BuddyPress.org

I have managed to answer my own question but thoguht I would post a follow up in case any other jQuery newbies run into this.

Basically you can load your own jQuery scripts safely by putting jQuery into “no conflict” mode and then use a different shortcut for jQuery:

var $j = jQuery.noConflict();



// Use jQuery via $j(...)

$j(document).ready(function(){

$j("#panel").slideToggle("slow");

etc

Hope this help someone in the future as this had me really scratching my head and losing MANY hours