Ribbons, ribbons, and more ribbons

[oldsm 10]

What does your troop do with all those ribbons that are awarded? Such as:

- annual recharter ribbon

- 100% Boys Life (at recharter time)

- Participation ribbons (for camporees, etc.)

- 1st/2nd/3rd-place ribbons for various events: competitions at camporees and other outings (some may have been earned by patrols or "temporary/mixed" patrols, depending upon attendance)

- FOS participation

 

BSA sells a ring that can be added to a flagpole so your ribbons can be displayed with the troop flag. But sooner or later they all get tangled, the cords fray, and they generally look a mess. Not a very practical solution.

 

We tried a separate bar to hang them on, but it gets moved around and parked behind other stuff (we use a church fellowship hall shared by MANY other groups), so the ribbons aren't protected in any way.

 

Are these ribbons a part of Troop history? Are they worth keeping forever? Would you keep them only until the boys who earned them leave the troop (for whatever reason - Eagle/age/etc)?

 

It's kind of nice to get some the the ribbons, but I'm not sure they have much meaning to the scouts.

 

What does your troop do with them?

[Eagle92 110]

In my troop growing up, someone made a ring for our troop flag WAY before national created one. Every single troop ribbon received went on it going back to its founding 1967. Yep my troop was a young troop.

[eagle90 125]

We have ribbons on our flag dating back to the mid 50's when our troop was formed. Occasionally our scouts will look at them all and comment on the age. We use the rings from a shower curtain to hold them onto the troop flag pole.

[skeptic 997]

For a while we had a separate ribbon displayer that was carried like a patrol flag might be. But it proved to be too cumbersome. Now, other than honor unit items, they are strung across our meeting room on wires. Of course with excess of 50 years of stuff, it was way too cluttered, and they kept falling off. Even the 15-20 on the troop pole now are becoming a bit much.

[oldsm 10]

Regardless of how you attach them, 15-20 ribbons on a troop flag pole is a bit much. It gets to the point that you can't see the flag, and it becomes unwieldy to handle. In a parade, the mass of ribbons makes the whole thing very top heavy. Indoors, the weight causes the flag and stand to fall over.

 

You can't display/store ribbons in a book - at least we haven't found a way. Most of the time, they just wind up in a drawer.

 

Are they worth keeping? I'm still looking for solutions...Thanks!

[Stosh 3452]

My boys don't seem to be all that worked up about the ribbons and they are mostly filed away in the circular file. If the boys get a ribbon for a patrol competition that they feel good about, they put it on their patrol flag, but old ribbons obtained by former scouts just doesn't carry much freight with the current boys.

 

Stosh

[allenj 10]

Our Pack has a "T" frame with all old ribbons which is brought out at Pack Meetings. This year my son was able to show his Tiger Cub son the three ribbons he and his Webelos Den won at a Webelos First Aid event in 1987. Two station firsts and Overall event. I was really proud of being a Scouter.

[evmori 11]

We made a separate ribbon display since we had so many. Looked very impressive.

[SMEagle819 10]

Yes, we have lots of ribbons...so many, that it snapped our troop flag pole at the junction point where one can take the pole apart for travelling purposes.

 

What we have come up with is putting them on our "award" wall in our scout cabin. The boys like looking though them to see who can find the oldest one (we are a 77 year old troop...have some oldies in there). The QM asked for volunteers to take some home and iron them (some had become wrinkled and/or crushed looking after being stored after the flagpole incident). Many of the readily agrred, and have had them ironed and brought them back. Soon, we will have them on the wall for all to see again.

[SctDad 10]

If they are getting too heavy for the flag, how about a poster frame. You can put them in there and then hang the frame on the wall for all to see. I know that you will not be able to see the back, but at least you will have a protected way to display your ribons. And maybe throw a picture in their with it.

[dlearyous 10]

evmori, what does your ribbon display look like?

[Twocubdad 665]

We have probably 100+ ribbons on the troop flag some going back 30 years. Doesn't bother anyone here.

 

If you really want to do it right, buy an archive-quality scrapbook from University Products (Google it). I know they sell scrapbooks sized for full-sized newspaper pages. They used to be in the $50-60 range.