Awards committee resources

[Protoclete]

For those who have organized district or council awards committees, did you use or discover any really effective tools for helping committee members evaluate and compare nominations? 

For example, did anyone use a 1-5 rating scale on different aspects of the nominations, or assign points, or create a matrix or written evaluation tool of any kind? Or just get together and hash it out verbally with each other? 

As I'm organizing our awards committees, I'm looking for good ideas to implement here - which will culminate in a live meeting, of course, but would love to hear some good ideas if they are out there. 

[qwazse]

I've been on the recipient side, so I might not have the perspective that you need. But my impression is that the biggest challenge for our committees was getting the nominations in the first place. We scouters on the ground don't always take the time to nominate good candidates, so a point system seems like overkill.

Maybe your culture is different than ours. Are you all are getting more candidates for awards than you actually have awards to offer?

[ParkMan]

This is what we've seen in our district too.  Even the DAOM did not have many nominations.  I understand our neighboring districts are similar.

Since we'd have 2 or 3 nominations for most categories, the selection was a discussion amongst the awards committee.

[jjlash]

For both DAM and Silver Beaver we carry forward non-selected nominations for 1 year.  That is - new nominations that were not selected to receive the award are automatically kept and are considered again next year.  They are only carried forward 1 year - if they are not selected the second year they are destroyed and must be re-nominated for future consideration.

When I facilitated the DAM selection, I had everyone read all of the nominations and decide on their own order/ranking.  After that I let them decide how to choose.  Since they each had the nominations in order it was usually pretty quick to narrow the choice down and "negotiate" for the final selection.  Usually there were a few that everyone agreed on and a few that everyone agreed did not make the cut.  

For Silver Beaver, the facilitator was kind of strict - we all read the nominations and gave each a score.  But it was not a ranking it was a points kind of thing.  For example, we had 9 nominations but instead of scoring them 1-9 with no duplicates, we just assigned them each 1 to 9 points (1 is the best).  At the end the facilitator collected our scores, added them up and the lowest scores win.  There are some flaws with this approach that didnt set well with me but the discussion about it was shut down so I just played the game their way.

[ParkMan]

Your silver beaver insight is intereting.

I wonder what they do for Silver Antelopes.  I've only seen one person who had received one.  But, I do imagine there are lots of nominations

[TAHAWK]

The "Antelope" is said to be awarded for extraordinary service  by persons of "exceptional character"  "within a region."   "Presented by the National Court of Honor on behalf of regions."   The last Scouter I know of as receiving it has been very active in training on the Area, Region, and National levels for decades.  It was awarded at an Area Training Conference last October.  There is an incomplete list of recipients on line.  Apparently, the reduction from twelve to four Regions  since the award was introduced was the occasion for data loss.

Edited January 27, 2020 by TAHAWK

[ParkMan]

We had a local Scouter that I was lobbying we should nominate for one.  This chap wasn't an area or region Scouter, but he'd had significant impact on Scouting over decades.  Everyone I talked with about it thought it would never get selected.  I was more optimistic.

On another tangent - I always wondered how one becomes an area/region Scouter.  The only three I know were people who were long time Council scouters who moved up.  But, I assume that not everyone waits 30 years to make that transition.  I wonder how anyone serves at that level for decades.  Guess like anything it's who you know.  Topic for another thread I suppose.

[David CO]

5 hours ago, ParkMan said:

I always wondered how one becomes an area/region Scouter. 

They donate money.  Like the awards, the prestige positions go mostly to those who have big bucks.  

[Protoclete]

19 hours ago, jjlash said:

For both DAM and Silver Beaver we carry forward non-selected nominations for 1 year.  That is - new nominations that were not selected to receive the award are automatically kept and are considered again next year.  They are only carried forward 1 year - if they are not selected the second year they are destroyed and must be re-nominated for future consideration.

This is a good practice. We implemented that this year, but with a two-year 'live' period. 

[ParkMan]

2 hours ago, David CO said:

They donate money.  Like the awards, the prestige positions go mostly to those who have big bucks.  

 I guess that makes sense - who you know and your ability to donate money to get known. 

I imagine it's also like other things- you work your way up by climbing the ladder.  Some people take 30 years to do that, others 10 - others 3.

[David CO]

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

Some people take 30 years to do that, others 10 - others 3.

Some donate 30 grand to do that... others $10, 000...others $3,000.

[ParkMan]

3 hours ago, David CO said:

Some donate 30 grand to do that... others $10, 000...others $3,000.

I will say though - as a district/council volunteer myself, I know that there are indeed plenty of well heeled volunteers - but not everyone.  

Cheers & thanks for the insight!  Much appreciated.

[jjlash]

14 hours ago, ParkMan said:

On another tangent - I always wondered how one becomes an area/region Scouter.  

Could be $$$ as @David CO says.  The ones I know were active with things and/or volunteered.  One who is active at the area level with commissioner stuff got that way by being a very active local commissioner and volunteering a lot with the neighboring commissioner college.  Through that he met the other area/region people so became "who you know".

On the other hand - there is an opening right now for C3 NYLT coordinator.  It was announced in the central region training newsletter.  I gave about 1.25 seconds thought to submitting my own name.

[fred8033]

On 1/27/2020 at 10:33 AM, Protoclete said:

did you use or discover any really effective tools for helping committee members evaluate and compare nominations? 

GOOD - Names and troop numbers were obscured to make anonymous.

GOOD - Everyone created their own rank 1 to 10 and then we compared our numbers and defended our vote.  Some people adjusted their number after.  It was fairly clean.

BAD - Many of the nominations were still easily identifiable even without names.  But anonymous did clearly help.

BAD - Nominations were strongly influenced by how much effort the person put into nominating the person.  Reference letters.  ...  

RECOMMENDATION - When a nomination is made, leave time to help improve / groom the nominations to the same level of polish, detail and references.  This would help offset where the result is significantly influenced by the effort of the nominator.  

Edited January 28, 2020 by fred8033