Service Stars

[Twocubdad]

This question is coming from my 10-year-old Webelo, who is going to grow up and be a fine uniform cop one day.

 

When he crosses over in February, he will have 4 1/2 years as a Cub Scout. In September of next year, he will have five years total as a Scout, but will only have six months tenure as a Boy Scout.

 

How does he accurately reflect his tenure with his service stars? I know one option would be to wear a green 5, combining all his tenure under the color of his current registration. But what's the correct way to show the Cub years and the Boy Scout years in this situation? Scout's choice?

[Fat Old Guy]

First "Webolos" always has the "s" on the end. One Webelos, two webeloses . . . webeloi Webelos.

 

Second, youth don't have the option of combining their years under one color of circle like adults do.

 

Serivce stars are a unit award, so it is up to the unit to decide when they are given and for what length of time.

 

We always gave stars in the spring, so "one year" for a new guy was from September to June, for everyone else, the star represented the preceding June to this June.

 

Graduating Webelos would get their last "gold backed" year at Graduation. They then wouldn't get a new star for the three or four months until the end of the Boy Scout program year.

 

I can't do the math on my fingers right now, but it sounds like your son was a Tiger Cub under the old system. That would mean that he should be wearing a "1" with an orange back and a "4" with a gold back. Of course, BSA immediately discontinued the orange circles as if those people who were in the program for nearly 20 years would never want another orange circle (I was smart and bought three strips or orange circles that I'm going to sell on ebaY for $1,000 each :-)

 

 

[Twocubdad]

Okay, now you're picking on my typing. I'm well aware that Webelos means WE'll BE LOyal Scouts.

 

The regulation that leaders my combine all years of service onto one light-blue star is well buried in the Insignia Guide fine print. Although it's not in the IG, I know I read in some of the new Tiger materials that former Tigers can continue to wear the orange star or combine that year onto the yellow Cub star.

 

So your opinion, FOG, is that it is the pack's option to round up the half year of Webelos II tenure or to just drop it?

 

By the way, I also have a stash of orange backs I'll be willing to part with for the bargan price of $999.

[Fat Old Guy]

"Okay, now you're picking on my typing."

 

If that's what it was, I apologize. I find many trying to make a singular version of the word.

 

"I know I read in some of the new Tiger materials that former Tigers can continue to wear the orange star or combine that year onto the yellow Cub star."

 

I've heard that as well. BSA had to do that or be faced with supplying orange disks for the next 70 years.

 

"So your opinion, FOG, is that it is the pack's option to round up the half year of Webelos II tenure or to just drop it?"

 

That's what I read once and it works for me. It makes sense to me as he was a Cub Scout for more of the Scouting year than a he was a Boy Scout.

 

"I also have a stash of orange backs I'll be willing to part with for the bargan price of $999"

 

Hey! I might be interested.

[acco40]

Officially, the BSA claims that the Webelos means WE'll BE LOyal Scouts. Unofficially, (and to me) it was sort of an acronym for Wolf - BEar - Lion -Scout signaling the transition from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.

 

SERVICE STARS ARE CALCULATED BASED ON REGISTRATION INFORMATION. That's the reason why they are called "service stars". They are not based on "graduation" or "movement" from one program element to another (from Wolf to Bear, for instance) nor from program to program (from Cub Scouting to Boy Scouting, for instance). Each period of service starts with the date of registration (which is why the capturing of that information is important by the UNIT) and goes for a one-year period to the following year.

 

However, there is some consenus on the fact that since this entire thing is up to the unit to present, that those Cubs and Scouts that "advanced earlier than the time period" (for instance, earned the Arrow of Light two months before the end of their fourth year as a Cub Scout; or has six years and eleven months' tenure as a Boy Scout at age 18) to be presented and to wear the service star for the following year. That is a UNIT'S CALL.

 

 

 

 

[NWScouter]

I have found that giving service stars in late spring Court of Honor or Pack meeeting makes it eaiser on all. Just so you are consistant on how you do it is important. Back when Webelos was a six month program we were told the Wolf Bear Lion version. I never heard of the We'll be loyal Scouts till my son was in Cubs ('62 for me, '84 for my son). They had to change it when they dropped the Lion rank and made Webelos a one year program. Oh and by the way the Arrow of Light was then called the Webelos badge.

[KA6BSA]

I was a Cub back in 1955 and earned Wolf, Bear, Lion, and Webelos rank. Am I the only one to notice that for Webelos to be an acronym for the ranks they would need to be Welf, Bear, Lion? Should have been Wobelos, or why not even more accurately Wobelis... which is also a good enough made-up Indian-sounding word. Maybe that is why it was gladly fixed to "We Be Loyal Scouts" when the Lion was dropped.

[acco40]

We Be Loyal Scouts sounds too much like Ebonics. Try, We'll Be Loyal Scouts.

[KA6BSA]

No, by doing that you are making it sound better than it actually is. In making the acronym the "We'll" is really "We Will" which comes out WEWBELOS or even worse a stuttering WEWIBELOS. Anyway no mater how you like it to sound the rest of the world thinks it means "We Be Loyal Scouts" since an authorative source of acronym information (www.acronymfinder.com) says it does. Go check it out!

[Fat Old Guy]

Sorry KA6BSA, I'm not buying. "We'll" isn't two words, it is one word that replaces two, that's the meaning of a contraction.

 

In any case, the people that create the acronym get to decide its meaning, not anyone else.

 

 

[Fat Old Guy]

I checked that web site, it says "We'll Be Loyal Scouts."

[KA6BSA]

I got a different result yesterday as I stated above, so if that is corrected with them that is fine. It also did not previously note the "before 1960, or after 1960" for the two definitions. Thanks for helping with that and it is now consistent with the cute story in the beginning of my son's Webelos Handbook. So I am willing to wave a white flag and come out from behind my rock now with hands up.