Special Interest Areas

Special Interest Areas (SIAs) are individual, self-directed projects. Unlike OAS (which follows a structured framework), SIAs are freeform — each Scout designs their own project with a goal, a plan, and a time commitment.

Creating an SIA

1. Go to the SIAs page.
2. Tap + New SIA and select a Scout.
3. Choose a category:
   • Adventure & Sport
   • Arts & Literature
   • Creating a Better World
   • Environment
   • Growth & Development
   • STEM & Innovation
4. Enter a project goal (e.g. “Learn to make sourdough bread”).
5. Set a target hours — defaults to the section minimum.

Section hour thresholds

Section	Minimum hours
Joey	2 h
Cub	4 h
Scout	8 h
Venturer	12 h
Rover	18 h

The SIA lifecycle

Each SIA progresses through four phases, shown as a pip strip on the card:

1. Goal — the Scout defines what they want to achieve
2. Plan — map out the steps
3. Action — do the work, log hours along the way
4. Review — reflect on what was learned

Advance the phase manually by tapping Advance to [next phase] when the Scout is ready.

Logging hours

The stream view is a chat-like chronological log. Add entries with notes and optional hours. Each entry shows a timestamp and an hours badge. Hours accumulate against the target, shown as a progress bar (e.g. “5h / 8h”).

Tip

Scouts can also post updates to their own SIA stream from the Scout Portal. Their entries appear in the log alongside leader entries.

Awarding an SIA

When the SIA reaches the Review phase, an Authorize Award button appears. The leader can award even if:

• The target hours haven’t been fully met — a confirmation dialog warns “Award under threshold?” but lets you proceed.
• The original goal wasn’t met — provided experiential learning occurred. This is a deliberate design decision: leader judgement is trusted.

Mentor check-ins

The SIA dashboard shows a Mentor Moves hero card counting SIAs that need a check-in. SIAs with no activity for an extended period are flagged as stuck and appear in a separate tab.

Section changes

If a Scout moves to a different section while an SIA is active, a banner appears with three options:

• Award as-is — award at the current hours, regardless of the new section’s threshold
• Archive & start fresh — close the current SIA and let the Scout start a new one
• Mark abandoned — close without awarding