Awarding badges

Badge Progress lives on the section, open Cubs (or whichever section) and it's in the section menu. There are two lists: Ready to award for anyone at 100%, and At 80% or more for people who are close but not finished. Badge Definitions is the group catalogue of official and custom badges, not where you award them.

Every badge has its own page for the section. Choose a badge's name in either list, or use Look up a badge, to see every requirement, how many young people have done each one and the meetings that cover it, and each young person's progress, closest to finishing first. Mark done ticks a requirement off for several young people at once, and Award is there for anyone who has finished.

Ticking a requirement off asks What did they do?, so there's a record of the hike they planned or the meal they cooked, not just a tick. It shows under the requirement on the young person's badges, where Edit changes it later, and on their badge checklist PDF.

For a badge the Scouts don't make, like a group anniversary or a camp challenge, go to Badge Definitions under Badges and choose Add custom badge. Give it a name, a type, its requirements and, if you like, a Badge image: click the upload area or drag a picture onto it.

The picture shows wherever the badge does: on Badge Progress, a young person's badges, Badges to present, printed pouch inserts and the parent portal. Without one, the badge gets a plain badge icon.

Edit next to a custom badge changes its name, description, type or picture, and Remove under the picture takes it off. Only your group's own custom badges can be edited. Official Scouts badges, and other groups' custom badges, can't.

Some badges let a young person choose a whole route, like Air Researcher's Option 1 or Option 2, each with several tasks. On the young person's badges, choose Pick this route, then tick each task as they do it. The route counts once every task is ticked, and the badge shows how many tasks are done.

Change route is there until one of the route's tasks is ticked. Ticking a task, from Mark done or a meeting's sign-off, picks its route for anyone who hasn't picked one yet; someone already doing a different route is left as they are.

Some badges aren't earned by ticking requirements. Badges due, on the section's Badge Progress, works them out from your records: a Joining In award for each full year since they started Scouting, Nights Away and Hikes Away stages from the nights and hikes counted, and Sixer, Seconder, Patrol Leader, Assistant Patrol Leader and patrol badges for the patrol or Six they're in. Each line says why, like "Joined Scouting 3 years ago (Sep 2023), no 3-year Joining In award".

Years in Scouting count from the earliest date on their record or any section they've been in, including ones they've moved up from. Nights count from events that ran overnight where they were marked Present or Late, plus any added by hand under Staged badge counters on their badges. Only the year or stage they've reached is suggested, not every earlier one.

Nothing is awarded on its own. Award gives one, Award these gives one badge to everyone listed for it, and Award all due does the lot. Adding nights by hand doesn't award a badge either: the stage shows in Badges due for you to award.

If someone has no joining date, or their date is later than badges they were already awarded (usually the day they were imported), Badges due says so, for example "12 young people have no joining date, so Joining In awards can't be worked out". Set joining dates fills them in for everyone at once. The group dashboard and the section's page show a Badges due card whenever there's something to do.

Ready to award can be grouped by badge (these five people need Gardener, these two need Pioneer) or by young person. The badge image sits next to the name so you can match it to the box you're holding.

Awarding a badge and handing it over are two steps. Badges to present lists every badge that's been awarded but not handed over yet. It's in each section's menu, so opening it from a section keeps you in that section, and its count is on the section's Badge Progress. For every section at once, it's under Badges in the group menu, with a count on Badge Stock and on the dashboard. Choose a section, or all of them, and show the list By young person or By badge. By badge works well at the hut: everyone who needs Chef, then everyone who needs Cyclist.

Presented marks one badge as handed over today. Present all marks a young person's set, or everyone's for one badge, once you've confirmed. Print pouch inserts prints the same list as cut-out cards.

If an import left old badges waiting that were handed out long ago, set Awarded to More than 3 months ago and use Mark all as presented to clear them, leaving the recent ones to hand out.

Print pouch inserts, on Badge Progress, Badges to present or under Badges in the group menu, prints a slip for each young person who has been awarded badges that haven't been given to them yet. Choose one section, or All sections you can see badges in. Young people are listed under the section they're in now, so a badge from their old section still shows.

List is the usual layout: each slip has the young person's name, section and number of badges, then a line per badge with a tick box. Slips sit in two columns down an A4 page and are never split across a page. Cut along the dashed lines, drop each slip in that young person's bag with their badges, and tick each one off as it goes in.

Badge grid prints a 3.6cm square per badge instead, with its picture, name and stage, five to a row, to lay the badges on before they go in the wallet. The layout you pick is remembered on that device.

Print opens your browser's print dialog: print at 100% (actual size) so the slips and squares come out the right size. Download PDF downloads the same sheet as an A4 PDF, in the layout you've chosen, to print later or send to whoever does the printing.

Only badges not yet presented are printed, unless you tick Include badges already presented. Once the bags have been handed out, Mark as presented records every badge on the sheet as given today, by you. It asks you to confirm first, and needs the same access as awarding badges in that section.

Open the young person's record and go to Badges. Each badge under Awarded badges has Remove. Choose why, Awarded by mistake or Other (and say what happened), then Remove award. Anyone who can award badges to that young person can remove one.

Their ticked requirements stay, and the badge goes back to Badges in progress, so you can award the right one, or the same one again once it's right. Reports and the Chief Scout Award check stop counting it straight away. Parents who were emailed about the award aren't emailed again. Every removal is kept in the group's audit log: who removed it, when, why, and whether it went back in stock.

If your group keeps stock of that badge, Return to stock? puts it back where it came from. It's ticked when the badge hasn't been presented yet, and unticked when it has, so only tick it if the badge came back to you.