4 replies on “Competition Results – June 2014 (with mid-season leaderboard!)”

  1. hi, ithink if my turning and rolands were voted down as said by phill h then you will have to go back and look at the others the one that was first had inserts and groves which they were not supposed to have, also some others did not match up , and when you go back to all results and use the same criteria then we will see what it should be ,in the past you didnt lay down hard rules so whats happend to change things now. were they to good so you marked them down (ha ha) but you have opened the can o worms now so lets see what is put up from now on . by for now jake

    • Hi Jake/Roly,
      I understand your concerns and I agree there is room for improvement. I think there are two issues:

      1. How specific should the rules be?

      The aim of the competition isn’t to see which of us is the best, it is to encourage everyone to do at least one piece of turning each month and to inspire members to improve their turning and try different things. Specific rules are always an excellent way to stifle ideas and creativity because people will be afraid to push the boundaries. Generally I think specific rules disuade people for participating.

      Also, non-specific rules are easy to formulate whereas specific rules are difficult to create. For example how would we define the difference between a bowl and a plate? Would we need to specify degrees of curvature etc? Maximum depth:circumference ratios? Also, regardless of how specific you make the rules, it won’t stop entries being submitted that test the boundaries and call upon someone to make a judgement as to their eligibility.

      2. Who should judge whether an entry is acceptable?

      This is a tricky one because if an entry is borderline you risk upsetting the person who submitted it if you disqualify it, and you risk upsetting the other competitors if you don’t!

      As I said above, regardless of how specifc we make the criteria we will always have entries that will divide opinion so we need some way to make a decision that causes the least amount of upset. One idea that Phil H and I have come up with is that we include an option on the voting slip. Voters would mark the piece as usual but could put an X against the score if they think the criteria have not been met. If more than half of the voters mark an entry with an X then the mark doesn’t count towards the annual Club Champion tally. What does everyone think?

      Finally, for completeness, there have been suggestions at various times that we could have separate competitions for beginners and the more advanced. Whilst this isn’t a bad idea in principal, I think it reflects how little people appreciate just how much effort goes into running the competition. Yes it would be nice to do these kinds of things but it’s a serious amount of work and we’re not inundated with offers of help. Coincidentally, David and Judith won’t be at the next club meeting so it will be interesting to see how eager members are to help out on the door, log and photograph the competition entries, do the raffle, welcome visitors, get the milk and buscuits, collate the competition results, put together a document with the results on and post it on the website! Volunteers, please make yourselves known to the committee 🙂
      Cheers,
      Phil

  3. I tend to agree that a platter is something you could consume food off, not a decorative item. May I also comment that a championship should be on points accumulated over the year, ie. not one good score gets a 7th place in the overall standings.
    P.S. Disuade should be spelt Dissuade.

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