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What the heck? BSA Website.


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I just pulled up the official BSA website at www.scouting.org to be greeted by an adult Asian in a Venturing uniform shirt, Boy Scout red shoulder tabs, a campaign hat and a Woodbadge working neckerchief. Red tabs with a Venturing shirt on the front page of the official site?

 

WHAT THE HECK???

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Many years ago as a boy, I lived a couple blocks from the National Headquarters in New Jersey. My fellow scouts and I were often used as models for various BSA publications (I was much better looking as a boy). The people in charge of the photo shoot would usually make whatever uniform changes gave us the "look" they wanted. One particular time I had to wear one of those awful red berets I would not have been caught dead in!

 

Anyway, I imagine the story is the same today. Obviously the art folks at BSA are not part of the Unifirm Police!

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Yah, the green frootloops on the green Venturing shirt just don't look good, eh?

 

Red is better, especially for nice contrast in a photo shoot, but a bit too Christmas-tree for my taste.

 

I like wearin' my grey tabs with the Venturing green shirt. I think those look best, and they match my grey pants and my grey beard.:)

 

 

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Actually, I worn pretty much the same outfit when I was on Wood Badge staff as a troop guide.

 

I only have green venturing uniforms as I am only involved in Venturing and the OA.

 

All staffers wear the participant neckerchief during the course.

 

They wanted ALL the Troop Guides to wear red loops (and thus the red slide. I was planning on wearing silver loops and slide as I'm at the council level). I didn't like it, but that's what I was told to do. During the course the Troop Guides get moved to a Venturing crew and we switch our loops to green. All the other guides are in tan. green loops on tan is not proper for youth (they are specifically barred from wearing the tan BSA uniform. Its ok for adults).

 

 

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emb021,

 

Odd, I'm a troop guide for the course this fall and our WB Committee and course director are adamant that the entire staff dress identically in the Boy Scout uniform down to the belt buckle and sock length. All shirts are to be striped of insignia except for CSP, flag and world crest. The only thing we will change is the shoulder tabs for the short time we are cubs abd venturers. That is the way our council has done it at least since the WB for 21st Century came along.

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"Odd, I'm a troop guide for the course this fall and our WB Committee and course director are adamant that the entire staff dress identically in the Boy Scout uniform down to the belt buckle and sock length. All shirts are to be striped of insignia except for CSP, flag and world crest. The only thing we will change is the shoulder tabs for the short time we are cubs abd venturers. That is the way our council has done it at least since the WB for 21st Century came along. "

 

My uniform was stripped. At the time, stripped uniforms was the norm. HOWEVER, you wore the uniform of your program. My program was Venturing, not Boy Scouting, so wearing the green (as a couple of other staffers did) was ok.

 

However, that was in 2004. In the most recent revision of the course syllabus that came out within the last year, stripped uniforms for staffers has ended. I hope your council is aware of this as they ARE required to follow the syllabus (personally, they weren't to require non-Boy Scout leaders to wear the Boy Scout uniform. I know, because I asked some people at National about this, after I heard that one of the other staffers wasn't happy about my wearing green instead of tan).

 

Frankly, asking someone in Venturing (or Sea Scouting) to get a whole Boy Scout uniform to staff the course is a bit excessive. This would have meant for me to get a tan shirt, web belt, green shorts, socks, hat, new insignia, etc. A complete uniform I would not use again and haven't used since, oh the mid-1990s.

 

 

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emb021,

 

Yes, we are aware of the "non-stripped" uniform. We as staff decided that we like the stripped shirts and agreed to do it for this course. We will however wear out unit shirts on the last day of the course.

 

We do have some Venturing folks on staff, but they all are involved in troops as well and already have the tan shirt(s).

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