A&S Competitions Was Re: Tournaments

[Deborah Sweet]

Alessandre writes:

>and I would get rid of Arts and Science Competitions, Displays never, 
>Comps make my skin crawl.  What do you think?  Any suggestions out 
>there?

Other than making your skin crawl, are there other reasons you would 
get rid of A&S?

I admit that most competitions or displays on the whole don't seem to 
be well attended with items (or people looking at them) (at least in 
this region) :-), considering just *how*much* A&S stuff is really out 
there. I think a lot of people are intimidated by the dreaded 
"documentation" requirement (myself included).

Maybe it would be better to have more of a roving contest, whereby the 
judges, as they wander around all day doing their other things, take 
notice of items in certain categories that really impress them. Several 
different methods could be used for either tallying votes/opinions or 
handing out "certs of good stuff" on the spot. I would favor something 
like this option because it (potentially) recognizes stuff that is 
actually being used. 

Or in other words not something created specifically *and*only* for an 
A&S Competition.:-)  (Which I realize is not really the case, but it's 
still my first, gut level reaction whenever I see that someone has 
*exactly* copied something from this picture in this book. I always 
want to ask them after the competition "Well *now* what are you going 
to do with it?" :-) 


Estrill Swet
Dancemonger
Mooneschadoweshire
stillwater, OK
dssweet at okway.okstate.edu