I don't think there's anything wrong with an extra little "bauble" on a scout shirt from a Council or District. (Bring me to the court-martial NOW, Uniform Police!!) They tell a story, and someone is sure to point and say "What's that?"--a conversation starter! I remember at roundtable one year they gave out a little leather cutout of a bearskin rug, with a small lanyard hanging from the bottom, knotted at the bottom. The idea was that for each roundtable you attended, you got a different color bead to put on the lanyard. The adults LOVED this...shouts of "BEADS! BEADS!" at the end of every RT! When you wore yours at a district event, everyone knew which RTs you attended. Out of district, people would invariably ask you about that "cool thing" on your shirt pocket.

RT Commissioners: Feel free to steal that one, it really worked in getting people to come out!(This message has been edited by FrankScout)

I simply can't believe adults would chant for beads....

Yes, the kids at cub day camp received beads for each piece of trash they picked up and it resulted in a very clean park. But it truly surprises be that adults would get excited for beads. If that has worked for other people let me know.

Believe it Base! They did!

And they would kill for a bear claw...

Bead collecting is an adult instinct as old as stacking cairns at stream crossings.

From time to time we let the kids in on it.

It's nice to be recognized by peers for effort put forth. Our Pack gives out bead dangles for the left pocket button. A colored bead for each year in leadership position.
Tiger-orange, Wolf-yellow, Bear -light blue, Webelos- red/green, CM - dark blue/yellow.

Yes we know it is not official.

Yours in Cheerful Service,

Tim

Just makes me sad...

Do Councils and Districts have the right to even do these things?

Yours in total confusion,

Tim

Yes, as I understand it, councils actually have more authority than national in many areas. It's an unbalanced hierarchy rather than a strict hierarchy, and I think its very clever actually. Our council, the Pacific Northwest Council, has adopted a program of awarding segmented patches for all manner of activities which might be part of a local pack's calendar; for example, there is a segment for pinewood derby and space derby and rain gutter regatta and visiting the zoo or the science museum or an air museum or an historic fort. The list goes on and on and on. I know other councils have similar programs. The segments go on the left pocket which is reserved for "temporary insignia." The segments are shaped into little arches so about eight segments will fit around a council patch. Technically, you are only supposed to go around once, maybe twice, depending on how large your pocket is, but I've seen plenty of scouts who just keep adding more and more segments until it fills up one whole side of their shirt. It looks very impressive, but since I'm a den leader, and I want to set a good example, I have not done that to my son's shirt. Instead, I bought him a patch vest, and we are trying to create one of those giant circles on the back.

For adults, our district has a bunch of beads that they award to adults at roundtable meetings, but the beads are worn on a name tag that is only worn during the roundtable meeting. The name tags are returned and posted on a bulletin board at the end of the meeting each month. My dad's Kiwanis club did the same thing with their name tags.

Oh, and at the three Cub Scout resident camps in our council, all the parents can do a list of activities to earn points and if they earn enough points, then they receive a triangular patch. Three patches together (one from each camp) will form a circle. I've seen some female cub leaders wearing these awards above the left pocket, which I understand is an acceptable position for temporary patches as well as jamboree patches. Personally, I like my uniform uncluttered, so I put my patch on my backpack (This message has been edited by howarthe)

Our roundtable gave out a bead "necklace" when you first came to roundtable as a new cub leader, a blue and yellow bead for cub scout colors, a colord bead to represent the district colors, and a clear bead to represent that you are new to scouting and come in with a brain that is empty of all the scouting ideas you gain at roundtable.
Then each month they'd add a blue and yellow bead.

To see the adults comparing the length of their bead necklaces sometimes was interesting. I wouldn't say that they came for the beads, but it was a visual way to see how experienced someone was, in theory the more roundtables you go to the better cub scouter you'd be, eh?

Basement - it is all part of what we now call in software Gamification - making every type of activity into an achievement award driving game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification

Wouldn't it be nice if the BSA uniforms were simplified more like the Canadian or British scouts instead of it being a myriad of patches and pins that cover almost every inch of the uniform shirt. I have been to a few Canadian scouting events with our crew and the American scouts always seem to stand out with their garish looking uniform shirts like little generalisimos. Makes me wonder if the BSA is solely about the patches instead of the scouting journey, and about our incessant need to have to display, every award ever earned on our uniforms.

That is a big fancy name horizon......


I call it pathetic.

It is even worse if they compare who has more....of course it is better than them unzipping their flys.