Our first superlative award recognizes a first-year crew member who has most demonstrated leadership, service and spirit in Venturing. Please help me congratulate this year’s recipient, Katrina Matese.
Most of our award selections this year were difficult and this was no exception. We had a large group that joined last year. And we have had some good leaders emerge from that group.
Many of our first-year members spend the year getting to know others and figure out the program.
Not Katrina, whose name I botched for the first several months, calling her Kristina. She dove right into all our activities. No matter what it was, she was there.
And she volunteered to become our Historian, managing the Facebook page and our scrapbooks, while her good friend Brooklyn jumped out of the starting blocks as vice president of program.
Six months later, Katrina swapped positions with Brooke, running and winning the office of vice president.
There are several indicators I use to gauge this award. And one of them is whether they pick up any votes for Outstanding Crew member. She picked up a lot of them.
Another is their participation. As you may already have noticed, she was very active this year, being honored for her participation in high-adventure activities and with events overall. And she has done it with an easy-going smile on her face most of the time.
We’ve had a lot of good new members this year and some have remained active throughout the year. But in the end, what stands out to me are those who step forward to become leaders. That’s a scary thing to do, especially when you are a new member of the group. Katrina stepped forward in a big way this year and I look forward to her continued leadership and service next year in the crew.
And I am proud to declare her the recipient of the 2013 Advisors’ Award.
Congratulations!