Note, 12/10/2013: TransitPeople is closing up shop! Please see the news page for more information.
What do we do in case of rain? How about if a teacher gets sick at the last minute? What would we do if a group missed a once-every-three-hours Amtrak train, and suddenly found itself with no place to go and nothing to do for the rest of the day?
Thankfully, none of the really bad stuff has happened. We've never been stranded, lost a child, or had an accident worse than a scraped knee.
Still, it's prudent to tell participants what we would do, or would try to do, if an itinerary went seriously awry, or some of the bad things did occur.
That's where the policy manual comes in. It's long and pretty boring, but it tells youth groups how trip leaders are supposed to handle the unanticipated and unfortunate. Please read it, if you're a teacher considering a first trip.
Expect it to be revised from time to time as we anticipate potential problems. It's better to be proactive, instead of learning the hard way from a problem that already happened.
For the more casually interested, a highlights page summarizes some of the essentials.