In a message dated 9/18/2009 8:09:13 A.M. Central Standard Time,
cemahan@aol.com writes:
I, for one, think the current criteria for judges are perfectly fine. As
one responsible for getting a number of people nominated for emeritus
judge,
I can tell you what it takes.
****************************************************************************
*******************
Clarence,
I stand by my previous statement that the nomination requirement for
EMERITUS JUDGE has a poor set of criteria. There is nothing wrong with
our
criteria for JUDGES in general. In the six year's Jean was on the Board
and
the five I have been on it, the nominating letters and supporting letters
last year were the best we have seen as to answering the OVERALL judging
criteria, skill, performance and knowledge of the candidates. Some
nominations
we have seen in the past were pathetic to the point that we wondered why
anyone bothered to do such a disservice to some good people. Nominating
someone because they are a good ole boy who hybridized a few or many
irises, or
they have judged for 30 years and are about to die isn't good enough and
not appropriate either. Your personal nominations in our time on the
board
were the best in our opinion until last year's nominations.
Has everyone deserving been nominated? No, and in private discussion
with
Bob Pries we agree on four who are most deserving and overdue for
recognition (yeh, make Bob the Emeritus Judge's Czar!) We disagree on two
speciality hybridizers who do not grow a representative collection of
irises other
than their type of speciality. To my knowledge they never have as
evidenced by their garden that I have visited several times over a 25 year
or more
period (not in my Region either).
I believe our problem starts at the Master Judge level where a judge
automatically becomes one after 15 years as a Judge. There is no
criteria for
EARNING this level, no written examination, no requirement to make iris
presentations, tutor apprentices, judge shows, provide AIS service, have a
formal review of their Regional Judge's Chairman's records (now that's a
novel
idea), etc. Bob's contrast of our program with the Master Gardener's
program is appropriate I believe, although I wouldn't go so far as to
charge
fees for the training and award. But their requirement for Master
Gardeners
to formally fulfill service requirements and report on them is
worthwhile.
And now back to our huge Greentree Festival (Kirkwood city projected over
25,00 visitors)where we are selling about 7,000 irises this weekend. It
has been a bloody intense two weeks of work in preparation for the sale.
Wish us luck and good weather.
Jim M.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
<aissecretary@irises.org>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/