Congratulations to all SOTA participants scoring ether 1000 chaser or activator points. Your recognition is well deserved. But recently having just cracked double digits in both categories, it occurred to me we had no achievement title for such lowly milestones. Nothing official proposed here, but what would it hurt to have a fun Title associated with the little achievements.
Some individual Associations do have association specific recognition. For examples the “Mountain Lion” W3 Association Award for 100 SOTA W3 Activator Points (2 currently qualify). Or the “Red Tail Hawk” W3 Association Award for 100 SOTA W3 Chaser Points (12 currently qualify)
But I gave some thought to my own lofty 10 point accomplishments, and this is what I came up with in general to list beneath the officially recognized awards…
So I now proclaim to be a proud Shack Shrimp and Mountain Gnat striving for Squirrel and Gopher status. All congratulations humbly accepted. Thank You.
Suggest some alternate title names if mine don’t translate well internationally.
Well, I had to consult my teddy-bear on this one, and he said “To h**l with points and competition, just do what you like doing”. Now, I’ve always known him to be a wise little bear, but here he reveals himself to be truly a Zen Master.
So, it’s with as much humility as I can muster (and regular readers here will know how much that can be ;-)) , that I hereby proclaim myself to be a Shack Cookie Muncher and Mountain Daisy Picker, regardless of how many points I “earn” or are thrown at me.
Whatever floats your boat Glenn. If you keep saying it enough, others will start saying it too, and people then adopt it assuming it to be “official”. After all, that is what happened with the term “Supersloth” for 10,000 chaser points. Never official, someone just said it sometime, and it stuck.
I am dismayed though that you stopped at 10 when there is a clear opportunity to come down yet another order of magnitude. And after all, it is surely that very first point that is the most significant in every person’s activating or chasing career!
Note that we have six chasers with scores in excess of 100,000, I think of them as “Hypersloths”, will there ever be a “Megasloth”?
One more category to suggest: those abysmal operators that call over the top of ongoing contacts but never hear replies from the activator, those pests who compete with each other to be the last one to call the activator, those tuner-uppers, those funny-noise merchants, those powerful stations that decide to take over the activators frequency, all those morons are as annoying to activators as midges - and if you have encountered the rampant Scottish midge you have had a foretaste of Hell! I dub them “Mountain Midges!”
No no no. Any teacher will tell you that you don’t “reward” undesired behaviour with any type of recognition. You might think the title is an insult, but the recipient is more likely to see it as a badge of honour and be encouraged to continue in the same vein!
Hi Tom, I got more joy out of breaking 100 chaser points than I did 1000! I suspect the same with activator points, but can’t say yet as I still have a way to go on the activator points to Mountain Goat.
I’m also a big fan of the mountain explorer and hunter awards, perhaps becuase they do have lower levels to achive.
In any case, as has been said before enjoy SOTA in whichever way suits you and to all reading this a safe and happy New Year.
