To raise this with Brownies?

[RaiseItWithTheBrownies]

I am aware that the leaders are volunteers so I don’t want to come across as nit-picking.

In Rainbows badges were given out as they were earned, so some weeks there would be loads of badges given out and other weeks none at all.

We’re now at Brownies and they do things slightly differently in that they have a celebration evening and give out all the badges, but only when every single girl in the unit has a badge to be given.

This is fine and worked well until after Easter holidays when a girl joined whose attendance is patchy, because of this no badges are given out at all. My DD has done several interest badges and most likely will get either her Bronze sometime soon (as she has 1 theme already) but because this girl hasn’t earned any badges Brown Owl won’t do a celebration evening to give out badges.

I don’t necessarily want to watch the badge giving (although it was nice to watch DD get her Bronze and Silver Rainbow Awards and do her promise) but DD is getting frustrated and upset because she doesn’t know when she’ll get her badges.

DD is 8 btw. The girl with patchy attendance is 7 I think as she joined at Easter. She sometimes goes to 2 or 3 meetings in a row then misses 3 or 4. Or she’ll go every other week.

I know several of the other parents are getting annoyed by this and 2 have moved their DDs to other Brownie units (which I’m looking into as well if this doesn’t improve).

WIBU to politely raise it with Brown Owl? And if so how should I go about it?

I don’t want to be intrusive at all, as I know if it’s a situation with separated parents it can be difficult (I’m not with DDs dad but thankfully he lets DD go to her activities on his nights and weekends with her) but feel for DD and the other girls patiently waiting for their badges. But I do also understand why they wait for all the girls to have earned a badge.

Kite22 thank you for your understanding message. Was heartbreaking seeing him leave session after session with yet no badges again and again and they were all adding up on his OSM profile.

Ridiculous idea.

Ahhhh I had a very similar experience. I had to buy the badges myself in the end and cost me over £80

Yeah I mean they might as well not bother if they aren't going to do it properly.

I am told the badges are in the badge box ready to be given out - according to the Rainbows leader Rainbows is held in the same building in the hour before Brownies so Rainbows is 5-6pm say and then Brownies is 6.20-7.50pm (not actual timings just to give an idea) so I'm reluctant to buy the badges unless I have to.

Its not until Thursday night so I'll see what happens going forward if the Rainbows Leader raises it. We used to get an email a few weeks beforehand to say that badges were going out on X date and needed to be added to uniform/sashes (if going on them) by X date so if not heard anything by a few weeks before Christmas I'll raise it with Brown Owl myself.

Christmas is a long way off though - and seems a lot longer when you are 7.
I'd see if they have them this week, and if not, then I would ask when I collect her. The younger the child, the more the "reward" needs to be close to the "achievement", but even teens should get any badges they earn within a few weeks.

It is a bit of a cheek to "demand" parents have the badges sewn on by X date though, if they have not been awarded to the girls until weeks or even months after they earned them.

I am a leader and I would never dream of telling a parent to sew on by a date - I might point out if we had a big thing like remembrance coming up it might be nice but never set a deadline.

To be fair if they had delayed handing them out, my response might be well it took you xxx weeks to give her the badge I'll take the same time to sew them on!

I think the Brown Owl is in the wrong here. Her heart is in the right place but in order to appease one little girl, she has to upset loads of other little girls. Doesn’t seem right to me.

Yes I too also had to buy badges as even though he got 30 odd there were still some missing... It was not worth asking directly anymore as her communication was unreliable. Easier to go to the shop!!!

I asked her about the badges several times and she said she had them prepared to give out, but alas none given until the last minute of final session.

@HoneyFlowers yep!! I was actually the assistant leader, but the leader wouldn't let me give any of the Beavers any badges out ...
My DS was then asked to make a video of him saying his promise to go on the Area FB and Twitter pages for St George's day. He'd been a Beaver for 18 months, and hadn't received his membership badge, dragons, district, area badges, or any of the activity or challenge badges. His jumper was as new .... he had completed EVERY activity badge and wasn't having him on social media with a plain jumper, so I bought him everything he needed and frantically sewed them all on!!

That's madness, why would the leader run a group and not give badges out? Good for you doing what you needed to do.

Was anything said when she saw your son's badges proudly on display?

Email came out today that they're going to be doing a big badge celebration right before Christmas along with the Guides and Rangers.

The email said there will be a few "special" badges so I assume they've found a solution to the girl not getting any official badges either that or because there's more of them it's easier to hide if she doesn't get one.

There's also a big local camp between now and then where they will apparently do badge work, so DD may get a lot of badges.

Thanks everyone. I am happy with that and DDs really excited as her cousins a Ranger and likely to be at the celebration so even if I don't get invited DD will have someone there.

Thanks for the update.

I mean, I still think it is bonkers to not give them out as and when the Leaders have received them after the girls achieve them, but I'm glad there is at least a fixed date now.

Not that I would be impressed as a parent at getting them altogether - that might be a lot of sewing on if you have 2 or more dc. I'd rather spread it out.
I also think making it into a "big thing" makes it more of a thing if there is one girl not getting badges (as was the logic at the start of this thread) than if Brown Owl were to give them out as a normal thing at the ends of some meetings.
But, hey ho - each to their own, and at least she will get them eventually

Oh mate just read this through again and decide if this is really a first world problem

When I was a Brownie, then a Girl Guide (a long time ago) it was a church pack, as many are, so we attended Church Parade once a month. Afterwards Brownies, Cubs, Guides and Scouts all went into the church hall for a sort of awards ceremony. Each group did presentations in turn, and because it was monthly, there was not as much of an accumulation of badges, and it was possible that some people had not had time for any badges at all. So one little girl with patchy attendance (hardly something she can control) would be in the same position as someone like me, who remained keen to be a Girl Guide, but could not devote as much time to it once I was at grammar school with a heavy homework schedule. I found it interesting to see what the other groups were up to, and I still remember the evening when I "flew up to the Guides", marching away from the Brownie Pack and being welcomed into the Company.
Perhaps Brown Owl might be persuaded to do something more "little and often" so that it was quite the norm that not everybody was ready to get the next badge.

Why did you bother to sew them on then?

Lucky then that the OP has chosen to post on a site that is there to chat about whatever you fancy then, and not limited to subjects someone decides are a 'first world problem', isn't it ?