Frequently Asked Questions about Transportation
 | How did you select the bus stops? None of them are convenient for
me! GSCNC Day Camps are open to all Girl Scouts however each of them
serves a particular area and draws it's volunteer support primarily from those
areas. Camp Crossroads serves girls in Associations 52, 54 and 55.
Roughly, those borders include Centerville on the west, Lorton on the south,
Bailey's Crossroads on the east and Fairfax City on the north. Our bus stops
are designed to cover those areas. |
| The bus rides are so long. Can't you shorten them?
Unfortunately, no. To shorten the trip we would have to either decrease
our coverage area which would impact girls' ability to participate or increase the number of buses which would drastically
increase the camp costs. Our goal is to keep the bus rides under one
hour. (Northern Virginia traffic permitting, of
course!) |
| The buses are frequently late or early. Can't you fix that?
If only our magic were real! Our bus stop monitor has an important job.
In the morning, they are there to ensure that the bus does not leave the stop
early -- they have the power to hold the bus. The afternoon monitor
arrives at least 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival time. A parent
is not "late" if they arrive within a few minutes of the scheduled drop off
time. The afternoon monitor's job is to note the time that the bus does
arrive and report it to camp headquarters. If a bus is consistently
arriving late or early, we talk to the bus company and figure out what's
wrong. For example, a construction project could be causing a problem.
We'll modify the bus schedule, update
our web site and send out an email if that happens! |
| Can my daughter use one bus stop in the morning and another in the
afternoon? Maybe. If both stops are on the same bus, yes. But if the stops are on two different buses it will be
allowed only on a space available basis. |
| I've been about 15 minutes late picking up my daughter from the bus
stop. The bus monitor told me that if I was late again she'd throw my
daughter off the bus. Can the monitor do that? Well, no, but
the camp directors can! Bus stop monitors must report tardy parents to
the directors. We keep track and repeated abuses will result in loss of
bus privileges. |
| I'm not sure if my daughter is going to ride the bus to camp. Can I
make up my mind later? Sorry, we need you to decide when you apply for
camp. We must contract for the buses in April, so we need to know how many
girls will be riding the bus and which stop they will be using. If you don't
reserve a spot now, there might not be room later! |
| We've changed our minds about riding the bus. Is this a problem?
It depends. In late June we "freeze" all the registration, health and
transportation information. We have about 20 different reports that we
must prepare and submit to the Girl Scout Council. One report is our
Transportation Emergency Plan where we identify every girl, her bus stop,
parent's contact information, etc. We also prepare identification tags that the girls
must wear to camp
each day. The tags serve a number of important purposes but they are
essential for getting girls home each day. About two weeks before camp
we have laminated and sorted the tags. Changes at this point become
incredibly painful for our volunteer staff and we must resubmit all the
reports to the Girl Scout Council. At Council, they will have to
redistribute all the reports to staff members. Please, we ask parents to
pay attention to these details and "nail down" their plans by mid-June. |
| I'm picking my daughter up after camp. When should I pick her up? 4:00pm! Because the camp is buried in a residential
neighborhood, it's important that we don't have cars arriving early because
there is no place for them to go until after the buses leave at 3:50pm.
The road at camp is narrow. We've had several "bus versus car"
encounters. The bus always wins and it's usually very detrimental to the
car's paint job. As long as you pick your daughter up by 4:15pm, you're
on time. |
| I'm interested in car pooling with other campers. Will you match
me up with someone in my area? We publish a list of people who have
self-identified themselves as willing car poolers. It's up to you to
contact the parents of other campers and make your own arrangements.
|
Revised: 01/11/12 08:30
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