Button graphics for Personal Recognition Buttons teams will get in their registration packages at FLR. Team members can recognize others by presenting them a button. Recipients will be listed on the FLR website after the regional.
Finger Lakes Regional Attending Teams:
Obviously, FIRST is all about recognition and inspiration. This
absolutely holds true for the FIRST Finger Lakes Regional event.
To further encourage each of us to create the world we would
love to live in, we introduce the FINGER LAKES REGIONAL
“PERSONAL RECOGNITION” BUTTON. This button will not be
distributed freely, but must be EARNED by an individual.
The way it works…
Each team participating in the Finger Lakes Regional (40
teams) will receive a packet containing 5 (five) “PERSONAL
RECOGNITION” buttons and a Personal Recognition Data Form
for each button. Each team should plan to award a button to
an individual at the event who should be recognized for
outstanding behavior in any of the following areas:
- Gracious Professionalism
- Helpfulness
- Spirit / Enthusiasm
- Xtreme Safety
- Bringing people together
Individuals could be members of another team, FIRST staff,
venue staff, the concierge at your hotel, or the driver of your
bus. Assessing individuals to recognize is going to be somewhat
subjective. However, the overriding factors are actions
“Deserving Special Recognition.”
Not only will recognized individuals receive a limited edition button,
but the team awarding the button should also record the name,
team number or other affiliation, and reason for the recognition
on a Personal Recognition Data Form at the time of the award.
Each button you present should have an accompanying form.
The forms should be turned in at the Pit Administration Table by
noon on Saturday. Please complete this short form! Information
about recognized individuals from all forms returned will be posted
on the Finger Lakes Regional Official Web-site shortly after the
competition.
So put your Gracious Professional game-face on and do what you
always do at FIRST competitions, create an environment we all
wish we lived in everyday and please take the time to recognize
someone who deserves a Finger Lakes Regional “Personal
Recognition” Button!
Go Rochester Teams!
Finger Lakes Regional Planning Committee
Personal Recognition Buttons brought to you by MOE 365
TEAM NUMBER (this is the team giving the award) _______________________________
(1) Write name of recipient and check box that indicates reason for recognition
(2) Write a brief description explaining more specifics about the reason for recognition.
Great idea MOE!
is there a site listing all of them again this year?
Not yet, but soon.
A very cool idea, and was a great way for people to hear the stories that make up the basis of gracious professionalism. Given there is only 1 GP award, given to an entire team, most of these stories which are fundamental to the working of FIRST will go unrecognized.
The FLRPC/MOE should forward this to the planning committees for other regionals, it doesn’t take much time for a team member to write up and it certainly means a lot to the person it was awarded to 
–Eric
Eric,
You hit the nail on the head with your explanation. MOE has been putting together PRA buttons for the last 3-4 years, after we recognized that beyond the Organizational Awards, and the Team Sponsored Awards, there was a gap in recognition for those folks who do so much to help make a FIRST event such a success. Yet, there were very few personal awards given (Volunteer of the Year and Woodie Flowers). PRA is one attempt to fill that gap. [Miss Daisy, Team 341, also has taken on this task with their personal recognition efforts at the Championship.]
Initially, we only had our own team members award them, but quickly realized that other teams should be included in recognizing deserving folks. We would love to see other teams pick up the idea and run with it at other Regional Events.
Bill’s right. The whole idea was a pilot with FIRST’s blessing a few years ago. The concept is fairly simple and allows any group willing to make some buttons, collect responses, and post them, the ability to get this rolling at their regional.
We have not had the time to contact other Regional Planning Committees apart from FLR and Philly (our home regional).
Are there individuals/groups out there to take up the challenge to spread this across more regional events, to hopefully have this process play out at every FIRST regional?
Here’s what needs to be done…
(1) contact a representative of the regional planning committee for the regional you are attending
(2) provide them the link to this thread on Chief Delphi and ask if the committee would be willing to do this
(3) come up with a button design representing the regional (this is the fun and creative part). We have done a shot of the city the regional is in, but I suppose it could be any visual associated with the regional. The button design had the following info on it…
= Regional Name
= Year
= “Personal Recognition Award”
(4) find someone with a button maker who could make 5 buttons per team attending the regional and get them made up
(5) make “goodie bags” of the buttons themselves, directions, and recognition forms
(6) get these bags to the regional planning team representative with enough time for them to stuff the registration envelopes of each team
(7) see if the regional planning team rep would also send out an e-mail to the attending teams so they know what to expect
(8) post the info on Chief Delphi so team members know what to expect
(9) get a shoebox or other similarly-sized container to collect the recognition forms and place it in the Pit Admin area with a sign indicating that it is a Personal Recognition Button form collection box.
(10) have Pit Admin announce this a few times a day, to remind teams to participate
(11) collect the forms at the end of the regional and have them posted on the official regional website or one of the attending team’s websites.
(12) enjoy seeing all the Gracious Professionalism that goes on at a typical FIRST regional!
If you have any questions about this process, let me know.
I have to say I really like seeing these given out. We filled out two recommendation sheets, but we later gave the rest to our bus driver and 3 of our mentors.