In advance of the results and prize giving at our
meeting next week I want to share the format of our certificates with you so
you know what’s coming, and also briefly touch on what it is to achieve an award
at a koi show and how our certificates help exhibitor’s understand their
achievements.
The format of our exhibitor certificates is basically a list
of awards that exhibitor has won – and that follows the format of other koi
show exhibitor certificates. We are
adding additional information too that I believe will help exhibitors
understand how they’ve done.
First, lets consider awarding at koi shows.
Awards at koi shows are relative to the koi entered in that
show so when a koi achieves an award its vital to understand that it’s won that
award out of a number of koi benched in the same category at that show. I believe this “out of” information is best
shown on the face of the exhibitor certificate alongside the award description
to help exhibitors understand how well their koi did amongst the competition in
that show.
For example, there were 5 baby sized kohaku’s in our Garden
Show so the award “3rd in size and variety” for baby kohaku’s is
written up on the certificate with the additional information, “out of 5 koi”.
Sometimes it will reveal the slightly uncomfortable truth
that a first place has been awarded when there was only 1 koi being judged in
that class… but, showing that information is just being honest and transparent
and in the context of a competition, I believe that makes it fair and in the
exhibitors’ best interest.
Here's an example of our exhibitor certificate, with dummy data:
Our first Garden Show attracted enough entries so that there
was competition for awards down through the awards and well into the “size and
variety” classes. So we benefit because showing
the “out of” information provides adequate context for an award like 3rd
place in a category with lots of competition – for example, 3rd
place in young sanke was won out of 7 koi and therefore that koi beat 4 others
to win the award. 1st place
in young utsurimono beat just 3 other koi to win that first place – I believe
both are well won awards, but which award is “better”; is it the 3rd
place in young sanke where the koi beat 4 others to achieve the award or the
better sounding 1st place in young utsurimono?
It’s subjective, but what I want to demonstrate is
that a 3rd place award won under intense competition may have a less
flashy description than a “1st place”, but the exhibitor should feel
significant achievement nonetheless.
We’ve put on more overall competition categories than in
most open shows to provide as many opportunities as we can for each koi to
compete for an award where it can place against a reasonable number
of other koi. This means a koi winning 1st
place in a size and variety class with little or no competition can still be
assessed by how well it achieved in one of the overall awards for example, best
in variety, best in size, best non-gosanke and so on.
With this approach, the best thing we can do is to lay out as
much info as we can sensibly put on the exhibitor certificates to provide
transparency and allow exhibitors to understand the context of their
awards. It’s our first year, and I would
welcome feedback which we will consider when creating the certificates for next
year’s show.
I am excited about the big reveal next week, and look
forward to seeing you there.
Happy koi keeping
Adam Byer
