Safety Review Process

Outings Chairs: Review the Safety Policy (2016) at any time. 

What is the Chapter Safety Committee and where does it fit in with what I do?

  • Safety Committee is comprised of several experienced outings leaders who possess a strong understanding of Club and Chapter policies. Members serve to see that outings are conducted safely and within Chapter and Club guidelines.
  • Outings Reviewers are members of the Safety Committee who have first-hand experience with most of the trips and routes that we schedule. They can make judgments about whether a proposed trip is safe and fits within the proposed rating, or look at the Leader Management database to check qualifications. They may contact you with questions after you submit an outing for approval.
  • Safety members are excellent resources – along with LTC Admin Team, LTC Chair and OMC Chair – for answers to questions about suitability, difficulty and other concerns.

 How does Safety get an outing write-up?

  • Campfire Events sends an automatic notification to our safety committee when you make an outing active. Outings Chairs no longer have to do this; it is built into this system. Campfire sends the link to share to the Safety email address: safecomm@angeles.sierraclub.org
  • IMPORTANT! if you make changes that safety committee needs to check (leader change, location detail change),  switch the status back to Pending Approval while you make the change and then to Active which will trigger a new email to safety. Feel free to contact Safety to be sure.
  • If you have questions, be sure that your email has a subject line that includes the outing description or any other wording that clarifies the topic you are asking about. Include the direct link if the question is about a specific outing.

What is Safety’s review process?

  • For non-provisional outings the steps are straightforward. When you send to Safety that direct link to the write-up, the Outings Reviewers spring into action. Most outings will not require any further attention. However, sometimes there are those write-ups that require more scrutiny.
  • Possible problems include: leader ratings, currency and related issues, e.g. only one leader on the write-up; a route that exceeds the level of the rating; and other concerns.
  • If reviewers have questions about a trip, they will raise them with the Chapter Safety Chair and with you, the entity OC. If those questions are not resolved to their satisfaction, the Outings Reviewers can suspend or cancel a trip. A trip cannot be led while it is suspended or cancelled by the Outings Reviewer.

How does Safety review outings published through social media?

  • If you are using Meetups, or FB, you still must first publish the outing in Campfire or a GSC newsletter, website or listserve and send the outing to Safety in an email asap. Safety Committee used to monitor outings by reading newsletters. In the digital age, that just doesn't work anymore. Way too many outings have been led by the time we get the newsletters, and it's next to impossible to track every new outing.

 What if an outing is not approved by Safety?

  • Example: We have an outing that goes in a week and I just got notice from Safety that it can’t go.
  • Usually, an outing may be cancelled -- or changes required by Safety -- if a leader is not current in a requirement. If the problem is simply membership or OLT, this can be fixed asap, but a first aid class could take more time. Bottom line: Be sure that your leader is current before you publish an outing.
  • An outing may need to be altered or cancelled for other reasons such as exceeding the level of the rating.
  • When outings reviewers find a problem that can't be fixed immediately, they can change the trip's status from "Active" to something else such as "Changes Required" or "Pending Approval." That makes it invisible on the public website. The trip can't be led until the necessary changes are made.

What about Social Events? 

  • Outings Chairs are not required to approve a club support or social event that an entity plans to conduct.  They may not even know about these - unless they check Campfire Events regularly. And Safety Committee may miss these, too, which could become a definite problem especially if an incident occurs and there are no waivers. Ideally, Outings Chairs should help coordinate activities for the entity and be aware of picnics and fundraisers 

 A picnic that mentions a hike is an Outing that requires appropriate procedures.  Not sure - or want advice?   Ask Safety Committee and OMC Chairs.  See Management page for contacts.

Be sure to review the Campfire Events docs and ask us if you need help with the databases