Walter: [00:00:00] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and shared network produced by off the Walter media productions.
[00:00:14] Sheryl: [00:00:14] Welcome to hearts of gold. Today. I’m going to do a special episode this past week. I was very honored to receive the thanks badge to, for my council, which is a Jewish USA. However I realized during the process, but not many people understand the girl scout, Delt, recognitions that are available or how to nominate people as a member of my councils adult recognition committee.
[00:00:41] The biggest effort we make is educating people about the awards and encouraging them to nominate volunteers. Our council has worked to make the nomination process as simple as possible. And we’re able to grow the number of applications we received, but I know other councils receive so many nominees.
[00:01:01] That the bulk of the work is reviewing the nominations to select those, to recognize each year the GS USA awards include the volunteer of excellence pin. This pin is available for any volunteer, working with girls. This is your troop leader, your cookie person, a mom or dad that volunteer with the girls to help out at meetings.
[00:01:24] Anybody who’s working with girls can earn this volunteer of excellence pin. Then there’s the appreciation pin. The appreciation pin identifies a volunteer that’s contributing to a geographic area. This may mean a community or a service unit. It’s more than a single troop. So. It will be a community cause there might be five or six different troops or more in that specific community, but sometimes it’s that bigger regional council defined service unit area, whatever it is, you’re contributing to an area rather than an individual troop.
[00:01:57] The honor pin is very similar to the appreciation pin. However, this broadens the area that is being served even further because this is for a volunteer that’s contributing to at least two or more geographic area. It can be similar things. A lot of times when you are recognizing someone who works with day camps or summer camps or things like that, the honor pin is more appropriate than the appreciation pin because of the number of girls that are served by whatever the activity is that that person who you’re nominating for honor pin.
[00:02:28] Maybe I involved in the highest award that a girl scout volunteer can earn is the thanks badge. And the thanks badge is intended for a volunteer that’s contributing to the entire council or the movement. So even outside of your council, and they’re trying to do some national work or things like that, they’re really working on.
[00:02:46] Either a specific area or doing something that really elevates the recognition of your council amongst the nation. And then there’s the thanks badge too, which recognizes somebody who has already been awarded the thanks badge and it has continued. To support the work and continue to grow and grow themselves and their counsel and even GS USA as a whole, in the show notes, I’ve put a link to more specific descriptions and the criteria that are expected from one of the councils that I’ve found and know that councils often have special recognitions within the council.
[00:03:23] Probably more awards within your council and you need to check your counsel’s website to find out what their process is and what other recognitions they may have. For example, in my council, which is girl Scouts of Wisconsin Badger land council, we have implemented a G I R L awards. So we have an adult that receives the go-getter.
[00:03:44] The innovator, the risk taker and the leader award each year, because of a specific activity that they did, which really reflects that G I R L award. I encourage everyone to consider nominating someone that’s done something that’s caught your eye. When nominating my strongest suggestion is to make sure to share a personal story and share how actions are above and beyond help the reviewers get to know the nominees personality and the special work they do, which deserves the recognition.
[00:04:18] All volunteers are important and likely deserve recognition, encourage others, especially the girls to nominate those. You identify. Multiple stories helps strengthen the nomination and help your volunteer rise to the top of the process. The nomination process for the girls could be wrapped in a badge work or journey related to storytelling or writing for my nomination for the thanks badge to this year, this show along with some of the speaking engagements I’ve been doing to promote the gold award where some of the basis for my nomination.
[00:04:56] Feedback from the girls on the impact the show has had on them, supported the nomination in the show notes. I’ve also included a link to document how to write a strong nomination to help you generate some more ideas. But here are some ideas, instead of she’s a great cookie coordinator, share a story of how her cookie organizational skills helped girls step beyond their goals, or put a unique spin on how the girls sold.
[00:05:26] For example, for their cookie booth, the girls created recipe cards that they handed the shoppers as they entered the groceries. Sales at that cookie booth doubled from the year before, instead of they put on a great day camp, have the girls show how the day camp theme impacted them to achieve something else on a related topic or how they got six businesses in town to participate in the day camp or how they expanded the day camp from a community event to a regional event.
[00:06:00] For example, Last year, this day camp had 30 girls. By meeting with six local businesses to gain additional support and getting the day camp flyers out two months earlier than normal and including all the schools in the county, this year’s day camp served 120 girls. Great example of a way to use numbers in your story too.
[00:06:24] Don’t forget the behind the scenes, volunteers, those that support your troop, your service unit, or your take action project. Hey, gold or girls. This is where you can recognize some of your team members. For example, XYZ farm assisted with connecting us to different women in the farming industry to create an event where eight different careers were represented and the girls had the opportunity to tour the working farm.
[00:06:52] We were able to open the event up to the entire county and had 50 girls. Plans are already underway to expand next year and offer the event council wide. Who can you nominate as a great girl scout volunteer. Think about it throughout the year because nominations generally come around once a year and it’s really hard to remember all the different things that have happened throughout the year when something great happens, make a note.
[00:07:21] And then when nominations come back, You’ll have a checklist and be able to nominate a slew of people and get some recognition for your community at your council level. Good luck with your nominations. Make sure to click subscribe. So you always know when new episodes are released. And don’t forget to power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:07:47] Walter: [00:07:47] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and share network produced by off the Walter media productions. Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what. If you want to share your story of how you earned your goal award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com.
[00:08:05] Be sure to listen to the newest episodes on your favorite podcast app, as well as view the full video episodes on youtube.com/SherylMRobinson. That’s youtube.com/Sheryl, the letter M, Robinson. Take care and we’ll see you next time.
