i can confirm he did get in trouble 
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Does this post come with some titles?
Prehaps a lordship somewhere?
The ancestral rights to a long-forgotten European Kingdom?
Ruritanian Empire?
1 sguare foot of Scotland provided by Established Titles, which bestows upon the owner the title of Lord and totally isn’t a scam.
I could try coming up with something a bit Game of Thrones?
I lost count of the number of mess committees which suddenly had “Master of Coin” appointments 
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Quick question
An ATC unit cannot use the approved heraldic badge of another Sqn.
However could a variant or defaced version of the original badge be used with permission?
& does it also apply to mottos - do they have to be unique or can they be the same as others.
Looking at some of the wing badges think they might need a tidy up too!
I’m not sure that’s entirely definitive heraldricly. Because plenty of SCC units use the badges of the actual ships they’re named after, and they can’t all be wrong?
Regarding mottos, I think they have to be unique, but don’t know. This is one of the things I need to have clarified now that I can engage.
Generally speaking this does speak to two really good reasons to do it properly:
- It can’t be changed on a whim later
- First come, first served — you could nick a local squadron’s unauthorised motif and there’s nothing they can do about it, save whine into the abyss…
On variants, firstly, no permission is needed from the squadron from which you’re taking inspiration.
Secondly, totally fine. As long as it’s significantly different / not confused, your good!
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It may be some sort of official link whereby they’re technically using the badge of their parent formation?
I’d meant to check how they do it, because I’m really keen to protect this privilege, and I’m pretty sure the ACF don’t get such an honour.
I’ll look to get an answer so I can define it in the policy re-fresh and highlight how lucky we are.
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For example, my unit is TS Adventure, we literally have the actual wooden carved badge from HMS Adventure on our bridge, and our badge is Adventure’s badge.
But I’m still curious as to how on Earth you’re going to convince units to do this?
You rock up, tell them the badge they’ve had for potentially decades is wrong, and they can’t have it anymore, and for the low low price of £650 they can have a new one they don’t want?
You either need a big carrot or a big stick, and I can’t see what form either of those could take?
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Perhaps the air cadet charity could off set costs but only for compliant badges?
This issue is that as each Sqn is its own excepted trust & the monies is a civ com matter so it’s kinda outside of HQ air cadets control.
The starter for 10 is probably getting all Sqn & wings using the right format & you need civcoms & Sqn OCs on board as otherwise you won’t get the influence to make the changes which have been attempted over the last decade or so.
Otherwise the sqns will role out the AVM Sqn president to argue the toss with you & you just drown in paperwork
But there are plenty doing it, plenty have tried in the past but unfortunately got stuck at the phone call stage.
Its not mandatory, wings should take a bit of ownership on making sure they are to policy even if not official (but that’s a whole different conversation)
It is something special, it also means you can have it on your banner, and its history.
Now it wouldn’t be a priority - but grants (heritage ones should be good!), specific fundraising for it can all help.
But, that’s a decent carrot to get a new one, but where’s the incentive to do it if the process will turn around and say, your badge is not allowed, you must ditch it?
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I realise you’re not a sales veteran, but surely as a legal beagle (lest I feel the wrath of Devin Stone for not adding the “b”) you have some notion of negotiating people into positions and decisions they would prefer not to be?
Yeah, but I have sticks!
I sympathise with the issue you raise and do understand.
There is also an aspect of people playing fast and loose with logical consistency though.
These units argue that doing whatever they want is fine, but they still want to be able to call it their sqn badge (which it isn’t, because it’s unauthorised).
None of them have yet, to my knowledge, put it on a banner, so they’re clearly willing to observe the rules to some degree. And the important caveat where advice on unauthorised motifs was available was that rules can change, so unauthorised motifs don’t enjoy any sort of protection. Units know this.
There does come a point where we have to acknowledge that we’re part of a big organisation with military links and there’s a clear path to realising a really prestigious unit badge that you can even have hung in the RAF club.
Not wanting to play by those rules is no less an excuse for breaking them than any of the other dress and ceremonial rules we have.
It’s a privilege, and the last decade or so has given a taste of how it feels to lose such privileges of feeling our connection to the parent service, so we should be doing everything we can not to flaunt stuff like this.
#In my opinion.
But again, I understand the point being put to me, which is why I’m working hard (at the same time) to find more legitimate routes for units to bear a personalised badge without having to pay.
For example, it might be the ATC badge but with extra scrolls around it in a standardised pattern so the units can legitimately display their details in a more formal manner.
It’s not the same as a bespoke centrepiece and motto — but I’m here to support that if they want it.
Again, though, unless you can get some form of stick, you’re asking units to voluntarily engage with this process, and all they are going to get out of it is a badge they don’t want, when as far as they’re concerned they already have a badge, they like, and have been using without any issues for decades.
What’s in it for those units who are happy to have an unauthorised badge?
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At the moment, there is no stick.
But I’m working on more carrots, which I think units will like, if they’re found to be desirable.
Ultimately though, it’s pretty clear that unauthorised badges don’t enjoy official status or protection, and so they could feasibly be snuffed out over night. That would, I suppose, be a stick.
The only way you could do this is have the RAF “steal” the Sqn badge, trademark it & then refuse the Sqn permission to use it.
But that will have kick back in an area that the RAF doesn’t class as a priority due to transition to war.