A& S round table

[yvonne_rogers]

I'm currently feeling rather pleased with myself and want to share. I facilitated a round table discussion on the topic of A& S Competitions in Ealdormere, at this evening's Eoforwic meeting

Comments

[fineum]

Sounds like a great idea. I'd try and make it. We need to chat about Cloth of Gold sometime too :)

[cortejo]

I always thought a good A&S format would be the 3 catergories:

1) Beginner
2) Intermediate
3) advanced.

The judging would have those entered in advanced judge category 2, Intermediates judge category 1, and Beginner's judge the advanced. My thinking on this was that beginners need the judge to know something about the work already, but advanced should have awesome yet accessible documentation that would teach a beginner about the work. If they'd confuse a beginner, then it either isn't an advanced work, or it is a badly done advanced work.

you know IMHO

[_medb_]

Interesting format, but I doubt that having beginners judge advanced entries would work, and this is in addition to the very likely bias of some people who'd refuse to have a 'non-expert' judge their stuff; they are out there, sigh- I personally like it when someone takes a fresh approach to looking at stuff, so newbies are great in my opinion. I could also go into the topic that it's hard enough to convince beginners that their items are 'good enough' to show, much less try to judge an advanced work. (that's a self esteem issue, which I've never had for A&S, but many people, even experienced SCAdians, have

[cortejo]

I think there has to be the communication exchange. The person exhibiting opens the dialogue with the art work and the documentation. The judge starts there. If the documentation isn't being read... why bother judging?

[_medb_]

Oh I definitely agree- communication exchanges are MUCH better (and a heck of a lot more fun!). The trick is getting that communication to happen- half the time the entrants aren't near their stuff (and I'm bad with names to faces), and I can't count how many times I've heard even accomplished artisans say they won't judge because they don't feel they know enough/haven't been invited to judge/possibly feel intimidated in judging those with higher awards than they do. (and that's just some of the issues on the judging side, sigh) I'm hoping the recent discussions both at the Eoforwic meeting and ones that the new A&S Minister has been starting do come to help fix a few of these issues. I've been pretty lucky, so I'm going on comments I've heard over the years from others in terms of fears of judging/entering- I'm confident enough in my own skills to not care how many 'cookies' an entrant has (mundane degrees in related subjects), but my laurel is very active in trying to encourage both judging and promoting A&S as much as possible.

[anonymous]

I'd love to come. :)
Keja
Kingdom MoAS