Rebel Badge Club

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I have decided to try a new approach to blogging about my Rebel exploits as when I read back through some of them I got bored! I will endeavour to write one post a week about what I have been working towards and any badges completed as this may be a better approach. Feedback gratefully accepted!

I bought the first volume of Rebel Badge Book in April this year on the recommendation of a friend, and from the minute I opened it I was completely hooked; there were lots of badges that appealed to me so I spent a happy couple of days trying to decide which badge to start with, and then started on a whole bunch of them at once! It hasn't got any better, but I quite like my scattergun approach to completion. Every so often I focus in and see that I need one more clause to complete a particular badge, or one more badge to complete a patch and go all out to achieve that.

Charly introduced quarterly badges before I started which have helped focus me too, as well as monthly challenge badges; I have had huge amounts of fun completing the latter, particularly the Scavenger badge in August and the bonus Super Scavenger. Friends and I spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around our county in search of a live chicken crossing the road, but were unsuccessful, although we did manage to get a leprachaun by a wishing well. I wasn't allowed to include champagne as a food and I may hold a grudge about that forever...

To date I have achieved 24 merit badges, 6 monthly challenge badges and 2 quarterly badges, and have created a new camp blanket just for them, and have also joined the Rebel Council. Volume 2 arrived in the post this week and I spent a giddy evening with a fellow rebel going through it and making a spreadsheet to record our progress. We know how to live! There was even pizza! The new book looks amazing and I want to do nearly all the badges, but will blog about them another time when more people have the book.

The badges I am currently working on are Conscious Consumer, Emergency Helper, Linguist, World Traveller, Chef, Event Planner, Money Saver, and Stargazer. I am waiting for a place on a First Aid course to complete Emergency Helper and have to finish organising the department Christmas meal for Event Planner; this latter is instead of planning a birthday party as that isn't likely, and I have been tasked with making it more Christmassy than is usual. I am enjoying Stargazer and only have to complete my two month log of the night sky and visit a planetarium. World Traveller requires me to cook three dishes from the country I am studying so I will link that in with cooking a three course meal for the chef's badge. Last weekend I finished the Baker Badge by spending a frustrating day trying to make Chocolate Eclairs and getting bread dough to prove. I succeeded in the end, but am unlikely to try making choux pastry again for some time.

I am also doing the Bronze Maverick Award and will blog about that when I have finished. Suffice to say that it is giving me a reason to get on with projects that I have waffled on about doing for years and I am learning quite a lot in the process. The whole of Rebel Badge Book is giving me a reason to do things I have been putting off, or finish things I have started,  and to try new things, and I have discovered that I will go to great lengths to just 'get a badge'. My family, friends and colleagues find this highly amusing!

Model of Solar System for Stargazer Badge

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