Woody Flower's Award 2012

[om23]

I was wondering if teams chose a new mentor every year for Woody Flowers?
Or do you continue to submit the same mentor (team leader) every year?
Which has seem more success?
We have great mentors and would having a position such as senior mentor affect the judges decision?
Thanks!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Om,
The Woodie Flowers Award is one of the best ways to recognize one of your mentors. However, too few teams make the attempt. The intended recipient should be chosen by the students who know mentors. While some teams nominate the same mentor, we have no hard and fast rule. The students decide. At our final meeting of the year in May, the nominee is recognized and given a framed copy of the award submission. The choice for Champs is again made by the students from those mentors who have already been awarded the WFFA at our regional. I believe that should one mentor from our team receive the award this season, he/she will be the Champs nominee by default. Again there is no hard and fast rule on this either.

I would be remiss if I didn't remind everyone that all teams need to try and recognize one of their mentors, teachers or team adults that meet the criteria. There is no excuse for missing this opportunity to recognize someone who has made a difference in your life or those of past team members. When I was so honored, I was filled with emotion knowing that the students on my team felt I deserved such a high honor. Receiving that recognition was more important than almost anything in my life because of the students from which it came. Take the time to choose a mentor, write the essay and send it out. It is a small sacrifice on your part that brings about a significant event in the life of your mentor.

[KelliV]

The way WildStang chose their mentor when I was on the team was by ballot. We had a piece of paper with every mentor (and trust me there were a lot) on it and had the mentors come in and introduce themselves. The students then chose their mentor anonymously and wrote a small sentence as to why they chose them.

When I was on the team we would tally the nominees and then use the comments as a base for the essay itself. I've used this format in other organizations and it has worked really well.

The coolest thing that we did was keep who we nominated a secret so the nominee would not know they were chosen until, as Al stated, they were either announced as WFFA winners or at our ceremony in May.

If you need help or ideas please PM me and I would be more than happy to help you guys out!

-Kelli

[Peter Matteson]

I'm with Al on this one. It should be a choice by the students. This is an award that regognizes who inspires them. Not which mentor the mentors think should win.

That said on my team for the last few years all mentors told the students we did not want to be nominated until our lead mentor, only one who has been with the team since our first season in 1995, had been recognized. Now that he has won I can happily say I have no idea who was nominated this year.

[Nikki Haux]

I agree with Al, the students need to decide. If the mentors choose, it isn't as authentic as it would be coming from the students. We have a system of advisors (long-term, more experience professionals) and mentors (alum, college students, parents), and we limit our submission to advisors. We send all of the adults out of the room, aside from one business mentor. They are the only adult to know who is chosen until it is announced. We simply have a nomination and voting process to decide; we group up and write a bullet list of reason why we want a specific advisors. Then we do a presentation to all of the students; the we vote. It's meant to be the advisor who inspires the students, and this is a way to ensure it.

PM me if you have any questions; I'd be happy to help.

[treffk]

We have always chose a different mentor every year. To be honest I'm not sure we have nominated someone every year. In years past we have done the teacher who started our team(after she retired of course) and my mother because she works full time and had 2 FLL teams. I can't remember anyone else we've nominated.

We have always let the students choose. We tell them that it needs to be done and to do it because it is all their choice.

[A-marie]

While there is no rule as to how many times one can be nominated, whether or not to implement a limit should be discussed by the team as a whole, in order to keep favoritism from occuring in the future. I write the essays for Dean's List and Woody Flower's nominees from FIRST Team Fusion 364 and we have agreed to set no limit, because the essay must reflect a mentor's impact on the team, and if the team consistently believes a mentor is deserving, it shows in the essay. To nominate someone less deserving, because of a limit, would gain much less enthusiasm from the team. Each year, the Team Fusion nominations are based on team opinions which are collected through random mentor interviews and student interviews for each award respectively. For the last three years, the same mentor has received the nomination for Woody Flower's (although each year, it remains confidential) due to his unique interactions with the students, and we honor their opinions by nominating him each year, regardless of past nominations. Titles like Senior Mentor generally don't affect the decision, because it is only a title, and the board will expect you to prove his worth with details. This year, our nominee won, so the 2013 nomination will go to the next most deserving mentor regardless of title, or, if one is lacking, the team may not submit a nomination.

[om23]

Thanks for the advise! We try to pick out a mentor who has done the most to help our team in sense of growth, gives the team a personality, and has done an unthinkable amount of work with the team and FIRST.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by om23

Thanks for the advise! We try to pick out a mentor who has done the most to help our team in sense of growth, gives the team a personality, and has done an unthinkable amount of work with the team and FIRST.

...and some times you have nominated that mentor before, and they keep doing more.



One really great way to make sure the right people win this award is to have some teams nominate other team's mentors (talk about coopertition)! There are people who go way out of their way to help others on various teams and they are worthy of being noticed. When several teams coordinate their nomination for a single mentor (at a single competition), the WFA committee takes serious notice.