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Loop Colors


OutdoorThinker

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No no.. District or council registration uses silver loops. In some places, this includes summer camp staff. Regional or national positions use gold loops. Exactly what is included in this is beyond me. Anything beyond the council level. Scout shop employees are included and BSA does a lot of crazy stuff with representatives, Jamboree troops, etc. Camp inspection teams, of course.

 

As far as youth Order of the Arrow officers, it is up to the council or region, I believe, as to whether Lodge or Section officers wear silver or gold loops. Some do and some don't. Advisers (not advisors :)) wear them.(This message has been edited by Adrianvs)

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Actually, it goes like this:

 

Cub Scout program -- blue

Boy Scout program -- red

Varsity Scouts in stand-alone units -- Orange

Venturer program -- Green

Council/district positions -- silver

Regional (an arm of the national council)/National -- Gold.

 

Camp Inspectors and the other positions mentioned in this thread are unclear whether they are council people doing national jobs or national people who spend most of their time with the local council -- so it could be either silver or gold on their shoulder.

 

I do remember for a while as a DE that the uniform regs required us to wear the color tab of whatever program we happened to be working on. So for the district Pinewood Derby, I should wear blue, for the Camporee, red, etc.

 

Luckily that reg went away in a short period of time.

 

I'll stick to the silver -- forever. Although the gold looks nice, I'm a silver kind of guy.

 

DS

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I know all of the national (and if there are any) regional committee members use gold loops. This applies to all program areas. The pros at those levels also wear gold. The various directors at Philmont wear gold, though the rank and file employees wear the loops of their program. OA officers are a tricky issue. Many places have lodge and even chapter officers wear silver loops. This doesn't make sense to me, with one exception. In most instances the Lodge Chief serves on the council camping committee and/or the council Executive Board in an advisory/non-voting capacity. Section Chiefs usually wear red loops, but while attending certain things such as the annual national meeting (I forgot what the official name is) they apperently wear gold loops.

 

It seems gold loops are determined if you are a permanent pro/volunteer at regional/national level, or if you are currently primarily serving in a regional/national role at that moment.

 

Varsity Scouts are officially "blaze".

 

Oh, just looked it up. You wear the loops of what you are functioning as. So if you have a council/district position but are at a unit meeting as a unit leader you should actually change loops.

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Proud Eagle:

 

I'll address the last paragraph in your post by saying that I think you have an older version of the book. Current thinking is that you wear the color of the position of your primary (paid) position. That way folk don't have to change loops depending on the meeting they're attending or the function they're currently doing.

 

The OA may appear to be cloudy, but I'll try to clarify it.

 

The Order of the Arrow has the same administrative grouping as the Boy Scouts of America.

 

Youth holders of national and section positions are part of the national council (which includes Regions and Sections)

 

Council Lodge officers are members of the council structure and chapter officers are part of the district structure. They are entitled to wear silver shoulder tabs

 

Your Lodge Chief may be a member of the council camping committee, but odds are that he is also a youth member of the Council Executive Board -- and that's why the silver shoulder tabs.

 

Here is the BSA and OA comparison/translation

 

BSA OA

 

National Council National OA (subset of BSA)

Region (admin subset of National) Region (subset of BSA Region)

Area (a district of the region) Section

Council (subset of Area) Lodge

District Chapter

 

So there ya go.

 

DS

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just asking.......................

 

I don't have my insignia guide in front of me, so I'll ask here. Are there such a thing as BSA official black loops to wear at funerals? I've never seen them mentioned here, and I am aware of a Scouter who has a set he wears at Scouter funerals. If they're not official and he made them (which would be rather simple to do), is this a big error worth making a fuss about?

 

sst3rd

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The black loops are worn only by official members of the BSA internal affairs department which investigates secret uniform violations of a punishable nature -- JUST KIDDING!

 

No, black loops are not official. I'm not sure it's worth making a big deal out of someone wearing them to funerals, but they're not official.

 

And there is no internal affairs department of the BSA -- I made that up.

 

DS

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I should have said that the reason I was laughing is because we have volunteers in our council and district that act like they think they're the part of BSA Internal Affairs. I guess that's not really funny, but Dave, you've just given a tool to deal with them! Humor! Never thought of that before! Thanks!

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