Venturing Uniform Changes________NOT

[emb021]

In the last few months I've been hearing several rumours of changes in the Venturing uniform, and even had some people contact me for confirmation.

 

At the BSA National Meeting last week, I asked around to try to get a confirmation/denial of them. This is what I was able to find out.

 

* YES, there will be charcoal gray zipoffs coming around August.

 

* NO, the green shirt is not being dropped.

 

* NO, there are no plans at this time to come out with a spruce green version of the current 'centennial shirt'.

 

* NO, there are no plans on changing the shoulder loops for Venturing. (no red loops for Venturing...)

 

As to the last question, on the loops, National really wants to see the red loops go away. Some are apparently not happy that they are still lingering. They've seen some troops where boys are wearing one red and one forest green loops, and people are still trying to obtain red loops. SOOOOO, for those reasons the idea of them bringing back the red loops for Venturing just won't happen, because some Boy Scout types will then just try to keep wearing them.

 

 

[Twocubdad]

What is remarkable to me is that somewhere someone is getting paid to worry about lingering red loops and plotting their eradication.....

[Eagle92]

I agree with 2cub, what was wrong with the red loops and why bother worrying about them? Luckily national said that you can mix and match with the centennial and ODL uniform parts SOOOOOOOOOOOO with 4 pairs of red loops, I'm set for a while.

 

Also you forgot about the new venturing belt.

[RememberSchiff]

I will now wear two red shoulder loops on each silly epaulet if it gives Irving boys vacationing at Orlando something to do.

[Twocubdad]

Hey, I could not care less about the loops. Our troop converted over to green this winter when the new Webelos crossed over simply because we couldn't get enough red one for the new guys (I suppose the eradication program is working).

 

I can't understand why anyone gives a hoot.

[Buffalo Skipper]

Personally, I like the green better. And it isn't so much that I give a hoot, I just think that it looks better to have all our troop in the same thing. That's why it is call a "uniform," because everyone is supposed to be.

[nolesrule]

I don't care whether anyone wears green or red. Just don't wear one of each.

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Venturers,

 

 

Without starting a new thread. I appreciate the Venturing news that emb021 has relayed to us from the most recent National Conference.

 

Also in another thread, there are comments about the new appearance of the Scouting.org website. So I'm sure a few of us have been looking thru the new links and new pages of Scouting.org.

 

But, when you take a look at the new About the BSA page. You see the Chief Scouter, National President, and National Commissioner surrounded by a few Cubs, Scouts, one Arrowman and five Venturers.

http://www.scouting.org/About.aspx

 

On four of the five Venturers you can see the new (Boy Scouting green) Centennial Switchback pants.

 

As reliable as the Scouting.org webpage is, and they (National BSA) have made minor errors on the webpage and the Scouting catalogue on rare occasions over the years.

 

But I would think this is either going to become the standard uniform slacks for Venturers or National has made a bad example.

 

Possibly there will be no Charcoal gray zipoffs coming? Possibly Charcoal pants are gone? Any comments?

 

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

 

[emb021]

Yes, there can be mistakes on the National website.

 

In the version they had two revisions back, they used to have a set of pictures that randomly showed of scouts/scouters.

 

One was of a Wood Badge staff wearing the green shirt and red loops. I brought this to the attention of the Venturing Division and they took it down.

 

 

I spoke with someone high up in the supply division who told me that the gray switchbacks were coming in August. He was not misinforming me, but things could change.

 

[Eagle92]

Looked at the photo, and also noticed the venturer's green pants and lack of temp insignia and PORs. Also noticed all the CS have no neckers, several are missing Bobcat, no belt loops and progess towards ranks/compass/Tc paw.

 

With the scouts, except for the one Arrowmen way in the back, no tempoary insigina, no flaps, PORs, and no AOL underneat BS rank.

 

My conclusion is that this was a staged photo with models and no real scouts, save possibly the arrowman way back, and that whoever did this photo has no clue.

[John-in-KC]

Heck, yes, that's posed.

 

Here are my thoughts:

 

The Venturers, probably from the same Crew, came to the same conclusion I did about the sackcloth gray shorts and trou. They are unsat.

 

Rather than go to Cabela's, this Crew made a decision to buy from BSA. I know that might offend purists, but frankly, that combination doesn't look bad at all.

 

As far as no neckers go, I think the photog pulled them off everyone for the sake of a nice uniform picture.

 

As far as the Cubs patches go, that's where Mommy or Daddy sewed them.

 

Looks to me like a bunch of real youth. Of course, I also call my attitude that of "uniform license."

[Lisabob]

If some folks at national were really so peeved about the persistence of the red loops (and red unit #s too?), then they might have thought ahead a bit more and provided more advance warning about the planned eradication. My son's troop provides shoulder loops and troop # patches to all our cross-overs. About a month before the new changes were made public, the troop purchased a large order of loops and red custom unit # patches (all 3 #s on one patch) through our scout shop. No warning or heads up.

 

Consequently, we'll be handing out red loops and patches to our new scouts for the foreseeable future, until our stock runs out (which is heavily dependent on how many new scouts we get in a given year.). After all, a scout is thrifty.

 

 

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Venturers and Scouters,

 

 

The most recent responses sound good to me. I saw the Scouting.org webpage, and scratched my head. Everyone wants to get the most advance notice, and make good investments in uniform items that are quality and will stick around for a while.

 

But then as emb021 gave us the verbal update from the National conference (and I trust what emb021 says is true, or at least that's what was stated at the conference). It is slightly disappointing that national does something completely different (not in writing but with a webpage image) than what they state at the conference.

 

I'm not angry about it, I was just confused and wondered which way are we going with Venturing uniforms.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[Nike]

Red loops will never go away until BSA can ban red grosgrain ribbon and sewing machines.

[Eagle92]

ROTFL,

You know back in the day my mom couldn't afford the BS uniform that Webelos were just able to wear. She scrounged around and got a bunch of second had BS uniforms, but couldn't find the blue loops, so she made them.

 

And yes you do have units making their own red loops in my neck of the woods Most of the units HATE the new numbers and loops.

 

Also I've noticed that it's hard from a distance to tell who is a CS leader, and who is a BS leader.