The Merit Badge System
For a lot of people, their knowledge of the scouts begins and ends with merit badges. For them, the scouts are a longstanding organization that takes children camping and helps them to learn useful and important skills. The merit badges are a symbol of the skills learned during a child’s time with the scouts. In reality, the merit badge system is a little more complex than that.
At the moment, there are more than 135 different merit badges in the boy scouts alone. They cover subjects from aviation to veterinary medicine. In order to earn them, scouts have to demonstrate a specific level of knowledge over the subject they’re pursuing. It’s not enough to simply go to a scout leader and say “I shot an arrow, give me an archery badge, please.”
However, while the story of the merit badge is the most obviously well known aspect of the scouts, their journey into patches doesn’t stop at merit badges. We’ve been fortunate enough to create a number of different patches and badges for the scouts that go far beyond the merit system. Scouts actually create patches to commemorate important events, to spotlight the great work they’ve done, and for a long line of other reasons. When you’re thinking about patches for the scouts, it’s a crime to end the conversation at merit badges.
Patches for Special Events and Anniversaries
Scouting has been around since the early 1900s, but individual troops and chapters have their own initial start dates. This means they each have their own unique birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate. As is the case for a lot of organizations, the scouts often celebrate these dates with custom patches.
Milestone anniversaries are the easiest ones to celebrate. Making it through 75 years, and going strong, is enough reason for anyone to celebrate. But if your troop is celebrating more than just a remarkable birthday, perhaps you can try to cover two important milestones with one patch.
Beyond anniversaries, scouts also make patches to honor important events and get togethers. One of the biggest events in the scouting world is the World Scout Jamboree. Initially, back in the early 1900s, the founder of the scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, saw how quickly his ideas were spreading throughout the world. He wanted a way to get all of the scouts from different countries together to celebrate all that scouting has to offer. The outbreak of WWI put those plans on hold for awhile, but once the fighting ended, the Jamboree was born.
Today, scouts from all over the world get together for nearly two weeks of networking, fun and celebrating everything that makes scouting great. And the good news is we sometimes get to make the patches commemorating the event.
Putting Good Out in the World
Another essential part of scouting is volunteering and doing great charity work. Both the girl and boy scouts put an importance on giving back. Choosing charities and organizing drives and volunteer events is a skill a lot of adults don’t even possess. And yet, as a scout, you’re likely to engage with charities and the concept of giving back in a different capacity.
Part of the fun of seeing patches created in honor of these subjects is that they can serve as a window into what the customers truly value much more than a set of uniform or logo patches can. From the perspective of the scout earning the patch, it’s a way to commemorate an important and truly moving event. This is one of the aspects of scout patches that we think more of our customers should adapt into their own patch designs.
Patches for All Occasions
Whether your scout troop is heading to the jamboree, has completed a great charity project or just wants to show off some of the cool places they’ve gone, we’ve got you covered. It would be so easy to paint with too broad a brush and make it seem like merit badges are the only patches important to these young people, but that simply isn’t true.
When you’re ready to design patches to tell your scout troop’s story, give us a call and see what we can do for you!
