Brownie Badges

My eldest daughters unit gave badges out once a year at parents night.

my younger daughters current unit gives them
out as soon as they do them other than an odd time we have sprung a last minute interest badge on them. She asks us to wait till
she has enough badges or uniform to get free postage from the guide shop. We used to have a shop in Glasgow but it closed a few years ago so I think they need £35 worth of badges before it’s free. I do know she has a stack of all the common interest badges like painter, baker,dancer,performer but we have had to wait for some of the more unusual ones like language.

they also do 2 skill builders a term and they get them as soon as they do them.

I’m a girl guide leader and we don’t only give one badge a term. We give them out when they’ve put in the work. We’d rather they stick to the themes so everyine is doing the same badges at the same time but it’s not a hard and fast rule

As for the online records. I don't use that for my unit, we use paper records as I find it easier. Your brownies may run theirs similarly

Hi guider here, it is worth asking her leader if she can have any owed badges soon.
This poster will help you see what she needs for each theme award. Is she doing interest badges at home?

All leaders will do it differently, I'm a Guide leader and do it differently depending on the badge/when girl tells me/activity I am running that night to be honest.

Interest badges if I have them in stock (I attempt to keep 1/2 of each of them) I will hand out that night, if I spot it means the theme award is due as well I do that as well. SB/Challenge badges - I have spent today, my day off from work, putting all the badges due from this term in envelopes for all the girls. Plus a print out of where they are on the programme. Event badges - as I get them I will hand out that night, and add to folder if a girls is missing. I have a folder with a pocket for each girl and I will add in badges as I get them if I don't hand out straight away.

My Son's beavers hand out badges once a term, so scouts are just as varied in process.

DBS are free, and if you are listed as an Occasional Helper you can be DBS and not have to have membership paid for you.

I would love for someone to offer to do my admin, adding badges etc to go is another job to do, I know many leaders who just do it on a bit of paper, we do not have to update Go. I am not joking when I say I have spent today on Guiding Admin, organising forms for next term, chasing payments for a guide holiday, sorting 3 activity days, inviting girls to join us next term, sorting out the celebration for 3 Gold awards next week and sorting this terms badges. I still need to finalise planning for the holiday for 30+ kids I am running in June. This is on top of a crazy nearly full time job and 2 of my own children who don't come to my unit. Cut your leaders some slack, ask nicely and offer to do some of the admin for her.

As a leader, I would definitely not be offended to get a polite email saying;
"Hi Brown Owl, 'Brownie' has really enjoyed Brownies and working on interest badges at home over this year. She has been asking when she'll get the actual badges as she is wanting then sewn onto her sash and to show them off, so I just wanted to drop you an email and ask when they'll be awarded, or whether there's anything else she needs to do at home to achieve them? Thanks XXXX (Brownie's mum)"

If you're willing to volunteer, you definitely won't have to pay for your own DBS check, but if you're only able to attend a few times a term to regular sessions, you may not need one (If you'd not be left alone with any girls, and weren't coming more than a few times a term - further guidance is on the website about this). The cost they may have been referring to is census, which is an annual subscription payment for all members, for our area this year it was near £50 a head, and we definitely couldn't have afforded to have four more adults to pay for if they were only helping out a few times a term. You may be able to be added as an occasional district helper to avoid this charge though.

DBS check is funded by girlguiding. I’d suggest you step up as a leader if you want to have a say in how the group is run. Clearly they are struggling for leaders. If you do your leader in training it is all paid for. Nothing comes out of your pocket and you can help run the group as you see fit

We order ours after we've done our planing. So we know what badges were working on and order them. And then the beavers get them once complete. I think our lot would mutiny off we went to half termly! They really love the badges but of the evening!

Of course if someone does something outside of the meeting (stuff we can't really do like cycling) then we'd have to get that separately and we wouldn't order online for 1. But we get though so many that we do keep a stock of the regular activity badges plus some of the lower staged badges too.

I do half termly badges for reasons others have mentioned. It's an afternoons trek out or delivery fees and I can't do that on a weekly basis.

@AnneElliott I do termly badge awarding at my unit for two reasons; one being the cost of purchase and postage; it’s cheaper for me to order in bulk as we’re very rural so no shop to pop to and I give the girls a term of opportunity to present me with their badge evidence for anything they’re achieving elsewhere. The girls also can bring in anything related to their achievements on our Badge Night and discuss it with their peers.

I used to do it half termly, but feedback from the unit is that they like having an evening of achievement per term.

There can be a lot of admin for what looks very simple!

This. I'm a cub leader, and buy badges from an online scout shop (nearest shop is 8 miles, and only open 2 hours a week). I used to buy everything I thought I would need at the beginning of each term, but ended up over-ordering and wasting money. Now I place an order two or three times a term, buying only what has been achieved, and award badges usually a few weeks after they have been earned. This sometimes means that cubs have to wait a little longer, especially if badges are out of stock. We don't have a special evening for it, with the exception of awarding the Silver Award, which we do at the last meeting of each term.

It's quite a nice idea to have an awards evening once per half term. But it does seem to be a bit daft that if one award evening had to be cancelled, then it's not just moved to the next meeting.

In my old Scout district I had to order badges from the district badge secretary by a certain date each month then pick them up a week or so later. It was a balancing act of forecasting badges that would be earned by a certain date but not over ordering, then the badges being out of stock at headquarters (there was supply issues fir a long time...)

Current district... the opening hours coincides perfectly with our operating hours, in another part of town. We rely on the Beaver leader going on her way home from work.

There can be a lot of admin for what looks very simple!

So only do badge awarding every half term is understandable. Its the not doing it on the next meeting if one has to be cancelled which is unfair to the children.

@SockQueen that makes a lot of sense. Our local guide shop is very local. It's in the guide hall where my daughter's rainbows and guides units meet. It also open for many more hours. That will be why all the units they have been give out badges within a week or two.

For me, it depends at least partly on what badges I have in stock! We can't afford to keep lots of interest badges in our unit stock "just in case," and getting them involves either a trip to the local Guide shop (only open for two hours on a Saturday) or ordering online and having to pay delivery charges, which seems wasteful if it's only for a few badges. Sometimes I might have some of the popular ones (Baking and Performing are my Brownies' favourites) left over as spares, but otherwise they have to wait till I can next get to the shop.

I tend to do a trip to the shop a couple of times a term, stock up on whatever badges the whole unit has been doing, and pick up any interest badges that have been earned.

I'm a beaver leader rather than Brownies but I can't understand why some groups only do badges at half term? We give ours out as soon as the kids have achieved them.

Would be fine if the leader wasn’t the DC and didn’t have her hand in bloody everything 😅

Have you considered offering your skills to a local scout group?
I'm an assistant beaver leader and we would love to have someone like you join us and we don't seem to have the same management issues that guiding has.

I thought this would be about the "new" badges. I really didn't like the new system or the new style of badges.

Mine have crossed over to the dark side of scouts- an excellent unit and the traditional badges are on there ...

OmgI did not know parents can see badges girls earn. When did this happen? Really need to get my finger out to update my Rainbows badges rather just having it on their paper sheets

she has 7 - 2 interest, 2 skill builder and 2 themes, and Bronze

Skills Builders = need 4 out of 5 different activities over 3-5 weeks

Themes = need 180 (approx) minutes of unit meeting activities for each theme

2x skills Builders = at say 7 weeks if some are compressed

2x Themes worth of unit meeting activities = 180x2 minutes = 360 minutes or 6 hours of prescribed activities (some take longer than the prescribed and others shorter).

You can't get a theme award without:
A related interest badge that were designed to be done at home
completing 4 activities from a 5 set skills builder (volunteers likely to run all 5 so girls who are off have a chance)
180 minutes of theme related unit meeting activities.

If the Brownie is there most weeks, the volunteers can award a skills builder while trying to encourage interest badges at home and working out who needs more minutes to get which theme award and balance the programme - which means ideally the unit meeting activities should be from various different themes to the skills builder.

Is she doing interest badges at home?

Your unit is doing better than me. I don't record on the system and have an excel spreadsheet. I plan on a skills builder a term and try to work out how to maximise unit meeting activities, but I'm not able to get any traction for interest badges at home unless it's at a brownie holiday.