Danny,

There are a few excellent growers here who are virulently anti-AOS, and they
do mark their displays as not for AOS judging. In addition to the dues,
there are politics in the Bay Area AOS judging world, and those politics
indirectly led to the creation of the Sacramento judging center.

It's not polite or right to discuss the politics in public, and I'm not
privvy to the sundry details, just aware of their existence, but I think
they are a contributing factor to the dropoff in awards/submitted plants
locally.

And just this weekend, someone who received an AOS award at POE in February
said they were probably not going to pay for the award, as there was no
obvious benefit to them for their $60 as a non-member. The fact that it can
take YEARS for the award slides to arrive and that it took over 6 months for
the initial bill for the award to come didn't leave this person with a
positive impression about AOS judging.

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

"danny" wrote in message
.. .
If the numbers being shown in northern California are so low, why the heck
do ya'll need all those JC's?

Why is the number being considered at POE lower? Are people marking
plants "Not for Judging", are the displays smaller, or are the judges not
picking out as many as they used to?