I’ve been reading all the comments, questions, and suggestions for two weeks, and have been trying to collect my thoughts.
Of course it is a good thing for student judges to learn how to judge collections. The rule requiring a blue ribbon was a step in the right direction. Was it the right step and did it go far enough?
What about this: Amend the rule, to require a student judge to win one blue ribbon or three ribbons, any color, in collection classes? I guarantee you that a halfway diligent student judge who won two yellows and a red knows far more about what he or she doesn’t know about a collection class than the student who lucked into a blue ribbon in a single-entry class.
(I even think it might be good to require evidence that every student judge has entered a large collection class!)
Some of you mentioned that if the better exhibitors backed off, the blue ribbon wouldn’t mean as much. Well, to get certified is to get certified. But as somebody pointed out, that would only take care of one per show, as would a Novice class. (but shows can have a dozen or more five-stem classes, even beyond the division five-stem classes to the local collections honoring people. And I don’t believe “keen exhibitors” would fight to win these if there were no chance at moving on to a Purple Ribbon.
And don’t we all scatter the new judges among our panels, presumably with a very experienced judge as chairman. I remember how Martha Anderson would say to a student, “Okay, you judge this class, and you have to tell us why!” And people almost fought to be on her panel.
If you have lots of student judges, and your region or local show has “lots of keen exhibitors who fight for all the ribbons,” couldn’t the local judges’ chairman very quietly ask each of those “keen exhibitors” to mentor a student just in a collection class? They’d learn the pride that comes when their student has success—a new thrill.
Kirby outlined an excellent approach. Teach them, show them, require them to judge some collections under controlled conditions–a good local meeting tool, for one. We did this once in CMDS to “refresh” two judges; they went in alone and judged some entries; the whole group then came and each person present picked their winners—and then the judges getting refreshed explained their choices. (and sometimes the judges changed their minds!)
The only thing that bothers me about this approach—in the way we like to judge collections, according to all the correspondence last month–we range from the accountants to the artists, and everywhere in between. Could they be taught how to point score, but also to stand back, give weight to total effect, and then approach the blooms and see if they live up to first impressions. (You notice I’m a great believer that “staging does matter”, whether we admit it publicly or not.
Would it be possible—I’ve seen unbelievable technological things happen in the daffodil world in very recent years–to film a video, possibly putting together clips from various instructors in various regions, and sell this, or rent it to local judging schools. (didn’t somebody do this once for Division 11, and share it around for schools?)
There are all sorts of ways to achieve any good objective.
Loyce McKenzie
Loyce,
One of the great things about judging daffodils is that judging is like horse shoes, you get score for getting close. You don’t always have to throw a “ringer” to be right. However, if we point scored everything in the show, the judging would not get over by 1:00pm in the afternoon on Saturday (as an example) it would get over at 3:00pm on Sunday and the public would only have a couple hours for reviewing the show.
I don’t feel that we should tell the experienced exhibitors to back off and let the new people win in collections. That cheapens the process. If they want to win, let them compete and learn from competing. That way, when they win they will had done something. Those that know me will find that kind of washed out because the first show I entered, I entered the Novice collection of five and won it, and my novice blue ribbon also won the Purple Ribbon. You can see why I’m hooked on daffodils.
However I have mentored a lot of novices over the years, and have not entered classes where my novice was entering so that they would have a chance to win. However at the same time, at one show, one of the novices wanted to enter the Maroon Award (Reverse Bi-Color) and I was going to enter it. I tried to discourage them because I thought that ther daffodils were not up to a 1st place award. In addition, another experienced exhibitors had already placed a fairly good exhibit that I thought was better than the novice. I placed my entry, tried to discourage the novice and get them to use their daffodils elsewhere but could not. They were sure that their exhibit was superior. I won the Maroon, the experienced exhibitor got the red (2nd) and the novice won the yellow (3rd).
My believe is that sometimes the novices have to “not win” the blue to understand what it takes to win.
I liked this statement, “Martha Anderson would say to a student, “Okay,you judge this class, and you have to tell us why!”
I went to a writing class given by the Dept Agriculture, Graduate School in Washington DC, and the Professor said something similiar, when he put a statement on the white board and said, “Tell me if this statement is correct English and provide me with a lawyer to argue your case as to why it is or isn’t.”
Clay Higgins
I agree with Clay. I don’t think we have to “dumb down” the show to LET novice’s win.
Something that I think we should all consider backing off of is taking a LOT of flowers to an out of town show and putting up entries in every class with an ADS award. It is a very easy way to wear out your welcome.
It is a lot nicer to show up with a couple of entries and to leave yourself time to help others, or to help the show committee. I think we should make up our minds what we want to win and go for it—regardless of the number of entries already on the bench in that class, but maybe we shouldn’t want to win EVERYTHING at EVERY show.
If you’ve done your homework and you show up at a venue with a Quinn entry and find out there are already two on the bench, so what. Some people think the bench looks better and it “teaches the public something” if there are entries in every class, but I think it would be fun to imagine a bench with five Bozievich’s and five Quinn’s, even if it meant no Maroon’s or Throckmorton’s. It would make the judges nuts, but what a great competition it would be!
Because we are allowed to bench our own flowers at most shows, we have the opportunity a lot of the time to see what our competition is before entries are closed. Exhibitors can mentally pass judgement on their own entry and decide to enter or not. OR, we put flowers on the bench thinking or imagining at least that we will win, only to be surprised by entries that have been staged off site and put on the bench at the last minute. I’m always bummed when that happens.
Chriss
OK Chriss
I am not sure I want to know if I am doing this… I am not experienced enough to enter alll of the ADS sections, but I would encourage more peopel to enter vases of three- especially the Tuggle. I feel the flowers look better in groups.
I think we should all consider backing off of is taking a LOT of flowers to an out of town show.
John Beck
We count on our judges to bring their best blooms to our show at Longwood Gardens. The show takes place in the heart of the main conservatory on the fern floor. Since our main concern is putting on the finest show possible, we are glad to spread around the ADS ribbons to all deserving exhibitors.
Kathy Andersen
One thing you all haven’t mentioned is the effects of weather.
I had to seriously talk myself into going down to the Nashville show this year, as the start of bloom season here was two to three weeks late, and we had a few good flowers, but not a lot, and barely enough to justify the four hour trip with the 4:00 AM wakeup call. We went, in part because Cheekwood had an art exhibit we wanted to see, and in large part because our winter was long, cold, and grey, and showing our flowers in a location which usually shouts spring would be the best way to get rid of the winter blues for good.
The sun does not come up in this trip until we hitMunfordville , KY Bowling Green , we start to see redbuds, and as we hit the Tennessee Nashville Nashville
Then, someone turned the heat on outside, and everything bloomed out in one week……
The answer is – you really don’t know what the show is going to look like until you get there.
As for bringing lots of flowers, I’ll bring whatever I have that is show quality, and put it out if I can. Shows look better with more flowers, and one of the reasons for having a show is to display to the public the huge variety in sizes and shapes of daffodils. The public is not looking to see which flower has which defect, they are writing down names of cultivars which catch their eye and they would like to grow.
Small grower classification is a nice way to introduce exhibitors to competition. The classes are competitive, but not huge, and you can learn a lot by competing there. There probably needs to be some sort of intro-level collection class, as 50 cultivars is too few to effectively enter a standard collection class. You could designate a novice collection class for exhibitors who have never won a blue ribbon in a collection class, but the pitfall here is if the class only has one entry and the new collection exhibitor wins a blue, then they’re up against the big dogs next show.
Mike Kuduk