I'm a leader in a large 6-level troop. I can't pre-buy the badges we'd need for each meeting or activity without constantly having overages, so for our troop, we decided to do quarterly awards nights so that we can save money with bulk purchases and pass out badges and patches in manageable groups. We have our parent-mandatory kick-off meeting each year in September, where we pass out any awards from over the summer, then we also have awards in December, March, and June as we complete each 3-month set of meetings.
I've tried a few ways to pass out the patches, but ultimately we always ended up with some left behind that fell off of the ribbons or cards that they were glued to. I've finally settled on printing out pretty names on cardstock that I slide into page protectors or plastic bags, then seal the open edge with tape. I usually put all of the badges that go on the front on the front of the page and the fun patches on the back. The exception is if we have a girl who doesn't earn as much, I go ahead and put it all on the front. I also try to split the badges/journeys on to the correct side of the cardstock to make it easier for the parents to know where things go. I also run a piece of ribbon through the holes on the sheet protectors to dress them up a bit.
If you're interested in doing something similar, I have all of my backgrounds available to be downloaded. I make 7 of each style so that you can color-code your awards to match each level's designated color:
- Blue - Daisy
- Brown - Brownie
- Purple - Junior
- Red - Cadette
- Orange - Senior
- Yellow - Ambassador
- Green - Leaders, Volunteers, Sprouts/Tagalongs
