Recognizing Excellence

For the first-time ever, a staff award program has been created, Recognizing Excellence. Just as GSSWT recognizes its valuable volunteers, there are awesome staff members much deserving of recognition as well.

The recognition program and incentives are based on the results of the online survey conducted by the Staff Recognition Task Group. The Recognizing Excellence staff awards will accept nominations from staff and volunteers beginning December 2009. A group of board members, led by Anna Maria Chávez, CEO, will award up to six staff members each quarter in one of the following categories: customer service, commitment, flexibility, teamwork, leadership, and creativity and innovation. Each award recipient will receive a personalized award suitable for display, lunch with the CEO, one paid day off, a designated parking space, and recognition at the Adult Volunteer Recognition event, held each year in May. At the end of each year, one staff member will be selected as GSSWT's Best of the Best and will receive an all-expense paid trip to the training/conference of their choice.

Be sure to keep an eye out for staff doing something right! Get the Recognizing Excellence nomination form here.

April 2010 Awardees

Congratulations to the following staff who received the Recognizing Excellence awards for the second quarter of the year:

Crystal Haskins, Excellence of Customer Service Award
“I have known Crystal since she came to work for GSSWT. In that time, she has been helpful beyond all expectations but mostly she has gone above and beyond at her job, and anything else that was dropped on her desk. I know that she has spent many nights working late to meet impossible deadlines. An ordinary person would have quit! But Crystal is an extraordinary person of character and commitment…She has worked diligently to make it possible for us to give girls the very best experiences and for us to have the very best experiences at the Council Offices…She never grumps, is always smiling and happy and acts like there is nothing she would rather do than solve the problem I am having right now regardless of how many problems are sitting on her desk…I really feel Crystal should be recognized for all she does.” 

Cathy Noll, Excellence of Team Work Award
“Cathy Noll is such a pleasure to work with. She is always willing to give a helping hand. She makes an effort to attend all the events that she possibly can. Cathy is always willing to lend an ear and be a friend to all.” “As a new Girl Scout leader, Cathy has been a fountain of information. She has answered every question, provides me with any form needed and she encourages me when I didn’t think I could do it. She is very open to ideas. Cathy has a great sense of humor and makes the meetings fun.” “I am an orientation presenter and secretary. Whatever I need, I call Cathy and she informs me with all the correct information. I would like to thank her very much.” “Since Cathy has become our MDE (Membership Development Executive), our service unit, our leaders and volunteers have become more involved. Cathy has enabled us to take more training classes to better our leadership skills and get our girls motivated. Our girls are benefitting more through the lessons, journeys and other activities we hold and attend…It has been such a pleasure working with Cathy and I am looking forward to working with her in the future.” “I am a new troop leader and Cathy has been such a great leader to me. She has helped in the past several months with every question I had and have. She is patient and very knowledgeable. She has provided me with excellent information and resources. She always returns my calls or replies to my emails in a timely manner. Thank you very much Cathy!”

Lucy McArthur, Excellence in Commitment Award
“Lucy is continuously seeking new ways to outreach and support girls. She never hesitates to help and encourage. She is always the first one to remind us that “it’s for the girls”. Lucy’s passion and commitment to serving and outreaching to girls is an encouraging example. Lucy is always available to help and support in any area when needed and she is committed to unifying all council areas. Her hard work and creative ways of outreaching has highly impacted not only the girls’ lives in community housing but also her leaders whom she builds up and encourages to lead. Lastly, Lucy approaches her job with optimism, encouragement and integrity; making her an excellent example to the girls.”

Sherry Cook, Excellence in Leadership Award
“Sherry Cook demonstrates her leadership through her role as Change Champion for the MVP (Membership Volunteer Program) Staff restructure group. She has consistently led the group by facilitating discussion to provoke respectful opinion-sharing, thoughtful dialogue and keeping us on task…Sherry has also demonstrated great leadership, flexibility, and teamwork through her involvement with the Young Women’s Leadership Academy over the past two school years. Sherry has led the charge to engage girls of YWLA in Girl Scouts during the school day while constantly thinking of new ways to involve them with council-sponsored activities as well.  In any situation, crisis or otherwise, Sherry remains calm and collected, a virtue we all strive to know.”

January 2010 Awardees

Congratulations to the following staff who received the inaugural Recognizing Excellence awards:

Gina Thompson, Excellence of Creativity and Innovation
Nominated by Stephanie Finleon
Gina was the first and most productive employee to fully embrace staff use of technology. She was first to encourage the use of the portal for the membership department in order to share and store the information necessary to support the recruitment function. Gina was instrumental as the chair of the SWTE (Staff Working Together Effectively) committee. The SWTE committee led the charge for use of the portal by all departments. Though many people have been involved with brainstorming, creating, and using the portal--the vision was always Gina’s, and as the one constant, was able to bring people together to 1) share her vision, 2) use other’s talents and ideas to create new tools, and 3) made it useful and a tool used by all staff.

Diane Sifuentes, Excellence of Customer Service
Nominated by Jerry Langdon
Diane has always been professional and friendly when dealing with staff at camp. She handles changes with grace and flexibility. Other people strive to emulate her qualities: friendliness, caring for others, and maintaining a positive attitude. Comments from other staff and volunteers always describe Diane as warm, always smiling, and friendly. To sum it up: “She Is Great!”

Becky Jennings, Excellence of Flexibility
Nominated by Bill Schneider
When you talk about flexibility, Becky automatically comes to mind. Dedicating over 40 weekends a year to programs, Becky is constantly on the go! Always driving between the leadership center, Camp Mira Sol, Camp La Jita, and all places in-between, she will do whatever it takes to make sure the programs have what they need to be successful. When met with roadblocks to success, Becky's first concern is for the girls and always asks "what do we need to do to make this program happen?" She will check her resources, consult with volunteers to arrive at great solutions.

 Janice Jentsch, Excellence of Teamwork
Nominated by Caroline Broderick
"Quite simply, Janice is the best MDE I have ever worked with, and they have all been great. Teamwork is obviously a vital part of a successful service unit and Janice encourages this at every opportunity. I always come away from cluster meetings with new ideas and thoughts and a very much renewed sense of spirit ... She has created a strong team and support network beyond the individual service unit -- not something I had experienced before. She approaches everything she does with such a positive attitude that problems disappear ... It is difficult to be more specific about why Janice should be honored because so much of her excellence in teamwork is because of her character: her honesty and integrity, her deep well of creativity and innovation, her drive, her sense of fun, but also her sense of duty towards our girls and a deep appreciation of our volunteers. Janice is a joy to work with."