will have forms for within the group which is where permission slips and organization tour plans fall and outside paperwork your organization like rental agreements and camping permits.
The resources section has our paperwork like permission slips.

Here is a sample of the forms:

Sample Emergency Medical Form #1 

Sample Emergency Medical Form #2 

Sample Initial Interest Form 

Sample Commitment Form 

Sample Fundraising Attendance Letters 

Sample Back Country or Rodeo Form 

Sample Fundraising Commitment Form 

We choose to have binders for each vehicle that contained:

Itinerary, maps and directions, personal identification and medical forms, waivers for each person, permission slips and permission to treat (for medical needs).  The purpose for the binders was to give people the needed information to get to the next stop on the trip.  Also for the just incase like medical problems and lost persons.  The personal information had a picture along with personal information like name, address, height, weight, age, etc.. see the sample at the end.

We had a binder in each vehicle and also were carried on plane trips.  Of course you need to be extra cautious with this information as if it gets lost it could be used for ill gains, like identity theft.

Here is a sample of our ID Sheet that was for each participant

  Sample ID Sheet