The Annual General Meeting of Orienteering USA will be held on Saturday, September 7th, in conjunction with the Nationals, at Cabrillo College in Altos, California. One of the highlights of the AGM will be the naming of the recipients of the 2019 Silva National Service Award and 2019 Golden Service Awards. There are a lot of orienteers who have given a lot of themselves to advance orienteering in this country. The Golden Service Awards program is a wonderful way of honoring these people. We hope that you, and other members of your club, take part this year by submitting a nomination. Read more about each program below.
Nomination deadline for both awards is Sunday, August 18, 2019.
All award nominations should be sent to Susan DeWitt
Silva Award
Call for Nominations
Purpose:
The Silva Award is given annually to an orienteer who, along with being a member of Orienteering USA, has demonstrated outstanding service to orienteering in the United States over the past five years. The recipient need not be a terrific orienteer, and orienteering skill is not considered in determining the award winner. The essential quality of every winner has been service to promoting and sustaining orienteering, to making the sport work in this country, and in helping to build the organizations needed to make orienteering successful.
Eligibility:
Previous winners are not eligible to win again. In addition, the members of Orienteering USA’s Executive Committee are ineligible (the President, the three Vice Presidents, and the Secretary) as they will do the final voting. (Clare Durand*, Kris Beecroft, William Jameson, Alex Jospe, Pat Meehan, and Barb Bryant* are ineligible this year; *as a past Silva Award winner, Clare and Barb remain ineligible whether on or off the board).
Rules for Nominations:
Each Orienteering USA member club may make one nomination. In addition, each member of the Orienteering USA Board of Directors may also submit a nomination. Individual members may not submit nominations, but are encouraged to work with their club to submit a nomination. Any orienteer can prepare a nomination, but the actual submission must come from an Orienteering USA club or member of Orienteering USA’s Board of Directors.
How to Nominate:
There is no required format you should follow when making a nomination. However, should you choose to submit a nomination, please be as comprehensive as possible, as to what your nominee has done during the past five years, and why you feel these accomplishments are important and make the nominee worthy for the Silva Award. The information you provide is the information that will be presented to the OUSA Executive Committee, who will conduct a vote amongst its members to determine this year’s winner.
Nominations made in previous years are not automatically carried over, although clubs and Orienteering USA Board members are certainly free to nominate the same OUSA member that they did last year. (Updating a previously submitted nomination is fine; rewriting it from scratch is not necessary). Clubs are not restricted to nominating only their own members but are free to nominate any Orienteering USA member belonging to any club.
A club submits a nomination by having one of its officers or directors send it, by e-mail, to skdewitt {at} snet {dot} net, indicating that they are a club official and the nomination being submitted is that of the club. Something along the lines of, “As Secretary of XYZ Orienteering Club, I’d like to submit our club’s Silva Award nomination” is fine.
Please submit nominations or questions via email to Susan DeWitt
Nomination Deadline:
The deadline for submitting nominations is Sunday, August 18th. However, it is always appreciated if a club, or Orienteering USA Board member, submitting a nomination does so in advance of that deadline.
Those of you recognizing some or all of the winner’s names no doubt see that the contributions they have made have covered a wide spectrum. Some winners are associated more with club and regional activities. Others are more linked with national and international ones. Some were recognized for their contributions to an event, while others were chosen for their work with a project, program or the OUSA itself. Any and all contributions to American orienteering may be considered.
Orienteering USA Golden Service Award
Call for Nominations
Purpose:
The purpose of the Orienteering USA Golden Service Award is to recognize those individuals who have provided exceptional service to the sport of orienteering that extends beyond the local club level.
Rules for Nominations:
Clubs or individuals may make nominations for the Golden Service Award. One awardee will be selected from among the nominations received from each club. The nominee does not need to be a member of your club; they may be from another club. Nominations from individuals are deemed to come from the primary club of the person making the nomination. In the event that more than one nomination is received from members of the same club, the volunteer recognitions committee will determine which single nomination from that club is the most deserving for that year. There is no limit to the number of clubs that may have an awardee each year. Awards will be presented to one nominee per club provided they meet the award criteria.
Any individual may only receive the Golden Service Award once.
Golden Service Award Criteria:
Please be sure that the description of service for the nominee clearly meets the two following criteria:
1) Service is as a volunteer (no profit was made in performing the service)
2) Service extends beyond the club level
Examples include serving on national board or committees, holding key positions at A-meets, putting on training camps or events that serve a regional or national base, etc.
How to Nominate:
Please submit nominations via email to Susan DeWitt
Nominations must be received by August 18th to be eligible for a 2019 Golden Service Award.
Include the following information:
Nominee’s name and Club
Name and Club of person submitting the nomination
Description of the nominee’s volunteer service to orienteering. Please be sure to address both required criteria.
Previous Golden Service/Golden Troll Awardees:
This list shows that some clubs have made good use of the Golden Service program to recognize their members, but many worthy volunteers are still not on this list. Every club is encouraged to make nominations showing their appreciation for key national level volunteers.