Patches Have Power at Scout Jamboree

By Taylor Huber Sunday, August 01, 2010

Bruton High School student Taylor Huber is a hometown correspondent at the 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg. He's part of Williamsburg Troop 1741, and is filing exclusive reports for WYDaily.

At the 2010 National Scout Jamboree, there are many activities that take extensive preparation. Yet even after all this planning, the most popular activity at the Jamboree - one that can take a few words or hours of haggling - is patch trading.At Jamboree, there are Scouts who do nothing but sit out at the side of the road with all their patches lying in front of them, and trade for hours and hours on end. These Scouts enjoy the thrill of exchanging patches, finding patches they really want, or just patches that are popular.

Many Scouts are not obsessed with patch trading and they trade for patches they think are cool. But there are also those extreme patch traders who never leave their tent without their big binder or bag of patches. These are also the same Scouts who love trading and will wait for a good trade just like other Scouts who wait in line for SCUBA, the rappel tower and mountain boarding.

Many Scouts invest a lot of time and money into this hobby and they will pay big dollars for a Star Wars Sea-Scout council strip set. At the Jamboree, buying patches is not allowed nor is Scouts trading with adults. There are also some people who go and pay for fake patches to be printed in order to cheat someone out of one of their popular patches.

At one point, a group of Scouts from Williamsburg’s Troop 1741 left to collect food for dinner at the commissary, and they saw the streets lined with Scouts. At first, the friends thought there was a parade but soon after realized it was all patch trading. It was a bizarre sight, seeing this sea of scouts so thick that you have to fight your way through the crowd in order to get to your destination.

For Jamboree, each council makes a really cool council strip for every Jamboree troop, and they all match a common theme. The council then makes a center piece that joins all of the troops' council strips, usually about five, together. Every council brings their sets to Jamboree and can trade either each individual patch, or the whole set.

If a person really wants one specific patch, they will usually sweeten the deal by trading multiple patches for one or a whole set for a single patch. Either way, everyone is happy with every trade, and that is what makes patch trading fun.