A few very interesting items came up at the Nov. 4, 2026 Activity Design Lab project meeting, which is a joint staff/volunteer effort to develop standards for leading ‘accessible’ and ‘relaxed’ activities across the entire organization.
It turns out one of the difficulties in developing club-wide standards is that the current Leader Requirements and Guidelines (LRG), establishes minimum qualifications for leaders, but allows activity and program committees within the chapters to add additional skill and experience requirements to address differences in terrain, among other factors. This aspect of the LRG is one reason tackling leader requirements has become so difficult. For that reason, instead of developing minimum qualifications for leaders, the Activity Design Lab project will develop maximum standards: meaning, chapters, including volunteer-run camps and cabins, and staff-managed volunteer naturalists operating from AMC’s various lodges, may be able to waive various leader requirements, but cannot impose additional requirements than those developed by the Activity Design Standards Law.
For example, the naturalists headquartered at AMC lodges are not required to have Wilderness First Aid and CPR training, whereas naturalist volunteers at Echo Lake Camp and Cold River Camp are required to have these certifications. Because the leaders of these level 1 and level 2 ‘accessible’ and ‘relaxed’ activities routinely have children and young adult participants, a criminal background check is also required. Compare this to current level 1 and level 2 activity standards at New York-North Jersey, where neither wilderness first aid nor a criminal background check are required. If accessible and relaxed activities grow at our chapter and attract more families, it’s possible (and likely) a criminal background check will be required, although (in my view) unlikely wilderness first aid and CPR will be required, but of course that remains to be determined. Anyone who wants to be on the Activity Design Lab Project team has until close of business Monday, November 9, 2026 to email their intentions to Mel Mac Innis (
MMacInnis@Outdoors.org) and Justin Bailey (
JBailey@Outdoors.org).
The club’s official corporate documents provide that the Outdoor Leadership Development Committee (OLDC) is responsible for developing club-wide leader standards, and OLDC may approve or disapprove whatever comes out of the Activity Design Lab Project.
