NJCubScouter

On collars vs. no collars, I have a vague recollection that the first uniform shirt that I wore as a Boy Scout (1969 to roughly 1973) had a collar. That shirt is lost to the mists of time, perhaps it is in a box in my mother's attic, so it (or its remnants) may surface one day. The uniform shirt that I did retrieve from my parents' house has no collar. It has "Scout BSA" on the strip above the collar rather than "Boy Scouts of America" which is why I believe it is from the 70's rather than the 60's. Interestingly, it does not have an American flag on the shoulder (and my Leadership Corps patch is in that spot), I'm not sure why that is. Evidently I was not perfectly uniformed in the latter part of my youth membership, because on the sleeve is my JASM patch so I guess I should have removed the Leadership Corps patch. Not to mention that I continued to be active for about 8 months after turning 18 as an ASM, so I don't know why I apparently never wore an ASM patch. Oh well.

I have been reading about this "game" for years in this forum. I have never had direct contact with it as I have never attended Wood Badge - which I have never felt any compelling need to do in the Scouting roles I have held. But if I had ever seriously considered doing it, what I have read in this forum (including this thread) certainly wouldn't push me in the direction of doing it. I have attended various retreats and other meetings and courses (mostly in connection with my past service on my local school board and on various school committees to which I have been appointed over the years) where there were other kinds of what I would loosely call "games" - such as "team building exercises", or exercises designed to show everybody the important of looking at things from the other person's point of view and/or emphasize that different people may perceive the same thing differently, etc. etc. I have never been impressed with any of it and have always considered these things a big waste of time, and every time I have to do it (technically I never HAVE to do it, these are all volunteer activities (if I were getting paid, none of this applies) and I could just walk out or not participate, but I don't) I resent it more than the time before. I guess my attitude is, I am an adult, if you want to tell me something, tell me something. If I'm there to learn, start teaching, and if I am there to provide input or to discuss or engage in study or research, let's get on with it. If I want to play games, I'll choose them for myself.

1, I'm not sure how two muted colors is "flashier" than one muted color. 2, When I started wearing the epaulets, mine were dark blue, not very flashy. True, the red ones (which I still wear on my still-ODL uniform shirt) are more colorful, though I am not adverse to red on a uniform, as some other people seem to be. Until about a month ago our troop wore red neckerchiefs anyway. 3, I'm not sure how collars are flashier than no collars. 4, Red berets certainly are flashy but they did not come in with the ODL uniform. I believe they were issued in 1972, originally just for the Leadership Corps and then about a year later for troop-wide wear. It was optional anyway, so I guess you could say that a troop could customize its degree of flashiness. (As they can now: About 30 red neckerchiefs available, best offer. ) 5, I would say the ACTUAL garter (which I wore in my youth) is considerably MORE flashy than a little red stripe. Maybe flashy is not the right word. I am not sure what the right word is. I suspect non-Scouts who saw me in my summer uniform may have had some words for it. 6, Give you that one, but I don't think they have become less flashy now that the "red" in the uniform itself has been reduced. I saw a set of special-edition CSP's that one of our kids got when he went to the last national jamboree, and they were pretty flashy.

Moderator Note: I was not sure what a "fleld uniform" was so I fixed the spelling in the topic title. (Of course, I missed that the first 5 times or so that I read this topic, I guess I saw an i with a dot, just realized it wasn't one.)

I am moving this to Open Discussion/Program as it is really about unit operations and unit-CO relations rather than fundraising.

Wow, glad to hear you are okay and getting the support you need.

I'm not relying on anyone to do anything. What the BSA's motivations may be is up to them. (On issues like uniforms, anyway.) I'm merely reporting what the BSA is licensing and putting in their magazines, and on how it impacts on the common understanding of a term that is in common use in Scouting with, at least up to a point, a common understanding of what it means. It is clear that the BSA has no problem with my troop having its own t-shirt for use on designated occasions, although I'm sure they would prefer the shirts be made by someone who gives National a piece of the action. (I believe that the maker of our t-shirts does not, but the maker of our new customized embroidered neckerchiefs does.)

Funnily enough, the ad that is at the top of my screen right now is for ClassB, with pictures of customized pack t-shirts and patrol patches, and the tag lines "Manufactured Under License From the BSA", "Sign Up For Coupons" and "Click Now!", with the exclamation point. When you click Click Now!, some of what you get (in addition to the 8-year-old-or-so boy sporting some of the wares for sale) is "As Seen in Scouting Magazine!", not to mention an 800 number that says "Let's talk t-shirts!" So as Tahawk and I were discussing, although there are often communication problems within the BSA and on this forum, with people using different terms to mean different things and not acknowledging the other meanings, there doesn't really seem to be a problem in this case.

I think any further discussions of other sections of the forum should either be in that section or in Forum Support and Announcements, and if one wishes to share questions or comments with the forum owner and/or moderators, either by private message for general matters or flag report on specific threads.

Beyond me too. Some people just like to get upset I guess. At the same time, I think we agree that the BSA needs to be a little more precise in its terms sometime. Multiple plausible meanings and ambiguities interfere with communications, although they do generate business for a certain profession. Were to be worn? Or were NOT to be worn?

Reading this thread, I can't help thinking of "A PLEDGE PIN??? On your UNIFORM???" I will confess to the greivous sin of wearing my "Eagle Scout Dad" pin (aside to Eagle94, my son's kit came with a pin, not a tie tac) on my lapel to every Scouting function or activity, whether I am in uniform or not. (As a Troop Committee member, I sometimes am and sometimes not.) I wear it because I am proud of my son and it is an unobtrusive way to show it. If anyone doesn't like it, well, that's life. Nobody in "real life" has ever said anything to me about it. I suppose that if my troop's SM or CC, or a particular ASM who used to be SM, ever asked me to stop wearing it, I would stop. But I don't see any chance of that ever happening. They are all "Eagle parents" and may wear the pins themselves, I have never bothered to look.

Thank you for that clarification, Richard. For those newer forum members who may not be aware, RichardB is the health-and-safety guy at National, so this information is straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Actually in the Cub pack of which my son was once a member, and I believe most of the Cub packs in my area, the adults DO "teach" the Cub Scouts to wear jeans (or other non-official pants) with the Cub Scout shirts, neckerchiefs, belts and hats. The adults do that by wearing jeans (or "business casual", work pants or whatever else they feel like wearing) to the meetings themselves. When I was Assistant Cubmaster, the Cubmaster and I decided we were going to try to break that trend. We bought uniform pants for ourselves and our sons. We put in the pack's "parents' handbook" that uniform pants were "strongly encouraged." We did not feel that we could instantly require them without causing a revolt, but we thought that maybe if we "set the example", other people would start following along, and more and more people would buy them and when we had most of the pack wearing them, it would be much easier to start requiring it for the rest. I suspect nobody will be surprised to learn that it didn't work. I don't think anybody else bought the pants. I crossed over with my son about a year later so I don't know for certain whether it ever changed, but based on a few subsequent visits to the pack, I don't think it did. The Cubmaster left a year after I did, and as far as I know, he was the last one to wear the uniform pants in the pack, and that was more than 10 years ago. (I will add that my comments about other packs in my area are based on attending Roundtables and also being a YP training facilitator, and has one group of exceptions: Those Cub Scouters who were also active on the district or council did wear the uniform pants. Others did not, and I guess I am just assuming that if the leaders were wearing just any old pants, so were the Cubs.)

I have seen "activity uniform" defined as a Scouting-related t-shirt and Scout pants. I probably have also seen it defined as a Scouting-related t-shirt and any pants. Which, if either, is or was "official", I don't know. Our troop uses the term "Class B", defined as our troop t-shirt (which as far as I know, every youth and adult has at least one of) and Scout pants. I believe that if a troop t-short is for some reason unavailable, some other Scouting-related t-shirt also counts. Some events are designated for the "Class B uniform", as is one meeting per month. (I know a troop that reverses that, and wears "Class B" at every meeting EXCEPT one per month, which is "Class A.") I think it is also safe to say that BSA National does not care if someone uses the term "Class B", even if they don't use it themselves. As someone pointed out earlier, there is a licensed BSA retailer named ClassB.com (I believe) and they will sell you customized troop t-shirts to use as part of your activity uniform. I am sure the BSA happily accepts whatever the licensing fee is, not to mention the revenues they get every month from ClassB's standing ad in Scouting Magazine. I am sure that if the term "Class B" was somehow deemed contrary to the Scouting program, National would not take this money and sacrifice their principles. (And yes, I am smirking as I type that.)

It does look posed. The Scout (presumably) in the middle is probably holding up the stencil for the camera - although if he's not careful the stencil may literally go down the drain. Meanwhile, the project leader points, pointlessly. If one wants to nitpick the photo a little more, one could ask why, if traffic safety vests were considered necessary, only one of the three young men is wearing one. (And, amusingly enough, it happens to be the one that is NOT currently standing in the street! And yes, I do see the traffic cone but that's not the point.) (And maybe I am wrong that it was a stencil. There is no way all of that is going to fit on the top part of that drain. Or were they putting the paint on the street in front of the drain? Or were they putting up these things as signs, and if so, how were they attaching them to the drain?)

Stosh, for all we know, the SPL wearing the non-Scout shorts could be the greatest Scout in history, the most dedicated, conscientious, Scoutlike, etc. etc. Or not. We don't know, and we can't tell just from the fact that he's not in full uniform. I would prefer that he was, but the fact that he's not doesn't necessarily mean anything. (Leaving aside the fact that I'm not sure whether his Eagle project would fly in our district, unless there's something more to it than spray-painting through a stencil onto some storm sewers, but that's another issue.)

TAHAWK, are you saying that the references in official BSA literature to an "activity uniform" (known to some as "Class B") no longer exist? When did that change occur?

I have mixed feelings about this. But I can't help thinking that over the years, many people have posted in this forum about things they heard from those supposedly "in the know" at a meeting, or a roundtable, or at the national training center, and some of those things turned out to be true, and some did not. Of course you never know which is which until it happens. I usually prefer to wait until something actually happens before becoming concerned about it.

David, I think the difference is that your adult-league softball coach is probably not telling you that you need to be at practice five afternoons/evenings a week and that if you miss Wednesday's practice to attend a troop meeting, you are going to be benched for Saturday's game against Joe's Muffler Shop. If he did, you would probably laugh at him. Unlike a boy in the fifth or sixth grade, nobody's putting pressure on you to be the star of the softball team so you can be the star in high school or the AAU team and then get a college scholarship and/or make the pros. You aren't trying to make the pros or get a scholarship. You are playing for fun and recreation. Many kids are being told by their parents that they are playing for their future.

Ok, it turns out I was correct. There was an issue which has now been fixed. Mizmba: The issue that was fixed is whatever allowed you to post in this topic without having completed the registration process. Please complete that process or the system will not allow you to post anywhere in the forum.

Welcome to the forum QuartermasterJC! I also am a former journalist - former as in my college newspaper and summer jobs in the mid-to-late 70's and a few years full-time in the early 80's, back when there were newspapers. And I remember all of the things SSScout mentions, though a bit vaguely at this point. It was the period while computerization was taking over, and the computerization that did exist would probably not be recognizable today. I remember this one machine in the production shop at my college newspaper that (I think) printed the headlines, if you wanted to change the spacing between the letters you had to fool around with these toggle switches that worked in binary (and I am not a computer guy), and with no monitor, you just gave it your best shot, with the knowledge that you were probably going to have to try it again. There were a couple of other machines there that stopped working if you looked at them wrong. I did not spend most of my time there, I was usually in the news office tapping away at a manual typewriter. By the time I was reporting for a living, I was working on a computer, or rather, a terminal connected to a computer that took up most of a wall. I suspect that all of that equipment - which was fairly new at the time - ended up in the scrap heap of history not too long after I moved on to another career.

I agree with that. I call it "balance", Barry calls it puzzle pieces, its all the same idea. The problem is with those coaches who demand to be the entire puzzle, and those parents who go along with that.

Strange indeed. Actually I am surprised you were able to post anywhere, including here. The fact that you are a member of the "Validating" group suggests that you have not yet completed the registration process for this forum. Please check your email and if you have something from this forum, do whatever it says to do, and then you should be fine. Then when you make your "first" post it will be subject to "approval" by a moderator (the only "first" posts that don't get approved are spam) - or maybe it won't be, since your first post is already visible. It will be interesting to see what happens

The delusion, if you wish to call it that, is not so much about the youth's athletic ability. Of course there are Scouts with great athletic ability. The delusion is about how far that ability is likely to take him, and whether it is worth completely crowding out all other activities with a singular focus just on a sport. That is what I am seeing. On the other hand, I think most troops will welcome the Scout back after the three-month break for the sports season. Of course that season may be followed right away by a season of a different sport. I think it's natural that after those kinds of interruptions, some Scouts will lose interest and not come back. I have seen it happen. (Or, since the time of crossing over from Cubs to Boy Scouts is right at the same age when the sports frenzy is beginning, the Scout may never even make it to his first troop meeting. I have seen that happen too.)

The problem is that it takes a lot of parents too many years to accept that fact about their child, and in the meantime the youth misses out on some other things they would have done otherwise because they have obligations to the team six (maybe seven?) days a week.