Talk:Silver Fish Award

A fact from Silver Fish Award appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 September 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Silver Fish, the highest award in the Girl Guides and scouting movement, can be traced back to November 1909?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/September.

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Awarding Body?

Does anyone know who is the current awarding body for the Silver Fish? This information needs to be added to the article. Kingbird 14:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is Girlguiding UK.

An award that is given rarely, the Silver Fish recognises recipients for outstanding service to Girlguiding UK, in more than one capacity, and for their contribution to world Guiding.[1]

--Erp 22:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Erp. I'll alter the article to reflect this. Kingbird 14:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further looking indicates it might be a top award given by other National associations. Silver Fish for Australia, Silver Elephant for India. See for instance http://www.guidessa.org.au/history/1981-1990.htm

Recommended that Southern Cross Award be the highest Australian award, replacing the Silver Fish

So we might be mixing up national awards--Erp 02:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just about hit the limit as to what I know about the Silver Fish. I could be mistaken in what I have written so far in the article. There are some big gaps. If you have a better understanding, then please change the article. Kingbird 15:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recipients of the Silver Fish

This is an interesting article, but I find it quite distracting (and redundant) to have each name of the recipients referenced. I would remove the tags from the names, and instead put the sources in the reference section.--Bookandcoffee 19:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for making a suggestion for improvement. I'm afraid I personally disagree that the footnotes on the list of recipients should be removed and the references only given at the end of the article. Many of the people on the list are not famous, even within the Guiding and Scouting movements, despite their work, and finding information about them is difficult.

In a similar vein, I do think that it is unfortunate that there are three consecutive sentences with footnotes in the "History" section. I think those footnotes need to be there at the moment as they provide sources for potentially conflicting information. They don't improve the readability of the article though. I hope that when the article is expanded in the future, these footnotes will either be rendered superfluous or become more widely spaced in the text. Kingbird 17:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recommendations from the peerreviewer script

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

Consider adding more links to the article; per WP:MOS-L and WP:BTW, create links to relevant articles.
Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading ==Magellan's journey==, use ==Journey==.
This article is a bit too short, and therefore may not be as comprehensive as WP:WIAFA critera 2(b) is looking for. Please see if anything can be expanded upon.
Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a. ^[1]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a weak B-class. To keep this rating, please act on suggestions--the PR script and a 'development of the award'. Rlevse 10:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to headings made as recommended by peerreviewer script. Kingbird 15:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ See footnote

Nesta Ashworth aka Nesta Maude

Did she get the silver fish twice? Once under the original system according to one source and again in 1920 according to another? --Erp 19:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may be on to something! Although it sounds weird at first, there isn't actually any reason why this shouldn't be the case. I've re-checked both sources. I see no reason to doubt their accuracy. They are clearly referring to the same woman. So why not? Kingbird 15:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a picture of her at http://www.1st-crowborough-beavers-cubs-scouts.org.uk/i.asp?page=NestaMaude in the, I suspect, Guide uniform of the time. --Erp 21:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Silver Fish or Top WAGGGS award

I think I've encountered a bit of a problem with this article. Namely that the Silver Fish is not the top award and does not have a single awarding body. WAGGGS World Board has its own award called, very unimaginatively, the WAGGGS' Medal. It can be at either bronze or silver medal

The WAGGGS' Medal is given to express gratitude to selected leaders, members and non-members who have distinguished themselves in their unstinting service to Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting at both national and
world levels.
Criteria: The Medal is given to individuals for outstanding service to the Movement. It is awarded when the service is of such an exceptional nature that there is no other appropriate manner with which to honour the recipient. It can also be awarded to a man or woman outside the Movement who has given outstanding service to, and for the benefit of, WAGGGS. The silver medal is the highest accolade. The medal may be worn at any time.[2]

The Silver Fish seems to be the top national award for many Guiding associations, most notably the UK (and/or the Commonwealth) and predates the formation of WAGGGS so for a while was the top award. Even after WAGGGS was formed I don't know when it started issuing its own award (the earliest recipient that I can find is 1999). It is possible that the Silver Fish as an adult award was under the direct control of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell until quite late in the latter's life. In addition not all Guiding associations use the Silver Fish (India uses the Silver Elephant [note that India is both a WOSM and WAGGGS member] and Australia seems to have switched to the Southern Cross or possibly the Silver Kangaroo and I'm not sure what the GSUSA uses).

I think this means we need to rearrange this article but I'm not sure how. Some ideas

retain this article for the top awards national and international. Have the history of the Silver Fish, include a list of the top awards and some key recipients within each association by country (I will note in at least one case a person has received top awards from two different countries). Have a section on the WAGGGS' medal and a list of known recipients of it.
similar except the WAGGGS' Medal is discussed in the World Board article (the World Board being responsible for giving it).

In either case the article may have to be retitled. Choices include

Top National Girl Guide and Girl Scouts Adult awards
Silver Fish and other top national Girl Guide and Girl Scouts Adult awards

Other thoughts? More research is definitely needed.--Erp 23:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that each award should have its own article (with the article called by the award's name). These can be united by a "List of…" page or a category. I've found a couple of sentences about the Silver Fish in the USA, so I've added this to the article. Kingbird 16:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

chart

The list should be charted out like this, it would look crisper and easier to read:

award number	year awarded	name	office	representing
1	1935	Lord Baden-Powell	Chief Scout of the World	Chief Scout of the World
113	1976	Kenneth H. Stevens	Chief Executive Commissioner, United Kingdom	United Kingdom

Who are?

Two of the Silver Fish recipients, Lady Cochrane and Lady Davies, have no info to distinguish which Lady Cochrane or Lady Davies. I think the latter is Lady Davies wife of David Davies, 1st Baron Davies and the donor of Broneirion which is used by Girlguiding Cymru, but, we need a source. I not sure which Lady Cochrane is the first. --Erp (talk) 04:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[copyedit-1] See footnote

[1]

Bronze Wolf Award Silver World Award	for distinguished service to Scouting	Worldwide
Silver Fish Award	for distinguished service to Guiding	at the national level	in the United Kingdom
Silver Wolf Award	for distinguished service to Scouting	at the national level	in the United Kingdom
Silver Buffalo Award	for distinguished service to Scouting	at the national level	in the United States
Silver Antelope Award		at the regional level
Silver Beaver Award		at the council level