Merit Badge Time Savers

At ScoutStuff.org you can purchase 100 merit badge blue cards for $7.00 - then you get to fill them out by hand. These work great for a scout or three requesting to start merit badges, but when summer camp comes around and 100 or more merit badge requests come up it gets painful.
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At Troopmaster.org they have two blue cards per sheet on 8.5x11 blue card stock. An easy report in Troopmaster lets you print all the blue cards you want with all the information neat and legible. They cost about 15 cents per card but the savings in time and cramped hand muscles is worth it!

Using TroopKit.com for our troop events and scout-managed operations, scouts request to start a merit badge through email. When I receive their email, I print up blue cards and give them out at the next troop meeting.

As an additional time saver and arthritis preventer, I've got a signature stamp that I bought at vistaprint.com for $12. Instead of scribbling my scoutmaster signature over and over, it's just stamp, stamp, stamp and I'm done.

When working with a troop of scouts, I think it's important to make background tasks as streamlined as possible so more time can be spent interacting with the scouts. Blue cards and other paperwork are examples of areas that eat up time and take away from the fun part of scouting. I'm sure you know of others.

Scout On