[Sca-cooks] alternatives to A&S competitions

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>How do you mean that these Expos tend to get a lot of Laurels 
>participating? Do you mean as the artisans?

Both as artisans and (more often) as rather active spectators, 
engaging in various forms of networking (getting contact info for the 
person who does that lovely fingerlooping, say, they've always wanted 
to try but could never figure out). They're encouraged to leave 
little tokens of appreciation (which range from little personal 
tokens, like badges or favors, to things like semi-precious stones, 
glass beads, small bottles of things like saffron or long pepper, and 
in one case, a leaf that broke off my laurel wreath, for which my 
lady wife, the silversmith responsible for it, had some words for me) 
and to ask questions that are not only for their own satisfaction and 
enlightenment, but also to perhaps spur the artisan/presenter along a 
logical path they may not otherwise be interested in following, or 
have thought of following. In the case of cooks, just as an example, 
we sometimes find that this is when they make The Great Leap from 
Hot, On-Time and Peri-Oid, to hot, on-time and period.

I've been told by some artisans that this little bit of extra 
personal attention in a somewhat less potentially threatening setting 
than some competitions afford (yeah, yeah, I know, all those horror 
stories are urban legends, right) has been very helpful in spurring 
them on to achievements they thought they'd never reach otherwise. 
Another reality is that, no matter how conscientious and A&S-oriented 
our crowns may be (and I've seen some who talked a good line but were 
in reality not very good about fostering the A&S in their kingdoms), 
they're not going to get to everyone whose work merits encouragement 
and attention. But we do have this _relatively_ untapped resource in 
our Laurels, who are perfectly capable of making a presenter feel 
special and appreciated, even if it doesn't come with a scroll and a 
dangly from the Crown.

>  At least in the formal competitions it seems like the Laurels are 
>actively discouraged or prevented from entering these.

This may vary from Kingdom to Kingdom.

>  But hopefully after someone is given a Laurel they don't stop doing 
>the arts they got the award for. Hopefully they continue to expand 
>the arts they do. However, there often doesn't seem to be any public 
>format for them to display what they've done.
>
>I would love to have an article for the Florilegium describing these 
>various different A&S formats, the pros and cons of each and useful 
>information for people thinking about running them. Or even an 
>article on just these Expo events.

I'll look and see if I can find the original rant/exhortation that I 
posted, it seems now like a long time ago, on the EK-South list, back 
when I was the Southern Regional Deputy MoAS, and had noted that the 
Eastrealm had a number of large annual A&S venues in the Northern and 
Central Regions, but nothing really comparable in the Southern 
Region. That might provide the basis for such an article.

Adamantius