Mission Ball Scoring Rules 

Main Rules And Examples

1.     To be counted, points must be written down (preferably on the Scoring Sheet) with a brief notation of what they were for.  However, if you are working on ridding yourself of a bad habit that you don’t want people to know about, or if it involves a personal situation, just note it as “personal action” and include the day and time. 

Examples: “filing–3 pts.” “$25 donation for a soup kitchen–25 pts.” “personal action, Monday evening–4 pts.”

2.     Normally, for actions you receive one point per ten minutes of effort and two points for ten minutes of an action that’s a stretch from what you’ve done previously.  (For other ways to earn points, see rules 3, 4, 5, 9, 12 and 13.)

Example:  You normally put off filing papers and end up with a pile that things get lost in.  One point for each ten minutes of filing.

Example: You usually exercise once a week for 30 minutes.  You decide to exercise three times a week for 30 minutes.  If you do, you get 3 points for the first 30 minutes (since it wasn’t a stretch) and 12 points for the 60 additional minutes   (2 x 6 points).

3.     You get one point per dollar donated to charity if it's a stretch beyond what you normally give.

Example:  You normally give $25 a year to soup kitchen XYZ that feeds the homeless.  Because of Mission Ball, you give $35.  Award yourself 10 donation points.

Example: You encourage someone to give $15 to a certain charity. They never give to that charity, nor are they a Mission Ball player.  Give yourself 15 points. 

Example: You sell seedling trees door to door and donate the money to promote literacy.  This is a stretch for you.  In four hours you sell $100 worth, but the trees cost you $20.  Give yourself 80 donation points for your net donation, plus 48 points (4 hours x 6 x 2 points for stretching) “Protecting The World” points for the four hours of effort to promote the planting of trees.

4.     You receive points for recruiting new players into the game: 21 points for each full week of play (or 3 points per day.)  You continue receiving these points for the season.  For recruiting a former player (someone who has played at least one full week and then been inactive at least a week) you receive 7 points per full week of play (or one point per day).

5.     You receive balance points for balancing your actions in each of the four main categories, 2 balance points for every 5 points in the lowest of the four main categories of action.

Example:  At the end of a week, you have earned 17 points in Happiness & Fulfillment, 14 points Getting Better, 23 points in Helping Others, and 13 points in Protecting The World.   Since Protecting The World had the lowest number of points, award 2 points for the first five out of the 12, two points for the second five, and none for the two left over.  You earn a total of 4 balance points for the week.

6.     There can be no retroactive point-giving.  These are points for actions that have already been done or have been already started.

Example: I fill out my scoring sheet for the week and realize that I made a stretch in being extra nice to my little brother.  However, the stretch isn't worth points because before I began it, I didn't think to myself, “I'm going to do this stretch for the Mission Ball game.”

7.     Actions must be practical and appropriate to count for points.  They must be done with the intention to use or be completed.

Example:  You stand up in your class of 20 people and say only, “I’d like to invite you all to play Mission Ball.”  - Is this worth an incredible 60 (20x3) points?!  Sorry, no points.  Invitations must be personal, appropriate, individualized and with sufficient explanation.

Example: You spend five hours making home safety kits, by purchasing the supplies, sorting them into bags, and writing up a neat little instructions on your home computer, but you don’t get around to selling any of them.  No points. 

8.    Always be conservative in awarding points.

Example:  You had a conversation in which you were doing active listening.  You think that you probably rephrased the core message for them six times, but you’re only sure of four. – Give yourself 4 points.  

Example:  You really hate to file, because you hate to make up new folders, and you’re never sure of what to keep and what to toss.  However, once you started, you found that it wasn’t so bad, and before you knew it, an hour and a half had gone by.  Give yourself  2 points for the first ten minutes, perhaps 2 points for the second ten minutes, but 1 point for each ten minutes there after.  This is a judgment call, so use your best judgment.

Other Rules and Examples

9.  Leagues can create a list of actions that get special points.  Leagues can also set their own upper limits for donations, so that a large donation does not overshadow the actions of the team members.

10. Go by the process for judgment calls, when there is no indication from these rules.

a.   If there are league referees, ask one of them.

b.   If  the league uses anonymous internal judging, here is the process:  You call someone on one of the two teams who you aren’t playing that week, and explain the action to them. That person then calls a second person in the league who wouldn’t know who you are.  They explain the action to the second person, and ask them to decide how many points it was worth. That person makes the judgment, tells them, and then they relay it back to you.  In this way, you don’t know who made the judgment, and the person who is judging doesn’t know who performed the action, nor do they know which team the person was on.

11. If you are already doing something, but irregularly (such as exercising) prorate your points, for instance if you were exercising half of the time give yourself half as many points for your efforts as you would if it were a brand new stretch, or if you were exercising one-third of the time, give yourself two-thirds of the points.

12.  Points for habits and routines.  Actions that you are trying to make into habits are worth ¼ point per action, as long as they require conscious effort.  When they are automatic, they are no longer worth points.

Example:   You are trying to develop the habit of turning off lights when you leave the room. You consciously remember to turn off lights 7 times one day, and 12 times the next day. Give yourself  1¾  points (7 x ¼) for the first day, and 3 points  (12 x ¼) for the  second day, for a total of  4 ¾  points.

Example:  Four weeks after you start, you are turning off the lights automatically.  At the end of a certain day, you know that you have turned off the lights at least six times, but instead of 1½ points, this is worth no points, since it’s no longer a stretch.

13. Breaking bad habits and avoiding temptations.  Get an estimate for the number of points for each action from a judge.

a.  Breaking a habit, if you know how many times you usually do it.   Example:  If you are a smoker, a judge tells you it’s worth 2 points for each cigarette you don't smoke (based on your average number per day when you begin.)  So if you usually smoke 20 cigarettes a day, and you smoke 15, then award yourself 10 points for that day.

b.  Breaking a bad habit when you don’t know how much you do it.  Example:  You tend to gossip about people.  One point for each time that you catch yourself, and switch to some other subject.

c.  Avoiding temptation.  For some temptations that keep arising, it is recommended that you immediately move away from the source of temptation or throw yourself into some positive activity that takes your full attention.  So we suggest one point for the first time you refuse the temptation, another point for the second time, but no points after that, because you should have jumped to some other activity.

Example:  You are mad at a friend.  You can’t talk to your friend at the moment, though you plan to, so you put the anger out of your mind.  However, the feelings return and you know that if you dwell on it, you will waste time in a bad mood.  So you put the thoughts out of your mind again, and pick up a book to read to occupy your mind with something productive.  This is worth 2 points for putting it out of your mind twice.  If later in the day the anger returns, you can get 1 or 2 more  points for putting it out your thoughts again.

Example:   Reginald is trying not to stare at women’s bodies. (This is a bad habit for him.)  He goes to the beach and avoids looking at women 173 times.  Unfortunately, this superhuman effort is worth only two points, since he should have thrown himself into some other activity, such as playing volleyball or swimming, as soon as he realized he was being tempted.

14. The maximum number of players per team is seven.  Beyond seven, team scores may be weight-averaged so that the value of player’s points would decrease.

Example:  There are seven people who played seven days, plus two new people who each played three days.  This is a total of 55 player days  (55=(7 x7) + (2 x 3)).  If we look up 55 on the player-days table, we find that we must multiply the total score by 0.891 to get the weight-averaged score.

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