<VV> Bobby in the Middle (was: awards, Concours)

[Robert Marlow]

In the new wrinkle on the subject of Concours, gold-silver-bronze vs
first-second-third, I have found myself as banquet emcee caught in the
middle, so to speak.

The very first year that the gold-silver-bronze system was put into place,
nobody told me and I didn't notice.  At the banquet I merrily noted the
scores and scribbled the places-in-class on the results sheets, and
announced them as first-second-third.  Whoops!  A polite but upset Concours
committee set me straight.

Subsequently, I used the class structure to organize the results and
announced the results in the fashion of, "recieving a Silver award, and 3rd
in class..."  Whoops, Concours committee still unhappy, I wasn't supposed
to place the scores in a 1st-2nd-3rd hierarchy, it is supposed to be
metallurgical, only.

Next time, I announced all the Bronze award winners, all the Silver award
winners, and all the Gold award winners.  Whoops!  The Concours committee
didn't like that, either, it made for only three groups and they felt that
gave the award recipients insufficient recognition.

The next time I emceed ('03 Carlisle), the Concours committee co-chairs
politely but firmly told me that they, not I, would handle the awards
presentations.  They did a thorough and accurate job, but it took 17 hours
or so.  As emcee I have long tried to balance the need to give people their
moment in the spotlight while moving the evening along.

All of this is to illustrate my personal view of the current Concours
awards structure, where the "ideal" is rewarded via the gold-silver-bronze
system.  While I like the fundamental concept, I miss rewarding particpants
for their relative position at a particular event.  So, while I do not
advocate dropping the gold-silver-bronze system, I do advocate reinstating
the first-second-third hierarchy.  In this way, a participant will receive,
via the metallurgical award, an "absolute" measure of the car, and via the
position-in-class award, a competitive ranking for the particular event.

--Bob

Robert W. Marlow
nortechcorp@optonline.net