On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:40:45 -0500, Rob Halgren
wrote:


I know this is done by many societies, but I have always found it to
be a royal pain. 1) somebody has to type in all the entries.

This is where having decent typists helps, but it is more a case
of speed from the skill than accuracy. You need to have someone
who is knowledgable scan the list for typos. We are finding, 2
years in, that we correct more bad tags than typos. We find many
of the errors, but typing can be come transference from eye to
hand without brain scan in between. So we have a knowledgable
judge scan for obvious misspellings

At least if you have the entry
tags the team can see what the exhibitor meant to write (whether or not
that makes sense is another problem).

With the 2 part form - the back section - on the plant is often
just barely readable anyway. You could not tell if they wrote
e,o, or a. So who is to say it was a typo and not an exhibitor
error.


2) if plants need to be moved
from one class to another, the team has to cross it off one list and
write it on another.
I have seen tags lost in the shuffle and plants misplaced due to
the shuffle. One tag gets stuck under another.. etc. Give me
clean notes or lines diagraming the changes.

Misclassifications. Often this change is considered to be
something that should be done by the Judging team. So it is not
done even if found early. IF judges would do it - it would take
just about 2 min. per team to print a clean list and if only one
is needed less time than that. Some judges do not want to move
plants - they want to penalize the error and just note that it is
in the wrong class. All too often the clean up crew after
judging pulls all the tags and walks off with them. So much for
changing the class number.

But if the class number is not corrected HOW can the owner learn.
I would like to see more education at this point and may create a
tag to be left for the owner with the correct class number on it.
All too often the same mistake is made year after year by the
same people.


Another issue is the information on the back of the ribbon. In
our shows we fill it out, date, class, and judge sign. The owner
can put the plant name down. We have identified his win. But I
have been at shows where nothing is noted on the ribbon. If it
is in a OS exhibit, whose is it? Which plant, from which grower,
in which class? Well it will depend on where it fell after the
judges left the floor. So I like to see ribbons labeled.

The non label group tell me it is because many are recycled by
growers who want to win, but have not interest in collecting the
ribbon. OK - Put an address sticker on over the class and date
and reuse the thing. After all it is RECYCLED.

This is the computer vs. tag-in-folder debate at its best. It
will only be resolved by a complete change in systems that does
away with both of our sides I fear. Someday someone will
design a new registration system for orchid shows.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php