South Mountain District Dinner - Awards

The South Mountain District's Annual Volunteer Appreciation and Recognition Dinner is held to celebrate all adult volunteers in the South Mountain District for the fantastic work you do. In addition, it is the time we recognize those who went above and beyond in 2018 with special awards. The SMD asks your help. Please review the awards below, and complete the nomination forms below.

• District Award of Merit – This is the highest award that a District may present to a volunteer. It is for noteworthy and exceptional service to Scouting and the community.
  
  This award can only be presented once for any individual, so please check the list of previous District Award of Merit recipients.

• South Mountain District Fellowship Award – The nominee must be a registered Scouter, and must have demonstrated strong and effective leadership or outstanding service in Scouting in a Unit, plus the District or the Council, OR long term dedication and service of an outstanding nature for a Unit (NOTE UPDATED CRITERIA).
  
  This award can only be presented once for any individual, so please check the list of previous District Fellowship Award recipients.

• Star Award – This is the "Scouter of the Year" from each Unit. Each Pack, Troop and Crew will be able to say thank you to someone special for outstanding service in their Unit.

• Training Award – This is to recognize Scouters for tenure, training and performance in their leadership roles. These include:
  
  Den Leader Training Award
  Scouter's Training Award for Cub Scouting
  Scouter's Training Award for Boy Scouting
  

• Unit Leader Award of Merit – This is to recognize Cubmasters, Scoutmasters and Advisors if they meet certain benchmark characteristics of strong units.
  
  
  All available training award forms can be found at http://www.scouting.org/Training/adult.aspx and scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Silver Beaver Award is the highest council-presented award available for Scouting volunteers and is presented at the Council Volunteer REcognition Dinner in January. A partial list of South Mountain District (and its predecessor, the Bethlehem Area Council) recipients shows how active our district volunteers are.

The Award of Merit and the Fellowship Award nomination forms are due on January 31, 2020. Also, with the exception of the Star Award, each of these awards can only be bestowed once for any individual, so the lists of previous recipients are listed above. The Star Award nominations are due at Recharter on January 4, 2020. The Training Awards can be submitted at any time. Nomination forms can either be brought to Recharter or you can email or mail to Arby Beisel at Russell.Beisel@scouting.org or P.O. Box 20624, Lehigh Valley PA 18002-0624.