Community service mini medal

[darkmatter]

i think all ribbons should be mini medals

[spaatzmom]

I'm sorry but I have to ask a couple of things and I do not mean to be hurtful in my asking.

1.  How did you rise to the rank of as you stated former c/Lt Col without a better understanding of the regulations and particularly the uniform and awards regs?  The regulations are spelled out for all to see and use.  Granted they at times can be confusing but that is what your chain of command should be mentoring all members about.

2.  Why are you so wound up about medals for?  I am happy you are excited about the program, but awards and medals are a small small part of it in the scheme of things.  This seems like your transition from cadet to senior member is stuck in cadet mode wanting all the shiny symbols for you as opposed to doing your best to make CAP a better service to the community.  Again, this is where better mentor-ship is needed for cadets becoming senior members.

Just asking.  Good luck in your CAP career.

[LSThiker]

This, and like N6RVT said, things like the CAC and community service ribbons were intended to be cadet only, with no real occasion to wear the mini medal on cadet uniforms.

This is the most likely reason.

I would like to point out that there are other ribbons that do not have corresponding mini-medals:

NCSA
Cadet Orientation
Counterdrug
Homeland Security

But yes, for the CAC and Community Service, which were originally cadet-only until "recently", I understand not having mini-medals.  Although, I think enough time has passed that they should have been created by now.  I still find it odd that NCSA does not have one but encampment does.  I do not lose any sleep over it though.

[darkmatter]

I would like to point out that there are other ribbons that do not have corresponding mini-medals:

NCSA
Cadet Orientation
Counterdrug
Homeland Security

But yes, for the CAC and Community Service, which were originally cadet-only until "recently", I understand not having mini-medals.  Although, I think enough time has passed that they should have been created by now.  I still find it odd that NCSA does not have one but encampment does.  I do not lose any sleep over it though.
[/quote]


Totally agree with you LSThiker and yes those senior only ribbons should as well be added

[Adam B]

Mighty expensive proposition to produce... creating dies for the medal, approval process, etc.

This.
As a whole, CAP has just over 30,000 senior members. Of those, I would be willing to say that less than 10% actually wear the Mess Dress uniform. I'll further speculate that a majority of those are probably wearing military medals (that's what I've seen, at least).
I think you're left less than 2000 potential consumers, most of whom are satisfied by the current selection; there's just not much business sense in committing resources to developing more.


Now, that's not to say that I wouldn't LIKE there to be more.
I recently wanted to buy a set of medals for my shadowbox and was disappointed to see that not all the ribbons had medals available... but I just stuck a ribbon rack in there instead and moved on.

I own one medal, just in case I ever need to wear the CSFU... Which so far, I never have. 

[THRAWN]

This, and like N6RVT said, things like the CAC and community service ribbons were intended to be cadet only, with no real occasion to wear the mini medal on cadet uniforms.

This is the most likely reason.

If that's the case, what have them for the cadet milestone awards?

[SarDragon]

For the OP, look up "economy of scale". Making a few of something, which may not even have a market, can be significantly more expensive on a per item basis, than making a whole bunch. If you want to pay for a minimum production run, I am sure Vanguard will accommodate


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Abby.L]

This, and like N6RVT said, things like the CAC and community service ribbons were intended to be cadet only, with no real occasion to wear the mini medal on cadet uniforms.

This is the most likely reason.

If that's the case, what have them for the cadet milestone awards?

Probably because, as prior cadets, SM's have(For a while, I'm sure) been able to wear their highest milestone award. This is not the case with something like the CAC ribbon, where it was only just recently written in to allow prior cadet members to wear their cadet-earned CAC ribbon.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

We have too many ribbons and, in some cases, vague criteria for how and to whom they're awarded. (Meritorious for a cadet? Better be one heckuva feat. Award bloat.) Maybe we need to start paring down some of this stuff. "Community Service Ribbon" for senior members is crazy, especially since being in CAP is volunteer service to begin with. It's just a ribbon for the sake of bling. I'm sure there are others we can justify the same way.

Same argument for all those specialty track badges. Only one should be authorized, and in one location. We puke them all over the place now, most of them are unsightly, and no one knows what most of them are. Maybe it's time to winnow them down to major areas instead of every little thing.

[N6RVT]

I would like to point out that there are other ribbons that do not have corresponding mini-medals:

Counterdrug
Homeland Security

I will agree that if there is a Disaster Relief medal (and there is)  that these should follow suit.  They are CAP's equivalent of campaign medals.

You cannot retract and existing ribbon / medal without causing a lot of bad feelings, but with the exception of the two I just mentioned, I see no case for adding anything new

[baronet68]

I would like to point out that there are other ribbons that do not have corresponding mini-medals:

NCSA
Cadet Orientation
Counterdrug
Homeland Security

...[snip]

There actually used to be a Counterdrug mini-medal available and I know someone who wears it on his mess dress.

It seems that the availability of the mini-medals is entirely based on the whims of the available inventory in Vanguard's warehouse.  In some cases, I can see where there's not much demand (e.g. Borman Falcon Award) but otherwise I think the long-standing tradition is, and should be, that all senior awards have had mini-medal equivalents .  Personally, I've never worn more than 5 medals on my mess dress.

[Eclipse]

There actually used to be a Counterdrug mini-medal available and I know someone who wears it on his mess dress.

If so, that medal would have to predate the 2000 CAP bookstore catalog.

Below is the top of page 27 which shows all the mini-medals available at that time:



No CD, and these all appear to be the same ones available today.

NHQ appears to have no issue creating new mini-medals when they think there is a market,
The Achievement Award, which is handed out in many areas like candy, has one, and that award
is only about 8 years old.

The reality is that by the time you squeeze out the more then 1/2 the adult members who aren't allowed to
wear mess dress, squeeze more out who don't care to, squeeze more out who don't ever have a reason to,
filter the 30%+ empty shirts, and then add the further filter of adults who were / are CAC (maybe 25 members per year total),
involved in CD, 50 O-rides (I know about 5 or 10 people who would even qualify), or involved in
some sort of HLS (which in many wings doesn't even exist), and the need for the medal is
probably essentially zero, which doesn't justify the cost of creating it or stocking them.

The one that probably wold get a fair number of sales is an NCSA medal, since that covers such a wide swath
of activities, including NESA.  As I recall the ability for adults to wear that one is also fairly recent,
being still called National Cadet Special Activities, despite NESA not being a cadet activity, per se.

[jayleswo]

There actually used to be a Counterdrug mini-medal available and I know someone who wears it on his mess dress.

Are you sure it is CD (Counterdrug) and not the Civil Defense ribbon they are wearing (predecessor of the Disaster Relief ribbon)?