A&S Competitions

[Robyn]

>If you can come up with a better suggestion, I
>would love to hear it

I am of the opinion that A&S competitions are a necessary evil, however there
needs to be some serious re-working of these competitions.  For example, one
fix could be to allow for different levels of competitions, eg. have a 
beginning level and once an award was given, require them to move to an 
upper level all the way up to the laurels.  This would encourage people who
are beginning to enter because then they would be competing against other
beginners, not laurels.  Admittedly there will be different beginning stages
but the people who do not really belong at the beginning stage will more than
likely move up quickly.  The other possible fix I can see is not associating 
any names with the work until after the piece has been judged.  This would
keep the judging at least a bit partial.  Of course, people have a style to
the way they do things and so it is probably pretty obvious who submitted 
what, at least past the beginning stages.  There could also be given two 
different types of awards, those given by the judges and those given by the
populace.  Admittedly the populace may not look at the historical validity of
the piece but this would allow for the person to be recognized for having
done good work, but not quite up to standards.

I am not sure if any or all of these things have been done consistently in
some region.  I just feel that maybe some ideas like this could encourage
instead of discourage people to enter.  I may be completely out of line, 
having never entered an A&S competition myself, but I do enjoy going and
looking at the competitions and I do feel that these competions could be 
changed to increase the level of participants.

Myfanwy

Barony of Bryn Gwlad


robyn at eden.com