emb021

"The guy was wearing a VINTAGE uniform, circa 1985. At that time Scouts could wear the green shirt, SCOUTS BSA strip (the shirt came with two strips unattached, one saying Exploring BSA and the other SCOUTS BSA) and was authorized for older scouts and leaders in troops with the red loops. teh guy is our resident historian and always wears vintage uniforms. Rumor is he trying to get a vintage 1910s uniform, or reproduction, for the council's regional jamboree." You didn't mention that it was being worn in a historical sense. However, he's a little off. The red loops were NEVER worn with the green shirt. You are speaking of the Leadership Corps program, which was rolled out in 1972 for troops. Boys (and only boys) in the Corps were allowed to wear the green uniform with "Scouts BSA" strip. This ended in 1979 when the green shirt was dropped the first time. When the green shirt was brought back in 1985, it was only for use by Explorers, not Leadership Corps members and never by adults in troops. I never saw anything in writing from that time that gave such authorization (and I've looked). If such authorization exists, I'd like to see it. What has happened is a lot of adult recall the use of the green shirt by the Corps and thought they could continue to do so, even today. I have a large person collection of literature on the old boy programs and have setup a website detailing all this.

"You know the venturing pants issue or the lack of pants at the beginning brings up an interesting debate. Since most of the uniform problems talked about in all levels in scouting revolve around the pants what if National decided to make uniform pants an option rather than required them , as is the case in most cub packs and in many troops." True. I have an issue of Scouting magazine with a full page age (think it was on the inside of one of the covers), complaining about a picture of marching cub scouts (I think) wearing blue jeans and how that isn't the way it is. Certainly in my experience I see a lot of scouts/scouters wearing the wrong pants a lot. Jeans are the usual item. With venturing crews its worse. You have the ones wearing jeans (and if they were nice jeans, that would be one thing, but they usually look horrible), and the ones with expensive 'tech' pants, and everything in between. 'cost' is usually the excuse for wearing something else, but the items I have aren't any more expensive then 'regular' clothes, and look a lot nicer then what I see. I guess with the issue of NS needing to sell the official stuff and make money, there is a lot of resistance to allowing outside sources for the official uniform. Even when they are cheaper and better. (I have a pair of the official shorts. I kept washing them hoping they'd get softer like my 8-pocket shorts, but they never did. They sit in my closet unused...)

I was about to say check out the NHPA, but it seems you are. I would use that as the basis for this recognition. This will help in your 'stepping stone' approach. Thus, a patrol that achieved 'patrol of the month' for 3 months in a row could achieve the NHPA. Can more then one patrol be 'patrol of the month'? To me, PotM is only for one patrol. I would think you would want a recognition that ALL patrols can and should achieve ('quality patrol' if the will). If you want patrols to 'stretch' themselves, make the award system a tier system (other orgs do this with their group quality system). So if they met a certain level they get a certain recognition, if they go further a met a higher level, they get a different recognition, etc.

"I don't quite get the reasoning though. The red numbers on the centennial shirt just look wrong. If it's because the boys wear red numbers, well, the boys also wear a blue shirt." Don't worry, some of us felt the same thing. And the lack of consistant info from National didn't help...

"I thought RT staff, being part of the commissioner service wear silver?" they do. Sounds to me like some are confused as to who gets to wear silver. Too often I see people who are 'on the training team' wear silver. Sorry, no. If you hold a formal position in the district or council AND have a uniform where you wear that office patch (and no unit number) you wear silver. If you happen to hold a unit position, don't mix loops and office patches. Either have 2 uniforms for the different positions or use velcro to swap out patches. So if you're doing your district/council job, wear that uniform, if unit, wear that uniform. "I really like the vintage 1985 uniform my friend wore consisting of Green shirt with SCOUTS, BSA (not Exploring BSA), red loops, and ASM insignia. Looked spiff!" But totally wrong. red loops are never worn on the green uniform. And if you aren't in Venturing you don't wear it. We have a problem with Venture Patrols thinking they can do this. "They got rid of the red Boy Scout loops?" Yup. They went away last August, replaced with olive green or forest green. So be it. No big deal. Don't understand why anyone would be upset. Red is the color for senior scouts (like Venturing), not boy scouts. Their color was green (check out the color backings for service stars...). This is why the red jack shirt was for Explorers and Boy Scouts got a green jack shirt.

"While I do not accuse yo of being a "purist," heck you advocate Cabela's over Supply Division gray shorts/pants when a purist would say you must wear Supply shorts/pants, however there are 'purists" aka Uniform Police out there in reference to Venturing." Most of these people I would hope are not in Venturing... Actually, I advocate Bass Pro Shop, as that's were I get my gray shorts (usually when they go on sale). But Cabelas works just as well. For more dressy occasions, I have a nice pair of charcoal gray slacks I got from Old Navy that look real nice (and were really inexpensive). Thing is, when Venturing was rolled out, NS didn't have gray shorts/pants. We had no choice but to go get our own. My first was a very nice pair from Royal Robbins (who dropped gray as one of the choices for that particular pair. ). LL Bean was actually the source for the first 'official' gray shorts worn, and National actually had worked out a deal for crews to order that particular pair from them at a discount. In all the early Venturing pictures, the Venturers were wearing those. So its has really ALWAYS been policy that one was NEVER required to get the charcoal gray pants/shorts from National Supply. Certainly the fact that if you go to National Jamboree, while all the venturers and adults at the Venturing Exhibit will be in green/gray, very few will be wearing the official ones. But, of course, the idea that one DIDN'T need to get certain items from National Supply (as well as the whole idea of crews deciding their own uniform, which was just a contination of the old Explorer policy that had been around 20-30 years) just seems to throw too many scouters for a loop. The flip side is that sadly for some, the 'crew picks their own uniform' seems to make some think the uniform policy is 'anything goes' when it really isn't. So when you have to point out things that can't be done, you get people balking.

"As far as awards such as bronze, gold and silver, I have seen them at council and regional events worn on the crews chosen uniform shirt or sweatshirt and no one challenged it. There is no offical rule in venturing stating that these awards can only be worn on the official spruce green shirt, and not on the uniform shirt the crew has chosen, even though the venturing uniform purists will deny it." Sorry, but I am not aware of any 'venturing uniform purists' who would deny this. I have zero issue with crews wearing their awards on their crew uniform.

When I did Boy Scout Leader Woodbadge in 1988, it was a weekend course. AFAIK, they had been doing weekend courses since the late 70s/early 80s. However, the weekend format was 3 weekends (Friday evening thru Sunday afternoon), with a patrol meeting in between weekends. When 21CWB was rolled out in, what 2001, it was available in week-long and weekend format, but as noted, the weekend format was 2 3-day weekends.

You have several questions, so let's try to answer them. Be aware there is a page at the National Venturing Cabinet site on venturing uniforms, including a Uniform FAQ: http://www.nationalventuringcabinet.org/uniform.shtml Problem with the Venturing uniform policy is people hear "crews pick their uniform" and turn their minds off to the FULL policy, which is more then just that. "Also, can a crew choose to wear a Boy Scout Action Shirt, and put the insignia on that?" No. Venturers are proscribed from using the tan boy scout uniform. The BSA Venturing uniform is the spruce green shirt with 'emerald' green loops (YES, you must wear loops), with charcoal gray pants or shorts (these need not be from National Supply). Insignia is worn on this uniform as set down by the insignia guide. Whenever you are at an event where a uniform is required, this is the one to use (ie: OA events, NOAC, Jamboree, etc). Crews are NOT required to mandate this uniform. They can pick another uniform (but as noted about, the tan boy scout uniform is NOT an option, and if they go with the Venturing uniform, they need to follow insignia policies AND wear the right color pants/shorts). I have seen crews use polo shirts, t-shirts, denim shirts, 'fishing shirts', aloha shirt, etc. At Venturing events, those who understand this will be clear that the crew uniform is what we expect, not the green uniform. With t-shirts they usually silk-screen a design on them. With polo shirts, denim shirts, and fishing shirts etc, (and sometime t-shirts) they will have an embroidered design. On rare occasions I will see crews place insignia on these shirts. Usually the fishing shirt or aloha shirt, less often a polo. Never on a t-shirt. I've also see a crew which used a vest. I always recommend that if a crew choices NOT to use the green venturing uniform as their uniform, that they allow and encourage their members who DO need to wear a uniform to wear it.

"I think, as a general principle, service hours have to benefit someone or some organization outside of scouting altogether." There are different types of service. My service fraternity makes this clear. There is service to the fraternity, which includes things like paying your dues, recruiting members, being an officer, being an involved member, doing a workshop/training event within the fraternity, etc. There is service to the community, such as doing service project within the community or working with a local service organization. For a scout unit, you need BOTH types of service. But when it comes to 'service' for the purposes of advancement, we are speaking of community service. But the boys need to be doing the first type as well. And not every kind of service comes with a 'reward'.

"Also I juts got another message saying that all loops are the same and the previous message had been in error." Saw that. They say the Venturing loops are "emerald green". Ok. But no one has EVER called them that. They were always green loops or spruce green loops (cause we had a spruce green shirt). And they are "centennial boy scout loops". They still have silver and gold loops, but they aren't listed on the scoutstuff catalog.

Also note this comment: "Olive green loops are the old Boy Scout loops and were changed to Forest Green in August 2008 with the introduction of the Centennial Uniform." Uh, the old Boy Scout loops were red. The NEW loops are forest green, which many people (including me) would call olive green. One would think the boy scout loops went from olive green to forest green in August 08.

AFAIK, the color for Venturing has not changed. They are probably now calling it 'teal' instead of spruce. I always called it forest green, but guess I can't use that term... Reminds me of when I look in some clothes catalogs and can't figure out what colors they are refering to. Taup? What the hell's taup? Moss?

"There are some much more prestigious awards like the Ranger, which is certainly more involved than Eagle, but is not represented by a knot. Similar arguments can be made for the Quest, Trust or Denali awards, yet none of these offer an accompanying knot." Being 'prestigious' is not a reason for a knot. AOL, Eagle, Venturing Silver, and Quartmaster have knots because they are the highest awards of their programs. Ranger, Quest, Trust, Denali, et al are NOT. Don't confuse the current Venturing Ranger award with the old Explorer Scout Ranger Award. The ES Ranger Award got a knot because it was the highest award of that program.

"Yes, a youth can be dual-registered in a troop and a team." Never heard that a youth can be dual-registered in a troop and a team. So not certain if so. "Or triply-registered in a troop, team, and crew. Or even, based on what I've seen, be quad-registered in a troop, team, crew, and ship (even though a ship is a specialized crew)." A youth can be registered in more then one crew. As a ship is just a certain type of crew, that makes it doable. The reason for allowing more then one crew is that crews have different programs/foci. So one could be in a church crew and also a high adventure crew or the like.

No formal announcements have been made. There is a list floating around of supposedly new ones, such as SCUBA, GPS/GIS, Scouting Heritage, and I think another. Typically, such things are rolled out with the National Meeting in May or the Top Hands meeting in August. It may be we will get an announcement in 2010, prehaps around the National Meeting, with the new merit badges being rolled out at Jamboree (like they did with composite materials).

"When I took it, back in 06, it was nowhere close to being that long, but then our council is not as supportive of Venturing as it could be." When VLST was first rolled out, it was 4 hours. It was later expanded to 5 hours. As I noted, there are 5 sessions. I am actually in charge of VLST for 2 councils in October, so this is a course I am very familiar with and am currently lining up my trainers. The course has as yet to be updated. SOOOO, you will need to update things yourself. This is what I add: * in Advancement, I speak of the Quest and Trust awards. Also make sure adults are aware of the Scouter's Key and Scouters Training Award. And that all are aware of the Council Venturing Leadership Award. (none of this is in the standard slides) * Training. I get a lot of questions about training (what's out there for youth and adults, what do I take next, etc). So I have done this as an informal session, and will probably create a PPT that others can use. For youth, I make sure people are aware of Crew Officer Orientation, VLSC, Kodiak, Kodiak-X, Mentoring Others (not yet released ) and the new National Youth Leadership Society (nomination form is now out: bin #512-354). There is a nice Kodiak/Kodiak-X presentation on the Kodiak site I have used for that. Not sure if I'll use it or not this time. For adults, I make sure people understand what courses they need to be 'basic trained', and about on-line training. And tell them about Powder Horn, Philmont Training Center & Florida Sea Base courses, as well as Kodiak/Kodiak-X CDC. Since I try to cover the training awards as part of advancement, I don't mention it here. I make sure to bring out all my displays of awards, insignia, manuals and such, as many aren't aware of what's out there. And be sure to have handouts for the training awards, VLA, etc. Use this course to also talk up your VOA and any upcoming events in your council. You always have adults at these training events who aren't 'plugged in' with what's going on in your council.

FYI. VLST is 5 hours long, with 5 sessions (not ever one is an hour long). Recommend you recruite atleast 4 other people, so one person does each session. Doing all/most yourself is not fun.

Yes. I have scans of the document, along with ppts you can use. There may be some on-line sources for this, but not certain where. The US Scouting Service Project has the PPT, but not the PDFs. PM me with your address and I'll shoot it over to you.

Nothing wrong with taking your scouts to a theme park. In fact, a few theme parks have scout-related program/patches. I believe Disney World and a few others do those.

"Another question - after the second weekend do you have any more involvement with your patrol?? It seems to me that after your ticket items are approved that you are on your own to complete them?? Is this correct? I understand making friendships that will last a lifetime but is there any "offical" involvement??" There is no official involvement after the WB course is 'complete'. No required patrol meetings. You have completed the 'theoretical' part of the course, and are in the 'practical' part of the course. (putting into practice what your learned in WB by 'working your ticket'). You will be in contact with your troop guide/coach counselor/ticket counselor. While patrols members are encouraged to help each out, that may or may not happen. (some patrol bond real well, so much that all work to make sure everyone in the patrol completes their ticket, and even the whole patrol will be beaded together. some patrol don't really bond, the members may or may not complete their tickets and may not even know if other members did so. some are somewhere in between.) Distance between members is a factor. If all the members from a patrol are from the same district, there is usually more inner patrol support, then if they are from different district or worse different councils. How much you are 'on your own' to complete your ticket will vary from council to council. In my council, the idea is we want everyone to complete their ticket. Participants are encouraged to say "I am doing this for my ticket" to ensure that people will help and not hinder them to complete things. Many councils will have annual WB gatherings, which is pretty much the only 'formal' continuation after the course. We will get updates on past courses, have some beadings, etc.

"I don't know if the WB experience is the same throughout the US but for us days 4-6 are an outdoors experience." Adding to what Crew21_Advisor said, ALL WB courses are to follow the same syllabus and schedule. For a 2 weekend course, the first weekend is designed to take a webelos scout thru a bridging ceremony into boy scouts, and show the 3-4 weekly meetings. The second weekend is designed to be a troop campout. The prior WB course was also designed around the idea of the participants being scouts, with the staff being the troop leaders & adults. Thus, information was given to the scout participants in dribbles, many times like it is in a troop. Some 'got it' and some didn't. (those who didn't got pissy because they believe they were being mistreated).

This is not a replacement uniform, but one that would be used as an alternate to the current uniform. I do agree with the issue of cost.

"green shoulder loops (what's wrong with red)" My understanding is that National realized that the red loops stood out too much. So the trend of going away from the colorful patches continues. (like when they changed the rank & office patches back in 1989.) "lack of instruction on what patches to wear and where to wear them" Uh, AFAIK information was available. Maybe not as widely distributed as it should, but even before the uniforms came out I was aware of where the trained strip was to be placed, etc. National could have done a better job, but to claim it wasn't there isn't correct. And certainly they could have handled the confusion about the unit numbers a LOT better... "The lack of color is another issue with the new shirt; I really like the red numbers and epaulets for the scouts. I'm not sure if the different colored epaulettes are being kept for the different scout orgs;" FYI- when one speaks of "scout orgs", that refers to the BSA, Scouts Canada, the British Scout Association, etc. I think you mean the different PROGRAMS (Cub scouts, Boy Scouts, Venturing, etc). The only thing that changed was that the red loops used by Boy Scouts was replaced with olive green (or forest green as they call them) loops. Blue, orange, and spruce green are still used by those programs, along with silver and gold.

""To prevent unauthorized use. " "Considering they post a style guide for proper use and The BSA image is free use for all Scout organizations as long as they follow the Style guide, again I ask, why can't they post the actual images in a usable format?" Simple. Putting up the actual images would make it too easy for unauthorized use. Have the images in a style guide doesn't make that easy. Yeah, some make generate them from the style guide, but it would be a lot of work. Other orgs have done the same thing. My Fraternity also recently created a style guide, but took down our downloadable images, requiring people to contact our office to get them. This helps ensures only authorized people can get them, otherwise we have unauthorized people taking them and making up items for sale without our permission.