Award Application Process Update 2024

February 1, 2024

The Royal Rangers advancement system plays a central role in the process we employ to develop boys into Christlike men. Each year, boys across the nation are awarded year-end medals in recognition of their ongoing achievements. But the process required to obtain approval for these awards can at times be lengthy and challenging. To further simplify and expedite the awards application process, the Royal Rangers national office has implemented the following changes, effective January 1, 2024.

All annual boys’ advancement awards may now be applied for using the Multiple Recipient Application currently in use rather than individual applications. This now includes the Gold Trail, Gold Eagle, Adventure Gold, and E3 awards. The Multiple Recipient Application has been in use since 2017 when a similar change was made for all “year 1” and “year 2” awards, such as the Gold Falcon and Gold Hawk in Discovery Rangers. Now, all boys annual awards will make use of this process.

1. Ranger Kids Year 3 – Gold Trail (now available via the Multiple Recipient Application)
2. Discovery Year 1 – Gold Falcon
3. Discovery Year 2 – Gold Hawk
4. Discovery Year 3 – Gold Eagle (now available via the Multiple Recipient Application)
5. Adventure Year 1 – Adventure Bronze
6. Adventure Year 2 – Adventure Silver
7. Adventure Year 3 – Adventure Gold (now available via the Multiple Recipient Application)
8. Expedition Year 1 – E1 Award
9. Expedition Year 2 – E2 Award
10. Expedition Year 3 – E3 Award (now available via the Multiple Recipient Application)

By moving these additional awards to this already established and simplified process we hope to reduce significantly the overall processing time required for boys’ award applications and to enable outposts to present these awards to boys on a timely basis.

It’s important to note, however, that the full details for each of these “year 3” awards will still be required if the boy applies for the Gold Medal of Achievement (GMA) and the embellishments (GMA with Merit and GMA with Honors) at some later date. The GMA application now requires full details on each of the “year 3” awards being used to satisfy requirements for the GMA.* Outpost leaders are, therefore, encouraged to continue maintaining accurate advancement records for each boy so as to have that information available if needed later for his GMA application. This could be easily done by maintaining an ongoing GMA application for each boy, completing it over time as each award is earned and keeping it on file for future reference once it is complete.

The Trail of the Saber and the buffalo awards are unaffected by this update.

*NOTE: If a “year 3” award was earned prior to this change when full award details were provided, it is not necessary that those details be again included on the GMA application. The boy’s award date and number are all that will be required (see the 2024 GMA application).