More Badge Checkboxes (besides just Purchased and Recognized)

Ideas
1

Continuing the discussion from Merit Badge Wish List:

Expanding on what @JohnCushing suggested, I’d love for there to be more checkboxes available for Badges (Stars, other awards, etc).

Right now, between checkboxes and date entries, you can mark things as Completed, Awarded, Recognized, and Purchased.

But in our troop, we only order badges 3-4 times a year. We charge parents for some of the badges earned at home. And we always “award” (give the actual badge) and “recognize” (have scout onstage and announce to all that badge has been earned). So now we use “recognize” to denote a badge has been paid for either by the troop or by the parents, whichever applies. We have workarounds for some things, like how to get badges onto the shopping list that aren’t 100% complete yet. And other things, we have to keep track of elsewhere…

So there are some additional checkboxes I would find helpful.

Rather than list them ALL here, I will list each separately as a reply to this post, so if you see one (or more) that you too would find helpful, you can just “like” that individual reply. And if you have ideas to add, I suggest keeping it at one per reply, otherwise there’s no way to distinguish the popular requests from the outliers.

By the way, I formatted each Checkbox Name with the “A” heading button, and each description with the “B” bold button.

2

“To Be Ordered”

  • by checking this box, the badge appears on the Shopping List, no matter is it’s 100% or not.

Reasoning: we often order badges earned with a girl’s unit at troop meetings, or at camp, before they’re 100% complete. But if they’re not 100%, they don’t show up on the Shopping List.

Our current workaround: 1. create a custom badge, like “Theater (T) UNIT BADGE)”, 2. assign custom badge to all scouts and mark as complete. 3. see custom badge on shopping list. 4. record progress on real badge as needed. 5. remove custom badge from scout profile as they finish real badge. (actually, we just mark off all three boxes on Present Awards). 6. at some point, order badges from Shopping List being sure not to order twice if the real badge and the custom badge are both 100% complete. 7. eventually, delete custom badge from system when it’s no longer needed.

4 Likes
3

“Paid for”

  • allows you to show that payment for the badge has been received from parents. If it’s a badge that the troop pays for out of dues, then you just mark it off right away.

Reasoning: we pay for service stars and 2-3 badges (earned with the troop) out of troop dues. If girls earn additional badges (at home, at some camps where the badge is not included), then parents need to pay for them.

Ideally, this checkbox would only appear to certain people, e.g. people with Money privileges. I don’t want parents to be able to check this off!

Current workaround: we “recognize” that a parent has paid for the badge, i.e. use the Recognize checkbox.

2 Likes
4

“Shared with Unit”

  • Can only be checked off by leaders, not parents. Used when a girl does a badge at home and has to present a summary to her Unit once she’s done. For badges done with the troop or at camp, it would just be checked off right away.

Ideally, the badge wouldn’t show as 100% complete until this checkbox is checked off!

Our current workaround: we don’t really have one. :disappointed_relieved: We keep track on some paper when a girl presents to/shares with her Unit, but it still requires a manual check periodically to make sure girls aren’t being given a badge that they never got around to sharing. :unamused:

3 Likes
5

“Wishlist”

  • indicates that scout is interested in doing this badge in the future. Does NOT cause badge to show up on shopping list.

It would be great if other scouts/families could also see this list somewhere. A while back, we’d had the idea of “Badge Buddies”, a physical board at troop meetings where girls could list what badge(s) they’re interested in (and their contact info) and then other girls could see it and contact them if they’d like to work with them; would increase social connections between the girls. But the physical implementation gets tricky. This would put the Badge Buddies idea online instead - so much easier to keep track of and maintain!

I think this would also do what John had put forth as an idea.

3 Likes
6

LOVE LOVE LOVE this one!!! We are really struggling with this one too!!! “Shared with Unit” would be AWESOME!!!

I could see many of our families using the “Wishlist” option too. Right now my girls, all 5 of them, have their books marked up with Sticky notes marking which ones they’d like to do. If all the girls in the troop could go through and mark what they’d like to do, Squad Leaders could pull a report that shows those and they’d be better able to choose squad badges.

Really, I just love all your extra checkboxes! Brilliant!!

1 Like
7

I’d like to be able to assign amounts to badges, patches, etc. so that they’d automatically bill the girl’s account, but reserve the ability to mark it free if needed (unit badges, for example).

5 Likes
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