Kahuna

>>Kahuna is correct, but he fails to mention that the Wood Badge Beaver Patrol is always the first, and therefore the best Patrol!

Thanks for that insight, David. That theory makes a lot of sense. There was certainly a rightful concern about the Boypower debacle and changing the entire image of scouting would have fit that need. I never saw anything but positive response to the de la Renta uniform at the time, other than that a lot us had to spend some bucks to replace our uniforms. The design was certainly in style at the time. Whether it is now or not is under debate elsewhere.

Joe, Sounds like it's the Boy Scouts. The Beaver Patrol, followed by SR-605, means it's part of a Woodbadge training group. These would be adults, btw. Congratulations on your standing up for the right to fly the flag.

No way! If you wear a 32' square neckerchief folded in half instead of the current approved neckerchief, your boy's badges will all fall off, the council office will collapse and the Chief Scout Executive will come down and take your charter away. Maybe the charter of the whole council. BTW, it was late forties/early fifties that the neckerchief transitioned to the "half" currently in vogue.

Kudu, During my entire scouting career, including the time I was a professional, I never knew a professional who would ever criticize a unit about uniforming (unless invited for a uniform inspection), yet other volunteers will scream that you are profaning the memory of Baden-Powell. In fact, during my weeks at Schiff for NEI, I do not recall that any time was spent discussing uniforming. We did have to wear ours a few times a week and of course, we had to purchase our Hart Shafter & Marx dress uniform (talk about a dog of a uniform), but they only mentioned in terms of the method.

I tend to agree with both Its Me and Kudu. The only thing odd about the timing is that it was just about the time they decided maybe Hillcourt was right, they were wrong and we needed the outing back. That would have been just shortly before Bill started writing the new Boy Scout Handbook, wouldn't it? My guess is, somebody got the ball rolling back in the mid 70's and it just kept rolling. I think it was too early to have been the image change to presage the return to the outdoors, plus the design was more in line with indoor thing anyway. I always liked the look of the de la Renta, especially before they started tinkering with it. My troops tended to wear jeans and Tshirts on campouts and the uniform was fine for troop meetings.

Frankly, I never tried that until you mentioned it. I believe Bill would have thought that was pretty funny. He wouldn't mind a bit. What does your mental health consultant say?

Bill Hillcourt was a thorn in the BSA's side from his retirement until his death. I never got his views on the de la Renta uniform, but he once said that what we should do with skill awards is to put them in boxcars and stick them out on a siding in the middle of nowhere. Then, years later, we could bring them out and sell them as memorabilia, thus making a mint for the BSA. He really did not like skill awards. Too bad he didn't live longer.

Greying Beaver, Yep, I have that book and all the others you reference and a bunch more besides. I've been in Scouting long enough to have worn more versions than I care to mention. My Cub uniform was an "experienced" one that had those metal buttons that you could remove before washing. However, in 1980 the de la Renta uniform was a total change in colors, styles, socks everything. No uniform change was ever that radical since they abolished the old WWI army uniforms you refer to. What I'm curious about is what forces led to such a radical change?

Kudu, Some of what you posted is obviously tongue in cheek, with enough truth in it that I can recognize the syndromes you are talking about, especially as regards the golf courses around Irving. However, forgive me if I say that the portion regarding the Patriot Act provisions and national security sound a bit fantastic. Do you have a citation that would let me avoid having to read all the Patriot Act along with all its revisions? The BSA would not, as far as I know, be subject to provisions of FOIA in any case, but how would Irving justify secret committees and secret documents not accessible to volunteers? If you could convince me that what you say is true, I believe I could penetrate some of their security. I realize every corporation, including non-profits, must have some secrets in order to preserve their existence. However, as a 501©(3), they also must disclose information to the public and to the federal gummint, which would be subject to FOIA. I have a lot of questions about what you say. I don't doubt your word, I just would like to have some source info. Thanks, in any case, for your input.

Re the confiscation of insignia issue. The confiscation under a warrent having to do with a criminal investigation would be an entirely separate matter. I'm not aware of any case where the BSA has seized insignia for improper use. Of course, the rationale for the ownership by BSA of insignia goes back to the original "may be directed to turn in his Scout badge" thing from day one in scouting, here and in the UK. I can't imagine that even the occasionally tin-eared National Council would get really upset over the fact that the insignia was being used by a legitimate Boy Scout troop through legitimate award channels just because it was worn on an unofficial uniform. It might be very different if worn by some scouting reform organization.

Well said, Trevorum. Christmas is both a secular and a religious holiday. Regardless of the history of why Christmas is celebrated on December 25, that is the holiday celebrated on that date. The trees are Christmas trees. Japan is a largely Buddhist or Shinto, not Christian country. Yet, if you went shopping on the Ginza tonight, you would have a hard time believing you weren't in New York. There are Christmas decorations everywhere. I happened to be there on Christmas eve some years ago and was several times wished a Merry Christmas by the salespeople or the greeters who stand at the door of the department stores. I am a Buddhist, but I have Christmas decorations up and I send Christmas cards. I certainly take no offense if wished a Merry Christmas, but neither do I mind being wished happy holidays. It's just silly to try to call the trees holiday trees and rename everything in the interest of political correctness.

Yeah, but . . . Obviously, you can respond anyway you want, but the question is, if it is outmoded or impractical, what do we do about it? You can buy your own stuff, make up your own uniforms or have BSA uniforms made by a tailor I know in Osan, Korea. Might be cheaper than National Supply. But, how would we go about getting National to change the uniform? They did in 1980. They did about 60 years before that. Anybody up for a challenge?

I started another thread under uniforms and realized I had no clue how our current uniform design came about. I know it was designed by Oscar de la Renta, but do any of you historical types know how it came to be decided that we needed a uniform revision? It's kind of amazing to me that the uniform was modified but never changed in the 70's, when they thought everything had to change. But the total redesign didn't occur until the beginning of the 80's. What was the process?

Leaving aside all questions of whether we should be uniformed, require uniforms or design our own uniforms, there's a lot of evidence turning up in these threads that the 1980 uniform design is not popular with a lot of boys. Even leaving aside the fact that scout uniforms have been considered dorky by many kids, dating from when I was a scout (and no, I wasn't in that picture with Baden-Powell), what could we do about it? I was totally out of the loop in 1980 when the uniform was totally redesigned. Since there was no internet in those days, the grapevine was somewhat limited. So, how do scouters go about calling for a uniform revision? There is a national uniform committee. Has anybody raised this issue with any of them? The people on the national boards are people who live in our communities, although we don't always know who they are. Do people in your scouting community share these feelings? What happens when you talk about them at roundtables? I doubt that much will change as a result of our discussions here unless we carry them to a different level. What do you think?

It's all about leadership. That's how you keep your kids 100%uniformed. With leadership you can encourage them to feel it's worthwhile to wear it. As a leader you can live with an occasional pair of white socks or a kid that can't wear his uniform for some reason or other on occasion. A leader can make it important that kids feel responsible and are letting the team down if they don't wear it. With leadership you can make determinations that it makes no sense to make a kid wear wet pants home from a campout and you can make your kids understand why you can make an exception. 100% uniformed doesn't mean they have to sleep in them either. Of course, to be a leader in scouting I would think you have to believe you are part of something other than religious organization operating under a government monopoly with an ugly uniform that you can't get kids to wear because they hate it.

As far as I can see, there is no prohibition in fact or in logic against making up a troop uniform. I don't know whether BSA ever thought about it or not, but since wearing the uniform is optional you could wear anything you want. However, there are some definite prohibitions against altering BSA insignia. The gist of it is in the uniform guide, but they are legally protected. Just how far that goes is anybody's guess. Sea Scout ships wear all kinds of different uniforms, stemming from the days when it was Sea Exploring and everybody could design their own uniforms and also from the fact we don't have uniforms available from National Supply. Although the national committee has prescribed a uniform that must be worn at national events, so far they haven't done more than encourage units to standardize. There are a bunch of suppliers of things like square knots on white, khaki and blue as well as epaulets that incorporate what is presumably BSA protected insignia. I guess I wouldn't worry about the legal ramifications as much as the other frogs pushing me in the water.

I have never minded if the kids called me by my first name. As I have aged, however, they generally will call me Mr which seems somehow too formal. If I worked with a troop nowadays, I might have them call me Scouter Kahuna. On the other hand, there's a nice custom in the islands that most young kids will call any adult "Uncle" or "Auntie" (just that, no name) without regard to any relationship or even acquaintance. That works whether you are 18 or 80 and isn't disrespectful.

Kudu writes: Obviously Hawaii is the exception that proves the rule :-/ Well, Hawai'i definitely is the exception to most things when it comes to rules, whether having too many or too few or something else. I'm not sure that has anything to do with my being an exception to most rules. SemperParatus: Excellent point. However, the others missed the obvious: Those frogs were Sea Scouts and nobody has more uniform disputes than Sea Scouts. The fourth frog was wearing too many square knots on his uniform.

I agree that summer camps are expensive to own and operate, but to me they are absolutely vital to BSA program. There are lots of ways to finance camps, capital campaigns and major sponsors among the main ones. In Central Florida, we had the Winn-Dixie Scout Reservation. The commercial name didn't bother me a bit and brought a lot of goodwill to Winn-Dixie. It's very difficult to run your own summer camp program in today's world. Hard to find land to camp on where you can do it and hard to meet BSA standards for proper staffing. My troops camped every month year around. The kids camped, cooked and ate as patrols. We camped in primitive and less primitive sites, swam in rivers and lakes and hiked on all kinds of trails. For summer camp in the deep South, we wanted an air conditioned mess hall with three meals, pre-positioned tents with platforms and a junior olympic swimming pool. The boys were free to earn as many or as few merit badges as they wanted, but we always tried to arrange a white water rafting or all day canoeing experience as part of the week. I think it's great that a lot of camps offer patrol cooking sites for those who want or need it. I also think it's great that camps like Daniel Boone in North Carolina offer llama treks in the mountains for older scouts in place of merit badge classes. Then, there's Philmont and the canoe base in Minnesota. Whatever these camps cost, I'm for preserving them. I don't give much money to any charity these days (old age and retirement you know), but I always give to capital campaigns for council camps. And I guess I will as long as I'm able. As I said on another thread, if I were in a council that had closed its summer camp, I would demand that the professionals close their office and go run a camp in the summer or quit their jobs and do something else.

With all respect, Kudu, I think your guess is wildly off on this one. I think there is a high correlation between people who post about uniforms and people who are interested in uniforming as part of the scouting methods. Certainly, as far as I am concerned you are dead wrong. I am neither a believer in the Bible, nor a strict "obedience" leader. I don't think the uniform is good camping wear and don't think many troops require kids wear it while camping. It would be hard to design an all-purpose uniform in todays world of camping gear, but I guess it would look like the military battle dress uniform of today. You will note the military has four basic uniforms that everybody wears at one time or another: battle dress, or fatigue uniform for grubby work; semi-formal dress for the office environment; dress uniforms for parades and mess dress uniform for evening formal events. I don't think Boy Scouts could afford that many uniforms, do you? In Baden-Powells day, the military wore the same uniform in parades and in combat. The scout uniform of his day was based on that design and worked pretty well. Today, I don't think there is any uniform that works well in both environments and I don't think that any uniform designer could come up with a uniform that would make everybody happy. It would take a surfer uniform, a skater uniform, preppy uniform and geek uniform to make the kids happy. My advice is either wear the uniform as it is and require your kids to wear it, or forget the whole thing and wear camouflage. But what you have won't be a Boy Scout troop. (Jeez, I feel like I'm channeling Bob White here. )

Welcome to the forum, Rhino. The BSA pubs may say that the uniform is not required to participate in activities, but in practice it's not quite the way it works. If you want to go to a jamboree, you gotta have a series of uniform items. If your Sea Scout unit wants to participate in any national activity, you must have the proper uniforms. The remainder of my rant is in response to the previous posts in the thread. I've said before in this thread that any unit I have anything to do with would be a 100% uniformed unit. I won't compromise on the whole thing, either. No "waist up" stuff for me. I don't presume to tell other units what they need to do, but I would suggest that how you appear to the public reflects on the program as a whole. On another thread I related my experience at a flag presentation ceremony aboard the USS Missouri. The troop that was involved looked so sloppy that I sort of slunk out without introducing myself or talking with any of them. They were partly in and partly out of uniform, some long pants, some shorts, some civillian pants. Made a terrible impression on the public, especially in a setting where, even as a volunteer, I must be in correct staff uniform or they won't let me aboard. I was a Boy Scout 40 years ago. The uniform of that era had not changed in 25 years and the changes made were not very radical from the 1930's to 1980. Boy Scout uniforms were considered dorky and you could get harrassed for wearing one if you were older than about 12. So, in short, I don't buy this argument that if the uniform were different, boys would wear it more willingly. To me, it's as much a part of the program as the patrol method. You can disregard the patrol method if you want, but what you have is not a Boy Scout troop.

Congratulations on your retirement and thanks for your service! Now, you can be a nuisance in the commisary, exchange and healthcare system like the rest of us. (USAF, Retired)

Strange connection. Had Dr. Winston been more than a baby on December 7, 1941, he probably would have written a song explaining why we shouldn't go to war with Japan. "Imagine there's no enemy, I wonder if you can . . ." (This message has been edited by Kahuna)

There's one issue I don't even have to think about!