Taughannock District
Baden-Powell Council, BSA
Virtual Patch Collection - United Kingdom

The United Kingdom Scout Association (UKSA) is the original Scout organization in the UK - and thus, in the world - having been founded by Baden-Powell himself in 1907. Its members are Scouts in the constituent nations of the UK - Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales - as well as areas like the British Channel Islands (a Crown Dependency) and Overseas Territories. 

Each nation forms a Council (although England is operated from UK headquarters in London, so there is no "English Council"). Sub-divisions of the national councils - called "Counties" in England and Northern Ireland, "Areas" in Wales, and "Regions" in Scotland - are the rough organizational equivalent of BSA "Councils". Each County/Area/Region will have a number of "Districts", typically made up of a part of a city, or a town. Geographically, a UK County/Area/Region is similar in size to a BSA Council, while UK Districts are usually much smaller in area than BSA Districts.

Within a district, there will be many "Groups", each group consisting of at least one Beaver Colony (boys and girls 6-8 years old), Cub Pack (8-10 years old) and Scout Troop (10-14 years old). Boys and girls 14-20 years old are in "Explorer Scouts", which is usually organized at the district level rather than being in a Group. 

Identification Patches  The organization of the UKSA is reflected in the identification patches worn on the right sleeve of the uniform.  The Group is identified in a strip on top - most UK groups have names with an ordinal ("first", "30th") and a location.  Under the group strip is a flag representing the national council - in the examples above, a Saltire with the caption "Scotland", although many Scottish flag patches only have the Saltire. English Scouts either use the generic UK Union Flag, or sometimes the red-diagonal-cross St. George's flag.  Under the flag are patches for County/Area/Region and Disrict.
National Council Flags
Generic Union Flag - worn by English Scouts, mostly, although any UK Scout could use it.		Wales
Saltire for Scottish Scouts		Another version of the Scottish Saltire, with the "Scotland" caption
Baliwick of Guernsey, Channel Islands
Counties / Areas / Regions / Districts
		The Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Area in South Wales has combined patches for the Area and its constituent Districts
Merseyside County in England (Liverpool area), and Picton District patch
Unit Strips and Patches
Courtesy Liam Murphy
We've stayed at the 88th Haymarket Scout Group's hall in Edinburgh many times - and "thanks" for that! The districts in Edinburgh have been realigned, and they are now "88th Craigalmond". The "CK" patch refers to their original location in a church in Carrick Knowe.		We've also stayed at the 7th Stirling Beechwood's hall - "thanks" to them, too!
Scouting - Local/National Patches
Scottish Thistle		Scottish Lion
Scottish Saltire and Fleur-de-lis
Welsh Scouting
Network is a program for older (20-25) year old Scouts
Scout Advancement At one point, Scouts worked toward "Awards" - most closely equivalent to BSA Cub Scout levels, in that the Scout's age determines which Award is earned and "Progress Awards" which are like BSA Merit Badges. That said, these badges (and the advancement system they were used in) are all obsolete.
Scout Membership	Scout Award	Pathfinder Award	Explorer Award
Chief Scout's Award
Emergency Aid	Entertainer	Local Heritage	Mapmaker
Mountaineer	Orienteering	Pioneering	Smallholder
Scout Camps and Activity Centres
B-P House is a Scout hostel in the Kensington area of London, next to UK Scout HQ. We've stayed there on several  Blair Atholl trips.		Beaudesert Park Campsite is in Staffordshire, England. It's the site of former Great House, and comes complete with an Iron Age fort on the grounds. We've stayed there several times on our Blair Atholl trips.
Broneirion is the Girl Guide HQ and camp in Wales. We stayed there on our 2002 Blair Atholl Trip.		Fordell Firs is a Scout Camp and the HQ of the Scottish Scout Council, located north of Edinburgh.
Great Tower Scout Camp is in the Lakes District of England. I visited there in 1983, on my first trip to the UK.		Horley Scout Camp is in North Oxfordshire. We stayed there on our 2002 Blair Atholl Trip.
Sconce Activity Centre and Campsite is in West Yorkshire, England. We stayed there on our first Blair Atholl trip, in 1996.		Each year, Sconce changes the bird in the center of their patch.
Templars Park Scout Camp is in Maryculter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It's a great camp, opened personally by Baden-Powell himself. The name of the camp comes from the fact that the site was used by the Knights Templar on their way to the Crusades. We stayed in the "White House" - a 14th century manse - on our 2008 and 2014 Blair Atholl trips.		Waddecar is in West Lancashire, England.
Westhall Campsite is South Tyneside District Scouts own camp site in Northeast England. We stayed there on our first Blair Atholl trip, in 1996.		Ynys Mon is on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales
Special-Event Patches
		Scout Job Weeks 1981 "Job Weeks" was originally called "Bob-a-Job", because Scouts raised money by doing jobs for their neighbors for the price of one shilling (a "bob") per job. There were twenty shillings to the Pound in "old money", and in the 1930's a shilling was real money. After decimalization in 1972, the shilling became equivalent to five pence. By the 1980's no Scout was going to do much of a job for the equivalent of seven-and-a-half cents - hence the name change.
		1990 Scout membership promotion
1991 75th Anniversary of the founding of the Cub Scouts
This event was going on when we made our visit to Sconce in 1996. Our Scouts took part in the evening activities, and I told a story at the campfire.
		Millennium Badge
Queen Elizabeth II's Sapphire (65-year) Jubilee in 2017
2017 Northern Ireland Jamboree keychain
Miscellaneous Patches
Penarth, South Wales		Girl Guides/Girl Scouts

Back to the Virtual Patch Collection main page - Back to the International Main Page

Lots of Scouts and Scouters collect patches - your Webmaster is no exception. So, I've put up a Virtual Patch Collection for the district. It's by no means exhaustive, but it's what I've got. If you felt like contributing pictures of some patches we don't yet have in the collection, please e-mail them to Mike Brown at wb2jwd@gmail.com - the scans should be between 450-600 pixels in width and height(no multi-megabyte scans, please, they crash my e-mail program) and in JPG or PNG format if possible. Of course, if you wanted to give me the actual patches, I won't insult you by refusing...

-Mike Brown