Links:

The Scouts Canada BP&P Change Log can be viewed here (they appear to have given up on updating the Change Log but it is still available).

Scouts Canada’s online BP&P search… https://www.scouts.ca/resources/bpp/search.html

Scouts Canada online BP&P… https://www.scouts.ca/resources/bpp/get-started.html

Latest PDF Files created for volunteers who still want to be able to download and print as well as keep up to date with all changes:

• Scouts Canada Bylaws… bpp_bylaw_2019-12-16
• Scouts Canada Policies and Standards… bpp_policies_2019-12-16
• Scouts Canada Procedures… bpp_procedures_2019-12-16

Bylaws

• Version 3 introduced 2019-12-16 included changes to the numbering, hyperlinks, and table of contents for every page

Policies and Standards

• Version 3 introduced 2019-12-16 included changes to the numbering, hyperlinks, and table of contents for every page

Procedures

• Version 3 introduced 2019-12-16 included changes to the numbering, hyperlinks, and table of contents for every page

Version 3 introduced December 16, 2019

Due to the sheer volume of changes, this entry will be the last for this post and also the first of a new BP&P post and I have decided to call the December 16, 2019 change version 3 and we will start revisioning at zero again… well 3.0 anyway.

This post exists, and has been updated so many times, for three reasons.

1. BP&P changes need to be trackable (it would be nice to be able to subscribe and get emails when changes happen),
2. they need to be documented (there is a Change Log but not all changes are included), and
3. searchable (volunteers need to be able to search for key words in the entire document).

On December 16, 2019, Scouts Canada decided that the most important of the three was to make the document searchable.  The new site is amazing in this regard.  They now allow you to search for words with ease and very high effectiveness.  Of course you can’t search for more than one word so you better really know what you are looking for.  They decided to make the search fast rather than useful but I will give them high marks for speed and accuracy on that one word you are searching.

I think I finally understand the the disconnect between myself and SC with regards to this.  They fundamentally believe that BP&P’s primary purpose is to look pretty on a web page.  I believe that it’s primary function is to provide access to rules and regulations informing 20,000 volunteers how to do the things that we do.

There are so many changes aside from the basic search-ability that I am not going to go through them.  I will instead recommend, as SC recommends, that you peruse the entire site again just to refresh yourself with the things that you might have missed (like not requiring indemnification agreements any longer) in the abundant changes this past 9 months have brought.

There are a couple changes that I will mention however, before we kick off a brand new post to start tracking changes to version 3 of the new BP&P:

Bylaws, Policies, and Procedures 

(all BP&P) All bylaws, Policies, and Procedures no longer have numbers

Yes they fixed the search but one of my biggest complaints about the document was that it wasn’t written in a numerical format which would allow someone to say you needed to check policy 23 section 2.13 to find specific information.  They simply didn’t use any logical design for these documents (see my comments above on the swimming standard from the Revision 2.0 2019-09-01 changes).  I suppose that within the group headings that make no sense, they did sort the individual standards in alphabetical order.  I now worry that when they add new policies or procedures in the future that they will stick them in alphabetical order just squeezing them in where-ever they fit, rather than having them go in some sort of logical order.

The one thing I did like, was that they numbered each policy or standard in the link that you used to click on so that you could see that somewhere in the background there was someone that wanted to be able to track something… there was hope at least.  The adventure standard used to go to https://www.scouts.ca/bpp/policy-29/ but now it goes to https://www.scouts.ca/resources/bpp/policies/adventure-standards.html for some reason.

They have totally lost touch with the fact that volunteers and staff need the ability to refer to specific lines of individual regulations.  Taking away the old policy numbers was a bad move but not one in which I needed to adhere to for my copy.  Since they changed so many individual names and totally resorted them quasi-alphabetically, I simply started over and numbered them according to their new ordering scheme and will adhere to this format until they release another huge version change.

Duplication process

The have duplicated many items as well, which is slightly baffling.  Since the items appear as individual items under different headings, I have duplicated them and given each one a different number.

For example: https://www.scouts.ca/resources/bpp/policies/privacy-policy.html goes to a policy called Privacy Policy.

You can get to it from two policy groups: Communications and Stakeholder Relations and Data, Document, and Information.  I have no idea why they invented two different groups to point to the same policy file when there is nothing else in either of the groups.  I can’t even fathom how they plan to do a revision if they decide to change one of the policies and not the other.  Why on earth would we ever want two Privacy Policies?

It gets so bad in the procedures that they invented the Data, Document and Information group for the sole purpose of duplicating the two procedures that already (and still) exist in the Incident Management group.

In the procedures there is a  under headings for Youth Protection and .  Again, both headings have no other procedures except this one and I have read through it twice and have no idea how someone decided it should be in a group called Youth Protection.

The Youth Protection group used to only have one procedure in it called Youth Protection Reporting Procedure.  That procedure is now located under the new group called Group Operations.  If you aren’t scratching your head because it is no longer under the Youth Protection group, just wait…  The Youth Protection group has only one procedure in it, the Scouts Canada Logo and Intellectual Property Procedure.  This procedure is duplicated under the Communications and Stakeholder Relations group

Not only does Scouts Canada want us to read the entire BP&P every time we need something, but they force us to use the search now because they have destroyed the indexing by removing the numbers.  Now they are putting rules under headings that make no sense and inventing groupings for the sole purpose of hosting duplicated rules.  They actually want us to now read the same rules multiple times.

Renaming for the sake of renaming

For some bizarre reason they decided to rename the old NOLB Activity Procedure to the new NOLB Participation Procedure.  Someone is looking for make work projects.  Again, I have no idea what they have a Change Log for anymore.  They ignored small changes like grammar and spelling corrections but nobody was sure where the line was between what they deemed a “significant” change but clearly changing the name of the procedure warrants a mention in the Change Log or a modification of the “effective date” but neither is mentioned in the vast majority of changes including this one.

Mixing pages up

One of the problems Scouts Canada has, is that they allow incompetent people to update the documentation.  I am not saying that these people are incompetent at their regular jobs, they just don’t know anything about documentation or quality control.  They need give this documentation to someone who can put a system in place to ensure that accidents are mitigated.  For an organization that thinks all accidents are preventable, how do they transpose two pages that are so clearly mislabeled as the last two bylaws:

• Article XIII – Interpretations
• Schedule A – List of Councils

Clearly when you look at the two links you will see that the pages are mixed up but the headings are properly attached to the links so until they fix it we have to document what they say.  But you all will quickly realize that when you click on Schedule A you will NOT see a list of councils.  Of course this will be rectified right away when they find time to rebuild the two pages and I can almost guarantee that there will be no mention in the change log even though every single character in both bylaws will change.

Keep in mind that according to the Change Log, not one of these or any other changes was made on December 16.  And there is no mention to a whole whack of more changes that were made this week.

I have been waiting for them to fix the Change Log typo that they added a few months back too, but it still says “we also took this opportunity to update many or our Policies”.  They changed it from “of” to “or” a few months ago for some reason but since the change log isn’t part of the documentation, and it doesn’t reflect any changes they are making anymore, I feel bad even linking to it.  It is basically a web page to convince volunteers that nothing has changed since October which totally invalidates every regulation in the eyes of the law.  They are not only not helping you keep up with updates, but they are hindering your accessibility by lying about changes that have been made.

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