Awards

When I was young, my parents were in Jaycees & Jaycettes - the Junior Chamber of Commerce. This was the 1970's when it was acceptable to have 2 different organizations - 1 for men & 1 for women. I was in the Jaycees in the mid-1990's before I was married - all 1 organization, not gender separate. I can remember when dad was Chapter President him making plaques to give away as awards. I also remember the plaques he received hanging on his office walls. Awards are very important to volunteer organizations.

In September, our Chapter gave out its FY 2007 awards. We normally do this in June, but since we hosted the National Convention in June, we didn't have a monthly meetings.

I'm not sure how other Chapters do this, but Baltimore history tells me that the President sets the awards. We give out Letters of Appreciation to organizations that donated things to us or hosted our events. We give out Certificates of Appreciation to all members who went over just being a member - either being an officer, director or committee chair or helping out with any of our activities.

The President then sets up what I call the "Special Awards." Click on "Handbook" at www.csibaltimore.org to read more about our awards. Anyway, this is how I did awards this year.

There are a few folks who are good friends of mine in this organization. Many of them have been close advisors to me throughout this past year. One of them, not so much. She's been a friend, but not a confidant or advisor. She did not get an award. She did, however, have too much to drink & say something to me about it later. Clearly, it was the booze talking, but that didn't make me any less uneasy.

My wife proceeded to brow-beat me by saying from an outsiders perspective, it appears that all of my friends recieved awards except this one lady. I told my wife it may appear that way, but that's incorrect.

So, what is the line between friendship & hardwork & dedication to the cause? Should one be rewarded & the other not? I think I'm right, but I'm not sure others do.

Incidentally, this lady called me the next day & apologized, sort of, in a voicemail. She said she was wondering what happened to the Certificate of Appreciation that she earned. She was out of the room when I announced that the certificates were on a sideboard & could be picked up. Her's was still in the stack, so I have to believe her.