Guidelines for Designing the AVA Participation Patch for Girl Scout Walks

The AVA Youth Committee selects a volkssport club that has held a Girl Scout "Walk Together", to work with their local Girl Scout Council, to design a patch for the next Girl Scout year. Although the Girl Scout year starts in October, the AVA makes its participation patch available in September through August of the next calendar year.

The volkssport club selected will contact their local Girl Scout Council to get their permission to have a contest. Contact them as early as possible to discuss how a contest for an AVA Participation Patch might be held within the council and the time lines involved. If the club doesn't know who to contact, contact the Program Director of that council. If more than one Girl Scout Council has been involved with "Walk Togethers" with your club, choose one to work with. It is important that the club contact the council early, so that materials that go out to troops and girls about the contest can be coordinated with council mailings, if that is the method the council will use to contact troops and girls.

The contest is for individual girls or troops/groups within the council, and should be council-wide rather than for one troop. When a particular patch is selected for the following year, the AVA will make up a plaque with the patch, honoring the girl/troop/group's contribution. The plaque will sent to your club in the fall and you may present that plaque to the girl or troop/group in a manner decided by the council and your club.

Work with the Girl Scout Council to design a form for troops and girls to use who want to participate. Please do not leave an undefined open area for the design as girls tend to draw all over the paper. Include an outline of a shape or shapes within which the girls may design their patch entry. Include on the form:

• Girl and troop contact information such as name and address and troop number

• The wording, "The American Volkssport Association reserves the right to make changes to the design to meet requirements."

• An area and outlines of shapes to draw the design in. Include: "You may use a larger area to draw your design. But, it must be able to be shrunk to fit a 2" patch.

• The following patch rquirements:

  • Specify the patch background color.

  • Use no more than 6 colors in the design, not counting the background color.

  • Use a round, square or diamond (square on its corner) shape.

  • Include the following words somewhere on the patch:

    • AVA

    • Girl Scouts (preferred), or GSUSA, with the ® registered mark.

    • The school year, for example 2007-2008

    • The words "Walk Together".

The AVA club should receive all the patch contest entries from the council by April. They select 2 to 4 patches to send on to the AVA Youth Committee by May 1. Although we specify certain things that need to be on the patch, if a good design is lacking in some specifics, we may be able to alter it to include those items if there is room on the patch. Take into account:

• Originality of design — it shouldn't be like those already done.

• Appropriateness of theme

• Patch requirements
  

Click here to see patches for previous years

Send your club's selections to the American Volkssport Association, c/o Youth Committee so that they are received by May 1. You may scan them in color and send in .jpeg format by email to avayouth@ava.org (preferred). If that is not possible, send the paper entries to the AVA Youth Coordinator. The Youth Committee will select the design and let the club know so they can inform the council and the girl/troop. The AVA will work with the patch vendor and the Youth Committee to finalize the design, order patches, send the design selected to clubs for their information, and get patches ready for mailing to clubs for fall "Walk Togethers". If you have any questions about this process, contact the AVA Youth Coordinator at avayouth@ava.org

American Volkssport Association
1001 Pat Booker Road, Suite 101
Universal City, TX 78148