Eagle92

Use your resources. Talk about the ease of training, i.e. via online. Word is that national will be puttin all the of the specif leader training online in the very near future. if possible, set up a pack training event with training staff. Talk about how the kids need them, and with the upcoming mandatory training policy in the near future, you would hate to lose them b/c they do make a difference.

one caveat is that you MUST keep an eye out on the S-L-E changes as in the past it included additional MBs. I've heard there was a Big push to get Eagle before the "urban Scouting" program of the 1970s took effect with 24 MBs being required and Camping and a few previously required Eagle MBs becoming optional. In my time in scouting, I know the addition of Family Life has caused some challenges.

In reference to the Troop/Team chartered by the same CO, You should be able to wear the same shirt with different color loops UNLESS the patrols are different and he holds a POR in one or both. In refernce to Jambo, he will need at least 3 shirts and pants.shorts with JAMBO troop insignia. That is perfectly acceptable for wear prior to jambo. After jambo, he can convert his shirts to unit specific. While velcro is a good route adults, I advise against it with youth. having a patch of velcro showing int he POR spot doesn't look good. PLUS I'll bet you a $1 that his friends will joke wiht him by saying "you don't deserve this" and rip off the velcroed patch.

Well, I thought I saw the term used in conjunction with adults onthe Language of Scouting, but the terms POR, Position of responsibility, etc don't appear in it so I may very well be mistaken.

M, FYI the Woods Wisdom Book is no more. It is now called Troop Program Features vols. 1-3 and Troop Resource Book (yep national split WW into 4 books) and the Resource Book has suggested, and I stress suggested, ceremonies. And I concur they are a must have for every troop. That said, I must respectfully disagree with you, although I prefer indiviudal ECOHs. Troops over time do have their traditions, and while WW and it's incartnations have been around at least 20 years, you do have troops out there older than that, and have their traditions in place well before the books come out. perfectly good example is one troop, been around since at least 1926 (it probably is older, but that is when the council was formed and their charter goes to that time) and they only do 1 ECOH per year, on Scout Sunday. Very nice ceremony I might add. So while there are recommendations, Scouting allows for some local options.

BD, I hear ya. But for whatever reason, the UCs don't inspect the leaders, only the scouts. Wish it would change as it would help the leaders set the example. As for me, I am guilty of being "out of uniform" at times. Depending upon which shirt I'm wearing, I may be "out of uniform" as several of my shirts do have a regional patch form my time as a DE. Took one patch off, and it was obvious that a regional patch was worn on the sleeve. However the bulk of my shirts are correct.

OGE, In the troop I gre up with, it was the PLs who made the tent assignments. Usually it was based upion the buddies ont he duty rooster. At the summercamps I worked at the situation varied. Mostly assigned by the PD, but the staff members could request specific folks, usually either others in their area, ro those who they have worked with in the past.

BD, Correct it's not allowed. BUT as we all know some don't always follow the rules. And when 90% of the time I've seen folks wear a district patch, it's on the right sleeve (the other 10% I've seen it worn as a temp patch on the pocket on youth, but that's a different story). Plus it doesn't help when a DE is encouraging folks to buy the district patch in which the sales go into event budget. Yep when I worked in supply, we had one of council's DEs create and sell a district patch, and we had lots of new leaders being told by him and the district vols that they needed a district patch for the uniform. The kept coming in and asking for it, and we had to be the 'bad guys."

Trainerlady, YOU GOT TO GO TO WORK LATE ON THE 26TH? lol We would come in about 6;30-7:30Am and would stay till about 8PM. Only breaks we got would be for lunch, dinner, and when the computer's slowed down. That could be frustrating. Long days. As for NDC bringin in new programming, it could be worse. the first year as a FTer, they implemented an entirely new system, both hardware and software, about 2 or 3 months before inventory. Good news is this: Supply actually has technoweenies who know what they are doing, so when SCOUTNET kept crashing, Supply was still functioning.

Want to clarify something in reference to finding pins. Yes we would do a sweep of the store to make sure everything was in it's place. But customers would still move things around, and sometimes thigns wouldn't be found until after you moved things to count, like the pants. Also sometimes you would find pins in cracks that you couldn't see unless you are on the floor counting pins.

Jet, When I worked for supply, everything had to be hand counted, no scanners were used and it made for a pain. For most merchandise a scanner could be used and would probably speed things up, BUT all those pins, i.e. CS Sports and Activity pins, mothers' pins, rank pins, ad nauseum b/c of they way they are sold (i.e. without barcode tags), it's not possible to use a scanner on them. Also guess where most of the time doing recounts would be spent: yep the pins. As stated above the various pins would be the #1 reason for recounts. the bulk of the time was recounting those blasted pins. We would find pins in the wrong containers,underneath the shelves, ont he floors underenath uniform pants, etc. The other area would be the campign merchandise beleive ti or not. Sleeping bags would be the biggest as the BSA would call a bag by one name, but the manufacturer's labe woudl call it something else, which got very confusing. Not to mention discontinued bags still in the store, but were somehow not listed on the inventory sheet. Recounts would be done when a discrepency between the computer and counter occured. If the recount produced a different count from the first count, then a second recount would be done. If there was still a discrepency the the assistant manager or or manager got involved.

OGE, FYI, POR is a term used for any leadership, both youth and adult.

A few ideas come to mind about their plans. 1) They may collect and sell via scoutstuff.org as they have been doing. Personally i am surprised stores still have the ODL items in them as I was told EVERYTHING had to be sent back. 2)With the shorts, they may add a Jambo logo to them and sell them. When they did away with ODL shorts, mod 2 (the longer ones without the useless cargo pockets) they collected them, added on a jambo logo, and sold them prior to, during, and a little after 2001 jambo. 3)destroy them. yes this is not being thrifty, but I've had to throw discontinued merchandise in the dumpster one time. Also knwo a few folks who went dumpster diving Almost forgot option 4) collect them and distribute them to those scouting organizations that need uniforms. Apparnetly there are a few scouting associations that need some help and a "Sleeves for Scouts" program is in place with the International Division.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

Desert, I hear ya. I can go either way on the patch, just wish they woulod have 1 standard policy for all 18-21 yos, instead of the 2 policies, i.e. no for Scouters 18-21, yes for Venturers. As for all the dew dads, not a personal fan of them myself

My condolences. A campership would be an ideal idea,

Meter, Welcome to the forums. In reference to CORs, ithink this is one of the most misunderstood and least explained PORs. To be honest it wasn't until within the past 2 years that I found out CORs are defacto exec board members with voting rights, and I was a DE for Pete's sake. No oen tells these folsk what they have as their is no push for htem to get trained and understand their powers. As for the power of a CO over a unit, It is there and you need to develop a relationship with the IH as well as the COR. You don't develop a relationship, your wunit will suffer. one example was while a DE I had an IH decide to dissolve the pack, wouldn't see me, and no matter what I told the COR, the IH made the decision and that was that, no arguing. Another is my old troop. I was a member of a troop that switched COs b/c the first CO was no longer supporting the troop and really wanted us to go away. We found a CO that had an uber supporting IH than was begging for a troop and it was great. Unfortunately when he left,the new IH had a anti-BSA bias (to the point that she called the cops on us for trespassing), and we wound up looking for another CO.

96, As a former supply geek, I can tell you that A)those employees you encountered would have loved to sell you the merchandise as they are there to help, but B) they can lose their jobs for not following national's policies, i.e. not packaging and shipping back, and C) Inventory is the WORST part of the job. Officially inventory is only 1 week, December 26th through Dec.31st. BUT there is no way in Hades that it can be done in that time frame, and the shop I worked at and others I would I talked to would begin the process in November. Lots of paperwork, counting and recounting and recounting. and recounging yet again. Yep it looks easy to take an item out the bag, and remark the bag with the correct number of items in it. But I can guarentee you that it does cause problems in the inventory system, and that ALL of those items, both in the stockroom will need to be recounted at least 2 times, and sometimes 3. Yep inventory is a PITA, and is one of the few times that ALL shop personell get together at the same time as it is a mandatory event. had one person play hookey one day (caught doing after Christmas shopping instead of working), and that person was terminated.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

Scoutnut, I've seen repro insignia worn on uniforms, and in some aspects it seems approved by national. Case in point is Ship's Stores repro knots on navy and white backgrounds. Go to the sea scout website and they are a predominate supplier for Sea Scout uniforms. I got a few of the white knots for my uniform as they look a heck of alot better than the khaki knots. Also I know of one unit that orders the repro RmWs in bulk, and have seen some custom jobs that are all in one; City and state, vet bar, and unit number. I beleive the former unit uses national supply for the orders, but don't quote me on it. In reference to district insignia in lieu of regional insignia on right arm. Your right their is no mention of the location in the IG passage. My info is coming from what I've seen as a volunteer and have been told as a former employee for supply. Like you I have seen lots of strange things on the uniform.

I'm not talking about the tie-tac / lapel pin inthe kit. I'm taking a full size Eagle pin that can be worn in lieu of the cloth patch, just like the S-T-2-1-S-L rank pins. Also let's not forget that 1) at one time national allowed adults to earn Eagle, I beleive prior to the 1950s, and 2) Eagle patch was allowed to be worn by adults. Don't know when they changed that one. So I've seen 1 Eagle in a vintage uniform with his Eagle patch on it.

I think that this is a great thread with lots of great advice on how to conduct a ECOH. I do have a few additional comments 1) Whatever you do, whether you let the Eagle plan his own, troop does it all, inside , outside WHATEVER, you must make it SPECIAL for the Eagle. After all he put in a lot of hard work to get here. 2) You must make it INSPIRATIONAL for those still climbing the trail. Letting them see this scout get Eagle, as well as recognizing those eagle adults and youth present, especially current and former members of the troop who are Eagle, will be awe inspiring b/c it will show the significance of how few make it as well as what the impact of Scouting in one's life. 3) You must make it CELEBRATORY for all those who have helped along the way: parents, former youth and adult leaders, grandparents, etc. Let's face it while the Eagle climbed the trail, he did recieve help, knowledge, and advice from a lot of folks.

Good question. Community and state strips, aka Red and Whites or RnWs, official insignia and were worn prior to CSPs became the norm in 1970. From http://www.gilwell.com/firstCSP/ Now the challenge comes in to whether you can mix or match insignia and/or uniform parts? Some say you can, others say you can't, and I can find nothing in BSA literature on this topic EXCEPT for the pdf file national put out in referecne to the ODL and Centennial uniform, whcih says ODL and CU items can be worn together. And that only says the shirts, socks, pants, etc are interchangable, nothing about insignia. Now my wife's uniform will in the near future have the RnWs on it, but then again it's a vintage 1950s den mother uniform

Scoutnut, I would disagree as the City and State strips are the predecessor to the CSP, and are the same shape, generally speaking, as the CSP. Lots of older units have a history of wearing "RnWs." What that passage is reference to district pacthes being worn in the location for regional patches, i.e. right arm. Yep I've seen district patches and have been told that's where they are worn. But as the section states district insignia is a no-no.

I know quite a few jambo staffers and would jump at the opportunity. Heck I am praying that BSA gets WSJ in 2019 so i can work that one! That said I did meet one person who had an aweful time working staff at a NSJ. She didn't like the heat, didn't like the fact that she had no privacy in the GP tent she was staffed in, hated walking to places, etc, etc. I told her she could stay at the shop and I'd take her place at jambo. Unfortunately it was a command performance for her to attend, and national had a pesky rule about national employees NOT staffing jambo UNLESS authorized. Bottom line is this. IF you are use to extended periods of camping AND want to have fun, you will. there will be opportunities for you do to things I'm told. As for food, bring snacks, spices, and some tobasco (or bring patches to trade for the Tobasco "hat pins" that the SELAC contingent usually brings ) heck just bring patches as they are the currency of a jambo. Last but not least, if you don't want to go, I'll take your place (This message has been edited by eagle92)

Sherm, I need to play devil's advocate on the First Class Pin on campaign hats. 1) At one time there was no adult universal pin, i.e. pewter FDL in a circle, like today. 2) BSA did have pics with adults wearing the pin if memory serves. 3) Not many folks today, even a few national supply folks, understand that the pins ARE advancement, hence must have an advancement report filled out with appropriate signatures(BOR sigs) in order to purchase. HOWEVER... 4) ...The FC Pin, although it's supposed to be a restricted item b/c it is advancement, IS authorized for all youth, no matter what rank, to be worn on the campaign or expedition hat. Don't ask as national knows already. Me personally I wish they made all the pins the same size, as the FC pin is larger than allof them, inlcuding the Star and Life pins. Also wish they made an Eagle pin, but anyway.

To the best of my knowldge yes.