Changes to Camp Planner, Quartermaster, Hall Manager and Leader Compliance — newest first. Only things you'd actually notice are listed here.
Missing something you need? Suggest a feature — most of what's below started as somebody asking.
30 changes.
A reminder now goes to the group owner a week before a trial ends, and again two days before — so the date doesn't arrive unannounced. Both say the same important thing: nothing is deleted when a trial finishes. Everything you've set up stays exactly as it is, you simply go back to the free plan's limits and can't add beyond them. If you'd rather do nothing, the trial lapses on its own and you won't be chased again.
In Hall Manager, the keyholder directory, compliance tracking, Protect Duty and hall fees are part of the paid plan — but nothing said so until you'd filled in the whole form and pressed save. Each page now tells you up front, while leaving everything visible so you can see what it does before deciding.
Messages about free-plan limits used to say "upgrade" without naming a price or a way forward. They now tell you what it costs (£20/yr for one tool, £50/yr for all four) and what you can do without paying — archive a camp you've finished with, or remove equipment you no longer hold. Camp Planner also shows how much of your free allowance is in use before you run into the limit rather than after.
Group owners can now start a free 30-day trial of all four tools from their group page — no card, nothing to cancel, and it simply goes back to the free plan at the end. Previously the only way to get one was to email and ask, which meant almost nobody did. One per group; if you need longer, just ask.
The free plan covers one camp at a time, but it used to count every camp you had ever made — so a group that used Camp Planner for last summer's camp couldn't plan next summer's without deleting the one that worked, losing the roster, menus and budget with it. Camps that have already ended no longer count, and archiving a camp frees the slot while keeping everything in it. Your group page now shows what you've used before you run into it.
Rather than starting from an empty page, Hall Manager can now add from a list of 39 recurring safety checks drawn from the Scouts' own Safe Scouting Premises Audit — fire alarm servicing, PAT, gas, legionella, asbestos, ladders, play equipment and the rest. Tell it whether your hall has a kitchen, showers or grounds and it only offers what applies. Each check shows where its interval comes from, whether that's an Act, a British Standard or just common practice. If you rent your hall, tick the box and you get the much shorter list of certificates to ask your landlord for.
Compliance items now keep a dated record of every check, instead of overwriting the last one. That matters for the weekly things like flushing taps and testing the fire alarm, where the run of dates is what an insurer or inspector actually asks to see. You can record a check as fine or as having found a problem — and a problem deliberately doesn't clear the item, because something that failed its check isn't finished. Checks can also repeat weekly now, not just monthly or slower.
A new Audit page finds the questions in the Scouts' premises audit that your own records already answer — who holds keys, who's on the premises and when, whether there's an agreement with hirers, whether your compliance records are current. It doesn't complete the audit for you, and it says so. Two downloads sit at the top: a printable evidence pack laid out to follow the audit's own sections, and the full check log as a spreadsheet.
If you were invited to a group and created your account from that invitation, you could end up signed in with an account belonging to no group at all — with nothing on screen to explain why. The invitation is now carried through the email confirmation step, so you land in the group you were invited to.
You can now transfer a group to someone else on your leader team — when you step down, or hand over to your successor. You stay on as a leader with full access. Paying is separate and deliberately so: a Direct Debit keeps renewing from the bank account that set it up, so the new owner is prompted to take over payment, and until they do the page tells you plainly that you're still the one paying.
Camp Planner now has a recipe book. Build a recipe once with its ingredients, attach it to any meal on any camp, and it scales to the numbers actually attending. The shopping list is then built from the recipes — combining the same ingredient across different meals — without losing the prices and ticks you've already put against your list. Allergens are checked against recipe ingredients, so a clash with someone's dietary needs surfaces while you're planning rather than at camp.
Suggest a feature and you'll now get an email when someone comments on it or its status changes, so you find out it's been built without having to check back. There's an opt-out on the request itself if you'd rather not hear about it.
A handful of places showed two words stuck together — "Growing Rootslearning", "5th Billericaycooks at camp". All fixed, and we now check for the whole class of them automatically so they stop appearing.
Leader Compliance now imports the additional learning your team has done towards a Wood Badge, alongside the compulsory Growing Roots modules it already showed. It's listed separately, so what's required and what's extra never get confused. The browser extension fetches it during a normal sync — there's no file to download and upload.
Every help page now has a contact form at the bottom. If you've read the documentation and still haven't found your answer, you're exactly the person who needs it, and you shouldn't have to go hunting for an address.
If you only belong to one group, you're taken straight to it instead of being shown a picker with a single option on it. And if your confirmation email never arrived, you can now send yourself another one rather than being stuck.
The free tier of Leader Compliance now shows five leaders rather than two — enough to see whether the sync is genuinely useful for your group before deciding anything.
Hall Manager can now give you a link to share with people outside your group. They see what's free, ask for the slot they want, and never see who else has booked what. You approve or decline.
The minibus, the trailer, and your Quartermaster equipment can all be booked out the same way a hall is, with their own prices. One availability view covers camps, loans and hires together, so nothing gets promised twice. Bookings can now run past midnight and across several days. Kit that's overdue an inspection, failed a PAT test or isn't in good condition can't go out at all.
If you've got twelve mess tins, you can now lend four of them and keep the rest available, rather than the whole line going out at once.
You can set a damage deposit per hall or per asset. Nothing is collected up front — the hirer's Direct Debit is held, and damage is charged against it up to a cap they agreed to. That way nobody is out of pocket for weeks waiting on a refund, and your group never holds money that isn't yours.
A hirer who books again is recognised, and their existing Direct Debit is reused rather than asking them to set up another one for every series.
Groups with several leaders were showing a duplicate dashboard card for each co-member. One card per group now, as intended.
Leader Compliance now shows every role a person holds — with the unit and team it belongs to and the dates — rather than just their main one. For anyone still Provisional, you can see exactly which references, declarations and checks are outstanding.
The section tabs used to disappear once you moved off the first page, leaving you to find your way back. They now stay visible throughout Hall Manager and Quartermaster, matching Camp Planner.
If you look after several groups — a district role, or you're a leader in two — Quartermaster can now show you across all of them rather than one at a time.
When something comes back broken, you can record what happened to it rather than just changing its condition — so there's a history behind why a tent was retired.
Electrical safety certificates can be tracked against equipment, with the test date and result. And the whole inventory exports as an asset register, which is what your treasurer wants once a year for insurance.
Build a list of what's going to a camp, check it off as it's loaded, and check it again on the way home.
Equipment can carry a QR code you scan to pull it straight up, with a printable label sheet. Whoever takes kit out can sign for it on screen. And anything with an inspection due sends a reminder before it lapses rather than after.