Club competitions - General and Advanced

[phil]

At a recent committee meeting we discussed whether two categories of competition entries are still needed, especially when we are a relatively small club. We all felt that there is curently very little difference in the quality of entries in both categories, and sometimes the General class entries seem superior to some in the Advanced class. However, the committee was split in its views. What do you think? If you are in the General category, would this affect whether you submitted entries in the future? Should those in General who win cups/trophies be made to move into Advanced class? Maybe even redefine General to include just beginners?

Please vote in the poll above and reply here to leave any comments.

[Laurie]

I agree with Phil. There is a very large overlap between the two groups in terms of the images.

If folks wanted to continue with two levels, perhaps the naming of the groups could be looked at. Perhaps replace "Advanced" with "Club (Class)", and replace "General" with "Popular" or "Noobie" or some other naming that describes less experienced or less confident photographers.

Laurie

[John W Harding]

I believe that moving to a single open group would be a mistake.  New, inexperienced members may be put off by having to compete against 'Advanced' photographers.  The name of the groups is not important.  It seems to me that General and Advanced pretty much tells us all we need to know.

As regards moving from General to Advanced levels I think that at the end of the season the committee, or a sub committee, should review competition results and move members to the appropriate category according to their aggregate scores through the season.

John W Harding

[Geoff]

I tend to agree with John in that we should stick with the two categories that we have now.  Whilst I can sympathise with the view that the images that are submitted in the General section are often better composed and printed than many in the advanced section, there is always the danger that we will discourage the newer less experienced members from submitting images if we have just one 'class'.  What we should be doing is ensuring that there is a much more proactive system in place to move members up into the Advanced class on the past years performance, again as John suggests, perhaps a sub-committee /assessment team should be put in place.  I am however very much in favour of removing the rule in the General class restricting print size to A4.  I really do not think that this serves any useful purpose now, as it should be up to each individual member to decide what size they feel is appropriate for displaying their work regardless of their competition class.  I think the only reason that this rule was initiated was to try and get a more even playing field on the basis that new members would probably be less likely to have an A3 printer at their disposal.  Hoever, with the advent in recent years of very competitive on-line photo labs this original thinking is probably now not relevant.

[Julia]

I totally agree with Geoff.

[Tanya]

I agree I don't think the two classes should be combined however it appears that currently there is no hard and fast rule as to when a member should/would move to Advanced.  In my previous club the only real rule was that if you won the 'beginners & improvers' section at the end of the season you were expected to go up to the next section at the beginning of the next season, if not you could stay where you were until such a time when you felt confident enough to move up.

[ChrisS]

I would prefer we keep to two sections as at present


Chris

[Wilf Clark]

I believe Overall winner and runner up should automatically rise to Advanced class the next season.  Wilf

[Tanya]

I agree with Wilf and think the winner of the General section should move up to advanced for the following season.

[Graham P]

I agree with Wilf and Tanya re. winners of the general comps. moving to the advanced.

It would also be good to allow A3 prints into the general comps.