Every week the same scene plays out in the club group chat: can an instructor who doesn't hold the honor sign off on it? Can you complete one alone at home? Does that honor my kid did through a video class actually count? The answers circulate as screenshots of conversations, each club with a different version, and nobody can say where the rule came from.
The good news is that there's a written standard. The Pathfinder Club Administrative Manual, the South American Division's (SAD) 2020 edition, covers honors in chapter 4.2 and lays out, in four steps, the correct procedure for receiving an honor — including who signs what. This piece is about that layer of governance, not the execution steps, which are covered in how to earn a Pathfinder honor.
Where the standard stays silent, you'll read here that it stays silent — and who decides in your region when it does.
Who signs a Pathfinder honor, exactly?
The short answer is two signatures, not one. The Pathfinder Club Administrative Manual (SAD, 2020 edition) lays out the correct procedure in four steps: pass the honor's exam; the instructor signs the honors record or a certificate; the Regional or District leader evaluates the honor and also signs; and, finally, the patch is awarded at an honors ceremony.
That changes how things work in practice at the club: a certificate signed only by the instructor is incomplete. The second evaluation is part of the procedure, exactly as it happens with classes — there, the instructor can only sign the card once the requirement has been completed and evaluated, and the final evaluation, in the manual's own words, remains a duty exclusive to Regionals, and to District leaders when authorized by them, for classes as well as for honors and scarf admission (section 3.7.2). Note the order: the District leader steps in when the Regional authorizes it, not as a free-standing alternative.
| Who | What they do for the honor | Do they sign? |
|---|---|---|
| Honor instructor | Teaches all the requirements and administers the evaluation | Yes — signs the record or certificate (step 2) |
| Regional or District leader | Evaluates the completed honor | Yes — this is the second signature (step 3) |
| Club director | Authorizes who will instruct; the Executive Committee oversees how honors are run | Not the signature required in steps 2 and 3 |
| Unit counselor | Follows the Pathfinder and their development | Only when they're the instructor for that honor |
| Club secretary | Files a copy of the certificates in the member's individual folder | No |
A detail almost nobody knows: the rule also applies to leadership. When it's the club director completing the honor, the manual states that they must be evaluated by the Regional; Regionals are evaluated by the field's departmental director; and departmental directors, by their superior or by someone that person appoints. Nobody signs off on their own achievement.
Does the instructor need to hold the honor to teach and sign it?
The Administrative Manual doesn't require that. Nowhere in the honors chapter does it make instruction or the signature conditional on the person already holding that patch. What it does require is something else: ideally, whoever teaches should have solid knowledge of the subject, so the honor isn't taught incorrectly, superficially, or in a way too advanced for the age group.
The manual splits this into two cases. If the instructor is a professional in the field, it's up to them to judge the right depth for the group's age and schooling level. If they're not a professional in the field, they must do thorough research to learn the content before teaching it. In other words: studying beforehand is mandatory; holding the patch is not.
There's a detail that reinforces this. When nobody in the club knows how to teach a given honor, the manual lists four options in order of preference: look for church members who have a command of the subject; look for people known outside the church who have a command of the subject; if that person doesn't have the time, ask them to train someone else to be the instructor; and, fourth, choose someone from the club who holds the honor and has an affinity for the topic. Holding the patch shows up as the last option on the list — not as the entry point.
There's more. In the chapter on counselors and instructors (section 3.3.5, outside the honors chapter), the manual states that instructors aren't limited to people from the club: they can be invited to teach a specific subject, such as knot-tying, swimming, or crafts, and it names the Military Police, the Fire Department, artisans, and healthcare professionals as examples. In those cases, they don't even need to be Adventist — but, per the manual's text, they must be brought in only with the director's authorization. That authorization is exactly what clubs most often forget to put in writing.
What varies by region: in practice, some fields and Regionals require that whoever signs be a board member registered with the club or an invested leader in good standing in the official system. That requirement is not in the Administrative Manual — it's a local policy, and it's up to your Regional or the field's departmental director (conference or mission) to decide. Ask before setting up the group, not after it's already finished.
The educational reasoning is simple: the patch doesn't declare that the Pathfinder became a professional in the subject — it declares that they explored a new topic. What guarantees the quality of that exploration is the preparation of whoever teaches, plus the second read from whoever evaluates afterward. The unit counselor follows the Pathfinder, but doesn't take over the instructor's responsibility here.
Can you complete a Pathfinder honor on your own?
You can, and it's written down. The manual states that, in addition to the honors taught by the club, a Pathfinder may, based on their interests and abilities, complete honors on their own. That's the regulatory basis for the teen who's passionate about astronomy in a club where nobody knows the subject.
The same sentence, however, comes with a catch: in those cases, the club must appoint someone qualified to evaluate them, and that person has to follow the evaluation criteria set out in the manual itself. In other words: completing it alone is fine; validating it alone is not. Self-signing an honor doesn't exist under the standard.
The practical path is this: find the board member the club appointed as the one generally responsible for honor instruction — the manual requires the club to appoint one — agree on who will evaluate and how, complete the requirements, and present the evidence. After that, the flow is the same as for everyone else: the instructor or evaluator signs, the Regional evaluates and signs, the patch is awarded at a ceremony.
What about family? The manual doesn't address the relationship between instructor and Pathfinder: it doesn't forbid it, and it doesn't explicitly authorize it either. What it does say is that instructors can come from outside the club as long as they're brought in with the director's authorization, and that the evaluation standard is the same for everyone. Since the standard is silent on family ties, the call becomes the board's to make: if you're a parent or an older sibling and you're going to instruct someone from your own home, agree on it before you start — not after asking for the signature.
Read alsoHow to Earn a Pathfinder HonorDoes an honor completed online or through an outside course count?
Some honesty is needed here: the 2020-edition Administrative Manual doesn't create an "online honor" category — and it doesn't ban one either. What it demands is the outcome. All requirements taught; the practical items actually carried out by the Pathfinder, not just watched while the instructor does them; a written record of the content; and passing the evaluation.
The manual gives a clear preference for in-person instruction: whenever possible, teaching should happen where the subject is located. Nature honors, for instance, should preferably be taught where the object of study can be observed in its natural setting. When that's not possible, it directs instructors to arrange for a variety of audiovisual materials — which leaves room for a remote format without turning it into the rule.
There's an official precedent. In 2020, during the pandemic, the Church itself publicized clubs completing honors remotely: in Bauru (São Paulo state), 19 clubs brought together 697 teens for an online camporee between April 12 and May 30, 2020. The article states 20 honors were offered, though the list published on the same page names 25 — we're going with the number the article states. It comes from the official Notícias Adventistas website, dated April 27, 2020, and it doesn't describe how the honors were evaluated or signed off remotely. It's news coverage, not a standard — it shows the format was used and publicized, nothing more.
An outside course (a language school, a first-aid course, a crafts workshop) counts as learning, but it doesn't replace the club's evaluation. One example of how the SAD sees this: OMD 016/2018, dated October 19, 2018, renamed the existing honor to Language Study – Advanced and created a new Language Study honor (AM 050). The reason given in the document: four of the six requirements then in force could only be satisfactorily met by someone who already had an intermediate level in the language — something that, per the same document, most regular language school courses take 3.5 to 4 years of study to reach.
Who decides whether the format you used was enough? The same two people who sign off: the instructor who evaluates and the Regional or District leader who re-evaluates. No platform, channel, or website issues automatic honor validation.
What counts as accepted evidence?
The manual is direct on one point: the Pathfinder must always have a written record of the honor's content — notes taken during instruction, research done at home, or a study booklet provided by the instructor. And it puts a limit on the booklet: it can't give the direct answer to the requirements, only the content in broad form, so the Pathfinder has to find the necessary answers in the text.
The evaluation itself can take several forms, and the manual describes the most common ones, which can even be combined within a single honor:
| Form of evaluation | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Objective test | Whether the Pathfinder retained specific facts from the content |
| Essay test | Ability to relate, summarize, analyze, and judge |
| Seminar | Research, organization, and oral presentation of the topic |
| Group work | Collaboration and covering multiple topics in a short time |
| Individual report | What was learned after a hands-on activity |
| Debate | Argumentation, listening, and use of the floor on controversial topics |
| Self-assessment | Awareness of one's own learning process |
For the written exam, the manual suggests a balance: 25% easy questions, 50% medium, and 25% hard. And it explains what it means by hard — a question that requires reasoning, not rote memorization, without asking anything beyond what was taught.
After approval, the paperwork has a set destination. A copy of the certificates for classes, honors, and courses goes into the Pathfinder's individual folder, kept at the club secretary's office, and also into the unit's folder, which serves as a historical record. That's the file that provides the proof when, years later, someone asks whether that honor was really completed. See how to organize this at club secretary.
What invalidates the achievement?
A missing requirement. The manual leaves no room here: every requirement must be taught with dedication, and the Pathfinder cannot receive the patch if they don't complete each one. There's no "they missed two, but tried really hard."
A requirement swapped on your own. The minimum requirements are in the South American Division's Honors Manual — whose most recent edition is from August 2025 — and only the Division has the authority to revise or replace them. Questions of interpretation and requests for substitution in special situations must be sent to the Division — not settled at a board meeting or in the Regional's group chat. Always check the current edition of the Honors Manual before setting up instruction: the signing procedure described here comes from the Administrative Manual, but the list of requirements comes from there.
An honor that's already been answered. The manual states this can never happen, especially with material found online, because it eliminates the research work and levels everyone to the same shallow knowledge. Worth remembering: not even the instructor's study booklet is allowed to give ready-made answers.
A guest instructor without the director's authorization and a group the size of the entire club also go against the standard. The manual calls for instruction in small groups, based on the units' age range, and states in no uncertain terms that no honor should be taught to the whole club at once. For arts and crafts honors, it calls for even more care with group size.
A missing second signature. Without the Regional's or District leader's evaluation and signature, step 3 simply hasn't happened: the process is pending, no matter how nice the certificate looks. And there's a written deadline almost nobody meets: the manual requires these evaluations to take place at least three weeks in advance of the investiture, honors, or admission ceremony, precisely to leave time to fix anything pending. It also requires the evaluation to take place with the club director and the Pathfinder's instructor present. What varies by field is the timing chosen within that window — a Regional visit, a field event, a date on the calendar. Confirm with your Regional.
Where the achievement gets recorded — and what no app replaces
A signature on paper is half the journey. The other half is the record in SGC, the Club Management System run by the SAD, up and running since 26/01/2015 and organized into six access levels: Division, unions, fields, Regional, District, and club. It's where member registration, medical forms, classes, honors, units, assets, treasury data, annual insurance, and event registrations all live. If you haven't logged in yet, start with what SGC is and how to log in.
The authority to sign runs through there too. OMD 015/2018 — a Pathfinder Ministry Guideline published on 4/7/2018 — required invested leaders to be entered into SGC and established that, starting 21/12/2018, only those in good standing in the system would be officially recognized as invested leaders across the South American Division's territory. An investiture without a record becomes a problem exactly when it's time to sign off and answer for the club.
A bit of honesty here, because it's easy to oversell a tool: Desbravai doesn't replace SGC and has no way to. Official member registration, a history recognized by the field, and annual insurance exist only in the Church's system — that's SGC's job, full stop. What a tool like ours does is handle the day-to-day organization: units, calendar, materials, and tracking of what each Pathfinder has already completed, so the secretary can go into SGC with everything already checked off. One thing is the official record; another is the club's internal housekeeping.
And keep the paper copy: even with registration done digitally, the manual requires a physical copy to be kept at the club secretary's office. To understand which documents govern all of this, start with the official manuals. And to see where the achievement shows up on the uniform, check out the honors sash.