<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/31/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael Silverhands</b> <<a href="mailto:silverhands@sbcglobal.net">silverhands@sbcglobal.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Greetings, cousins:<br><br>Several points have been made regarding local championships:<br>* they are the "front line" of bardic in the Kingdom, for many people<br>* they could possibly be used as a preliminary round for Eisteddfod
</blockquote><div><br><br> I don't really see a need for some sort of qualifying process for entering Eisteddfod. The issue that I am hearing isn't that we have too many people entering or that the quality of people who enter is poor. The issue seems to be that we don't have enough of the Top bards entering. I don't see how having some sort of qualifying process will help that.
<br> Why are so many of our best Bards not competing to be Kingdom Bard? Is it a problem with the timing or location of the event? Is it that they don't see being Kingdom Bard as desirable? Is it that they don't feel that they are good enough? Is the format not interesting?
<br> For myself, I am very interested in being Kingdom Bard, but my mundane situation would not allow me to do the job well at this time. If I win I don't want to do a half-assed job, so I choose not to go for it at this time.
<br></div><br></div> I do think that in the interest of saving time we have taken a lot of the excitement out of the competition. I really, really liked the Double Elimination Tournament format. It was challenging, it was exciting, it was fun, and if you won or even made it to the finals you felt like you had really accomplished something.
<br> Lately, it's just another bardic competition. Nothing special. The only thing to distinguish it from a dozen other competitions held every year is the title you get if you win. <br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day." John A. Wheeler
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