Regatta / Derby awards

[bnnykllr]

My pack is in the process of planning a Raingutter Regatta. Does anyone have any suggestions on handing out awards? Is it better to have 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards or for everyone to get a participation award, or both? Do the scouts seem to prefer trophies, medals, or ribbons? Or, are there other ideas of things that could be awarded... someone at the meeting suggested gift certificates, but we are exploring all options. Also, is it better to run the race as a pack, or have winners from each den? (I think we have close to 70 scouts in 6 dens) We want to recognize the winners without hurting the feelings of those who's boats didn't do as well.

[Its Me]

We run a rain gutter regetta and give out no awards. Our 100+ cubs just keep cricling through the 3 race line (6 gutters altogether. This way they can race as many times as they want. Nobody seems to notice that we aren't really racing.

[EagleInKY]

It's really up to your pack. You ask 50 people here, you're likely to get 50 different opinions. You need to go with what your pack wants to do.

 

Sometimes it's good to give participation ribbons. Other times you want to declare the winners. I don't subscribe to the "we can't have winners because the others (can't use the "L" word) will have hurt feelings". Guess it's just my nature, sometimes kids need to learn how to be good sports. But bottom line, do what you pack wants.

[cubbingcarol]

I agree that not everyone should get something. JMHO. I believe that the winners should be acknowledged and everyone else congratulated on doing their best. My son raced a car at the council level and didn't win. He was disappointed at first until we stopped at Burger King for lunch.

 

Carol

[Cubmaster Mike]

We do the space derby, raingutter regatta and pinewood derby. Both the space derby and pinewood stand on their own and don't require boy operation. For raingutter regatta we move the metal rudder position to near the back of the boat for the Tigers and slide it forward each year until it is in the normal position at Webelos. The result is that the metal further back picks up the bow and the tigers can keep up with the webelos.

 

Everybody gets a participation ribbon and patch. Siblings also (girls race boats too!). 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies at each den level (I make my own trophies). 1st place in each den goes into a runoff for overall winner. We also have certificates for fanciest, funniest, strangest, most colorful, etc.

 

 

The week before the race and then again at the race, we talk about sportsmanship. And the two awards we give out that I make the biggest deal about are for Best Sportsman and the Best Display of Scout Spirit.

 

CMM

[Prairie_Scouter]

For our Derby, we hand out ribbons to everyone as a small reward for participation. Trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are handed out at each rank, and then for the entire pack.

[jens3sons]

We do a very small version of regatta, and we don't hand anything out at that pack meeting, because we have it at our "June" pack meeting which is our smallest attended pack meeting because of graduations, 1st communions, baseball, etc. As far as pinewood derby goes, each boy receives a certificate of participation, and a goodie bag. The goodie bags don't cost a dime because we canvas the area for anything having to do with cars for donations (gas stations, car dealers, auto repair shops, auto parts stores, car washes, etc.) We even get the bags donated to us! Free advertising for them, and great things in the bags for the boys. Items businesses have donated? Well, frisbees, cozies, pens, pencils, stickers, hot wheel cars, visors, window scrapers, etc...and for the parents...we have had 1/2 off oil changes, free car washes etc. We then purchase trophies for 1st-3rd on the den level, best craftmanship, most unique, and then 1st-3rd over all, and big boy-big girl (parents) and a sibling trophy. This year we will add an "alumni" trophy, and be asking the boys who cross-over prior to derby if they would like to make a car and race it, and also help out the day of the derby. Happy racing!

[madkins007]

We offered awards in the following categories- only rule is no boy can win two awards:

 

1st-3rd place for speed, pack level

1-3 'favorites', pack level

1-3 speed, each den

1-3 favorites, each den

Judges awards, 1 per judge

Cubmaster's Award for Sportsmanship- usually to a boy that something bad happened to- crash, break-up, etc.

 

Favorites are chosen by each youth getting three 'beans' to drop in a cup positioned by each entry. Voting happens for about 45 minutes before the race as we finish other details.

 

We have a couple secrets:

1.) We give the awards out at the next meeting AFTER the race.

2.) We figure the awards in about the order given. In the rare instance that an entry does really well in both speed and votes, they get one award and a certificate of merit for the other item.

3.) Oddly enough, we always offer the same number of awards as we have entries. Sometimes we add judges, other times we rate the top 4 places, etc.

 

Our awards usually consist of a certificate (recently including a digital photo as well!), medal for the pack 1-3, and the top 1 in each den, and a small prize for everyone- often a Hot Wheels car.

 

(Note- the speeds bit is easier in Pinewood where our track records absolute speeds, and averages every run of any given car)

 

[cubmaster3947]

We give out a participation certificate to all boys. Then we give out the PWD / Regatta medals as follows:

 

In each Den:

Fastest - white

Best Design - red (selected by the boy's votes)

Sportsmaship - blue (selected by the judges)

 

Winner of the above are elegible for plaques for fastest / best design / sportsmanship at the Pack level.

 

mark

[dlearyous]

For those of you that give out lots of awards, during the awards process how do you keep it from dragging on? Also, during the derby, how do you keep it interesting for those kids that aren't racing at that moment? After a couple hours, they are bouncing off the walls.

[madkins007]

Awards- we practice a strict 'higher level, more glory' approach in all awards. LOTSA hoopla over rank, less over Sports and Academics, still less over arrow points, etc.

 

For ceremonies like this, we do clustering. Judges awards are called off as a group, and all boys brought up at once.

 

Then, den by den awards, everyone in a den brought up at once.

 

Finally, the 'Big 6' one at a time.

 

If it is PRIMARILY an awards night (Derby, Court of Honor, etc.), we break things up with skits, songs, 'sparklers', etc.

 

Also- NO 'monologing'! Speechifying is kept to an absolute minimum.

 

 

 

During the races, we do food, mix-up the heats so no one Scout has a long wait, do door prizes, have 'commercials', and try hard to have side activities. For Pinewood, we have set up stations with Hot Wheels tracks, R/C cars. slot car racing, and more- even a model car kit show. For one Regatta, we were lucky enough to get some Navy guys there in uniform with stuff to show off and just answer questions.

 

Take a lesson from NASCAR or any other race- create a multi-activity carnival around the main event. If you have a committee for the Big Event and a small group working the 'other stuff', it is not too hard to end up with a really enjoyable day!

[Cubmaster Jerry]

We hand out participation certificates for all, while I would agree with those who feel that boys should "learn to lose" these are young boys and like to at least leave with something. We group the racers by rank and race that way. We hand out 1st - 3rd ribbons for each rank and then trophies for 1st - 3rd overall.

 

With PWD we also include category awards (certificates). However, with 100+ boys, we don't do overall because it would be too much to have everyone in attendance the entire time. We race one rank at a time then present the awards for that rank then move on to the next.

[jens3sons]

delearyus, During pinewood derby, we have a # of things going on all at once during the races. We have a bunch of dads that like to get all "techy", and so we have cameras pointed on the track and at the finish line that is shown as live time on huge screens on each side of the track, along with the finish line results. We also set up a station where the boys can make a chocolate car, siblings and boys can watch movies, and along with the movies, we had another station playing The Three Stooges. Last year our committee was also able to find chocolate race cars and popcorn tins that were raffled off in between races. We also play a lot of music that the boys like to get up and dance to etc. You can check out our pinewood derby online @ www.ilpack64.com

Hope this gives you some great ideas!

Jens3sons

[dlearyous]

Wow Jen3sons, can we borrow your Dads?! That sounds so awesome. I've really gotten some great ideas to go on and will search for more. Especially for the space derby coming up.

 

 

[Herms]

Our Raingutter Regatta is on of our Summertime Activities. We do a BBQ and the boys cycle through racing. Not a lot of emphasize on who wins. The boys like to challenge each other and we don't have to break our budget by buying a lot of awards.

 

At our Pinewood Derby we make sure EVERY boy wins. Last year I had to come up with 60 categories! Everything from Most Original Design, to Tallest Car, to Greenest Car. Each boy got a participation medal at the time they got there certificate so that they felt like they won something. (Let me know in a separate email if you would like the list).

 

We also gave Pack 1st, 2nd and 3rd trophies for Best in Show and had grandparents do the judging (as they usually dont know who or what there grandsons car looks like).

 

During the races at the age levels we give 1st, 2nd and 3rd place medals and Pack 1st, 2nd and 3rd trophies. No one was allowed to win both a Pack Speed trophy and a Best in Show, so the awards got spread out among more boys.

 

Total cost for 60 participation medals, 60 certificates (done up on nice paper on the printer at home), 15 PW medals and 6 trophies was a little under $300 which we make up by selling pizza and drinks at the event.