Brownie Badges

[BrownieBadgeGiving]

DD is 8 and does Brownies.

She loves it, the craft, the games etc. are really good for her in general.
Usually each half term they have badge given, unless less than half the girls don’t have badges to be given.

October half term, they’d had a lot of new starters so no badges given. December/Christmas Brown Owl had covid so it moved online for 2 weeks and promised to do it at February. February badge giving was cancelled on the night when they realised the older girls (the 9- and 10-Year-olds) where all from the same school and away on a residential.

We’ve just been told the Easter one won’t be going ahead as they don’t have enough DBS checked leaders to open on that night and have to have so many leaders with DBS checks even if they have parents helping to open. So that one will also be online.

I am frustrated for DD, she’s done 4 interest badges since the start of the summer holidays and has gone nearly 1 full academic year since she got a new badge – they’ve given out the event badges – Queens Commemoritive, Remembrance, Christmas and Thinking Day that everyone locally gets but the programme and interest badges haven’t been given. She wants to keep going to see her friends and loves the sleepovers but finding it strange that her badges have stayed the same since last Summer.

I know one girl left at Christmas to go to Guides and her Guides leaders gave her her badges, even though they also usually do badge giving each half term.

I accepted October being the first half term of the year they didn’t have enough to give out, and December/Christmas was unavoidable to be online. But it seems a bit unfair now that DD has no idea if/when she’ll get any badges and has no idea of progress. She’s desperate to work towards Silver (she has Bronze) but doesn’t know if she’s got it or whether she needs to do another Interest badge -there’s two themes she hasn’t touched the Interest Badges for yet.

It seems it’s local policy to do a half termly badge giving as Rainbows before this was the same. But WIBU to ask if badges can be given out at the start of the summer term? Or will there be new starters then to?

I feel so sorry for the two girls off to Guides who’ve not had their badges either, so it’s about all the others as much as DD.

So WIBU to ask for at least a progress report for DD? I don’t expect details like at school just a “Yes she needs to do an Interest badge from this theme” or “No she’s fine and will get her Silver next time”

Also I should add that we have been DBS checked for the purpose of going on camps and this did not cost us a penny.

Brownie badges can be earned at home with evidence, is this something you’ve been doing or has she been doing it solely with the unit ?

Our guide group do absolute f all badges, yet they harped on about all the badges they needed to buy with the increased subs.

my kid was the same. Only goes to see her mate. She was an avid badge collector, but her guide group is boring, and she’s close to being done. She’s been part of Girlguiding since Rainbows and had quite a colourful life in the organisation. This unit has killed it.

Girlguiding as an organisation is becoming more and more unappealing. I’m not surprised the volunteer issue is getting worse. Leaders are leaving because they aren’t supported. There is a huge radio and advertising campaign at the moment which highlights earning badges, which my kid just scoffs at 😂😂😂

@Frozen9 I quite agree about leaders leaving as not being supported. I ran a really fun, varied and badge focused unit. Annual camps and lots of additional extra-curricular activities. I gave my time, heart, blood and everything to it - because god knows between health and safety assessments, managing funds, completing forms, ensuring adequate supplies etc; it takes SO MUCH of your time.
In the end I left because of toxic, pernicious and officious intervention by a district leader / supervisor. And no fair allocation of any new volunteers amongst the district.
I doubt I will ever go back. For a volunteer who gave all my heart and soul to this little community unit, I am frankly disgusted by how badly they can treat you.
I miss the girls and running fun and challenging activities for them, but not everything else that goes with it.
What I have found with units, is that it is very much leader dependent. Units are only as good as the leader(s) time, commitment and energy to run a diverse, fun and badge led group

It will be how your unit is run. Both DDs are in girl guiding. They have been through Rainbows and I now have one in Brownies and one in Guides. Both Rainbows and Brownies unit let the girls do their interest badges at home and then hand out the badges when they completed them. No special badge day. The Guides unit do the interest badges within the meeting. I think that's really quite nice because my DDs love completing their badges and that adds more 'homework' for me as a parent.

For those with girls who aren’t enjoying a particular unit, you do know you can change unit don’t you - if another one is available locally of course.

My DC and I moved units when the first one we tried wasn’t a very good fit. All that needs to happen is your district commissioner needs to transfer you on GO. I contacted ours and told them we wanted to move.

@Marmite27 DD enjoys the meetings and seeing her friends there, but she'd also like to get the badges. I can't see on Go how as a parent I can see which badges she's earned.

I think I will ask Brown Owl if she can do it first week of the summer term as it has been so long, I won't be rude about it, I'll just ask, if it's a no I won't push it.

Maybe if you have time at other points OP you could offer to do some of the admin work for them - enter stuff on the GO system etc. I do this for 2 of our units- I'm an ex-leader who currently can't commit to weekly meetings.

In terms of cost - I've never heard of DBS checks being paid for in guiding. However if you help more than I think its twice a term then you have to be on the membership list as a helper - which just cost our units nearly £50 a head in census. You can get around this by being in certain roles - the district commissioner should know what these are.

In terms of what badges shes already got...You asked about finding what she's got recorded on GO...

If you go to girlguiding.org.uk click at the top to 'log in to GO' once youbare logged in - click on my daughters, then on the right hand side of the page next to her name there is a drop down menu... from this click view/edit.. then towards the bottom of that page there is a 'badges' link. (Bear in mind not all units put all the badges on here as its time consuming!) There is another drop down under that heading which you can pick Theme awards from to see where she's at with each of the 6 themes (she needs 2 themes for bronze, 4 for silver, 6 for gold) Brownies need 180 minutes, one skills builder's and 1 interest badge in a theme to fet the theme award. (I'm hoping you can se that last bit as I have a dual login for leader and daughter!)

Another way of looking at it is that she needs 6 interest badges - one of each colour to get gold. It does not matter in which order she does them they will still count for the theme when she has the other bits complete. If she know what topics they've done this year in terms of skills builder's- e.g. First Aid, Camp etc (there are some skill builder descriptions in her badge book if shes not sure) then you can match the colours to know which interest badges she needs to complete for the matching theme awards. There is a chart in the front of her badge book or if you search "Brownie badges poster new programme" there is a good one on (I think) the Tamworth guides Web pages with the same info.

Hopefully that makes sense - I've edited and added in bits so hopefully haven't confused it!!

I'm sure when I was a child if you got a badge it was given to you the week you earned it and you skipped out the hall clutching it to show off to your parents. It's sad to see this isn't the norm now.

Thank you found the link! But it only has her Rainbows badges listed sadly not even the badges from Brownies which are currently sewn onto her unitom are listed (she has 7 - 2 interest, 2 skill builder and 2 themes, and Bronze).

I can see her Rainbows Gold on there though which she got right at the end of her time of Rainbows so I'm assuming it may have been updated after she left Rainbows.

Thank you though it is helpful to see that. We do have the badge book so I will look into seeing if I can match what they're doing to that to give her a better chance at Silver/Gold.

@Thatwastheweekthatwasnt I have no issue with the way it's done it just seems like ages (it is) since she had any given to her. I know it's not entirely the leaders fault, they can't help getting covid or the fact that half the units missing due to a residential.

I will be asking if they're going to present them in the first week of the summer term though.

@LittleOwl153 Sorry, I can see she's listed as being active in her new unit but just not the badge she's completed with them as they're not listed is what I meant above.

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.

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

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 ...

@Becles She's done 2 interest badges outside of meetings that have been awarded and done 4 more that I'm not sure if they'll be awarded yet.

There's badges from 2 themes she's not done yet.

She did all 12 interest badges at Rainbows so I'm assuming she'll do most if not all for Brownies

@siestaingsnake Our Brownies haven't updated our Go, I can only see DDs Rainbows badges on it, none of her awarded Brownies ones.

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.

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

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

@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.