"Mary Lou" wrote in message
om...
First let me say I have always been against any requirement on how
long the exhibitor has to own the plant for ribbon/trophy
consideration. If the person has the good taste to recognize a
terrific top quality plant why should he/she be penalized for picking
it out a week before the show instead of a year before the show?? For
your Best In Show Specimen plant that can easily be a rule - to own
the plant at least one year. However you must realize that it is going
to be impossible to know if the person is honest and can cause a big
bruuhahaa if there is a fight about it. My recommendation is forget
that rule!!

Then what are you giving a ribbon to, as a club? Shopping taste??? Will you
be judging shoes next?

We give our ribbons to those who can *grow orchids*. Hence the 6 month rule.

Any jerk can buy a plant.

Many people laugh at ribbon judging. They come to that conclusion once
they've participated in judging a show and realize that in many cases there
are categories in which there is only one entry, ie *no* competition, so the
judges *just give a blue ribbon*. What kind of an honor is that?

If the club does not let the judges know that they take their show seriously
and truly want to encourage their members with STANDARDS, such as being able
to rebloom a plant you bought to the same level as that when you bought it
(if not better), then you are making a joke of your show and of judging.
IMHO.

Now, the AOS allows a person to buy a plant and get a quality award on it a
minute later. The explanation is that the FLOWER gets the quality award. The
grower has nothing to do with that. Sort of like Marilyn Monroe can't help
being a gorgeous woman, no matter who she's married to.

IMHO, the better AOS award to get is the cultural award, because that
recognizes the grower's ability to *grow* AND *flower* the orchid.


In the old days our show used to rent convention typewriters to type
the entry tags so that they were very readable from a distance. Now
that the club uses a computer those tags are handwriten and almost
unreadable. I dont think that is an improvement at all.

IMHO handwriting is better. Bad handwriting can cost you the AOS Show
trophy, hence the points awarded to entry cards on the Show Trophy ballot. .


If your entry team is a good one [snip]

Here Mary Lou and I agree. That is the whole point. The PEOPLE have to be
good. No amount of computer technology will make up for untrained volunteers
who haven't a clue as to what they are doing.

So, spend some time training your people. They will get more out of it, and
so will the club, in terms of having to do less training or having more
trained people who can train others next year.

K Barrett