Clair shared her badge tab a wee while ago and it got me thinking about what can it tell someone about of your Guiding life? I think it can tell you a lot, so I thought I might share mine to prove my point. Straight off you can tell the section someone works with by the coloured band on the top – mine is the one for a Senior Section Leader. Then you have the badges, what do I value highest among my Guiding achievements and moments?
My tab has evolved with me as I’ve grown as a Leader. My original tab had four badges – my Leader promise badge, my Baden-Powell award, my Gold DofE award and either the World Badge or the Girlguiding Scotland badge depending on what I was doing. More recently I’ve worn the shiny gold centenary Girlguiding Scotland thank you pin (for my work towards SS100) and the Scottish Chief Guide thank you badge (for my work as Scottish DofE adviser,a post I finished back in 2010). However, only one of all these badges is still on my tab.
Starting top left - my shiny for managing the camp and holiday scheme (albeit just for Senior Section/ Guide residentials), my centenary promise badge (I can only wear that till the end of the year and then I need to go back to the dark blue promise badge), my 10 years service pin, Pax Lodge promise pin and my Gold DofE award (the only one I also had on my first leader tab).
While they are perhaps not the most exciting mix it’s a good view of my Guiding life and the fun times I’ve had so far. Every time I wear it I remember the good times. From the stupidity that was the Lones residential (India themed chaos), the Pax Lodge Trip (7 adults, 3 days and lots and lots of laughter), my current role as DofE leader (my memories of working on the award and my term in the Scottish adviser post), the highs that I had in the centenary year (from 100+ people all singing Edelweiss in a restaurant at SS100 to seeing my God Daughter make her promise as a Rainbow) and of course my ten+ years of being a leader (starting with Guides, moving to Senior Section and now with the Senior Section Lones). All good memories full of laughter and friendship.
So I realise you might not get all of that but I reckon you’d get the gist of it just by looking and if nothing else it’s a handy conversation starter when you meet other leaders to ask about the badges you don’t recognise.
