Changing patrol names

[Buffalo Skipper]

Well, after months of debating, I heard through the grape vine that last night, the patrol decided upon a name, well sort of. The PLC adopted a policy a year ago to have patrol names fall under the category of "Florida Wildlife." Hence: Manatees, Mosquitos and Flamingos. It is the Flamingos which were a problem. They were named by the SPL (PL of the preceeding patrol) who abandoned the troop shortly afterward.

 

The new crossing over scouts (who are in the majority) didn't like the "Flamingo" image, but couldn't agree on another name. The recently elected PL has suggested dozens of names to me, not a one of which fit the PLC decision. He is a bit of a clown and finally came up with a way to "pull one over on me." They are apparently naming their patrol the "Squirrels." But they want to adopt a "Road Kill" patch. I heard that the would "publically" call themselves the Squirrels but would privately call themselves the "Roadkill" patrol. (The patch only remotely looks like a squirrel)

 

I find this kind of idea to be deceptive and dishonest, not the qualities which I would like to associate with a young group of scouts. I do not want to keep saying "No" to this patrol, but neither do I want this to be a battle of wills between myself and the PL. Any ideas on how to turn this into a positive discussion?

[NE-IV-88-Beaver]

Make them the Roadkill Squirrels and forget about it!!

 

A flattened squirrel on the patch solves all of your problems................(This message has been edited by NE-IV-88-Beaver)

[moosetracker]

Alot of the patches didn't look like what they were suppose to represent. Some look good, some though look bad. I remember my son had one a long time ago, can't remember what animal it was to represent. But, I remember stating it looked like a "turd on a stick". (Needless to say, son was not too pleased with my comments.)

 

Later on he talked his patrol into getting the blank patches that you are suppose to use to customize the patrol. They just left them blank, and called themselves the blank patrol.

 

Patrol names and changing or not changed with how the boys were organized. When we started they were all reorganized into different groups with varing ages in each group once a year. Since all the boys reorganized, all the patrol names changed.

 

Then we went to the age/Rank grouped patrols. Everyone stayed in the same patrol, until age and/or rank moved them to the older patrol. The oldest patrol was the "blank" patrol. The names did not change. Now they are back to mixing the ages up again.

 

Through all of it, sometimes Flags / Patches / yells accompanied the name change. Other times they did not. Depended on if we devoted a meeting or two to it. Or if a camporee was coming up where these things would be included in the point system during the events.

[SMT224]

When our Scouts started a new Patrol, I printed out patches from these two non-BSA companies:

-- ClassB, http://store.classb.com/patches

-- Patch town, http://www.patchtown.com/boyscoutpatr.html

 

They picked out several patches they liked and after much discussion decided on a name and patch they liked.

 

BTW, they are the "Dancing Banana Patrol" (http://www.patchtown.com/dancingbanan.html), and do this dance where they are all bananas and peel themselves and then bash into each other. It's actually not as strange as it sounds - very wholesome and no clothing is removed.