James West Fellowship

[bkale]

Anyone's unit (sponsors, parents, etc) used the James West Fellowship to honor a Scouter?

 

I have a couple of real cornerstones in the organization that we have leaned on and not necessarily shown our appreciation.

 

What are your experiences with James West Fellowships?

[emb021]

I know of several OA Lodges who use the JWF as a way to make a contribution to the council AND recognize members of the Lodge. Some lodges present 1 or 2 JWF on an annual basis.

 

 

[moxieman]

I've heard it referred to as the moneybag knot or the purchased award knot because to give this recognition, you need to shell out $1K or more to your council. I've never seen it presented here.

 

Unfortunately, this gives the JWF Award a bad name, when it is really meant to recognize someone by making a (large) cash contribution to scouting.

 

When we want to honor someone, we first nominate them for either the District Award of Merit or the Silver Beaver Award since we do not have deep pockets to "buy" them the JWF Award.

 

If you've got the cash, want to help scouting by making that sort of contribution to your council and don't want to go through the nomination process for the DAM or SBA, then go for it. Otherwise, nominate them for the DAM or SBA. From your description, bkale, if neither of them have the DAM (silver overhand knot on navy blue background), they sound like they'd be good candidates for it.

[Eamonn]

We have honored several Scouter's from our District with a James E. West.

Mainly old time scouter's who already have the District Award of Merit and the Silver Beaver.

In fact the District got one for me!!

I already had one and am a member of our Council Founders Circle.

I don't take very kindly to any of the put downs.

I know that I'm very fortunate in being able to support Scouting and the Council. I do count my blessings -There have been times when I wasn't so fortunate!! In fact there have been times when losing everything seemed to be the only option.

I like the idea of the James E.West mainly because it goes into the council endowment, which when it works as it is supposed to work means that just because you get stuck with a SE who isn't a good finance guy, it isn't going to be spent on digging him out of any hole he may have dug.

Scouting Magazine ran a article about how our District has done this.

http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0009/d-news.html

Eamonn.

Scroll down the page.

[Oak Tree]

Very cool, Eamonn. I'll say that I'm pretty familiar with the Insignia Guide, and I have never heard mention of the devices for the James E West knot.

[MarkS]

No... but we've recognized a few with the Artemus Gordon certificate of appreciation. We usually present the award in front of a mock-up of the Inyo.

[scoutingagain]

I also tend to respect those awards conferred by others. Particularly when the recipient has no idea they are getting the award. This shows me they did whatever they did to get the award with no thought of recieving an award. They just did it for the satisfaction they recieved by doing it. That someone else thought it was worthy of recognition was just a bonus.

 

 

SA

[jr56]

I've also heard of people donating an inheritance to scouting by purchasing that award. I guess I see it as somebody putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and then, by wearing the award, challenging others to do the same.

[NeilLup]

Yes.

 

In one case, a long time Scouter who had suffered for many years with a degenerative muscular disease died. At our Executive Board meeting, we passed the hat with the idea of funding a James E. West in her honor. We succeeded and presented it to her family.

 

In another case, a Scouter funded (I don't like the term "purchased") a James E. West fellowship in the name of another Scouter whose personal and family situation did not permit consideration of that kind of gift to the council. Then he funded a second one in the name of her spouse who also was a Scouter.

 

Our OA lodge typically funds a James E. West fellowship for one person each year.

 

You can buy any knot that you wish. Just go down to the Scout Shop. The way that one qualifies for the James E. West is different from the way that one qualifies for other awards.