Re: Contest

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Ken Guin wrote:

> Erik:
> 
> You did a great job. Thanks for keeping this thing going.
> 
> What do you think we will do for next year's contest? Are you up for it
> again?

I guess until about 2 weeks ago, the answer would have been emphatically
NO.  I've generally felt that though there was a lot of initial volunteer
pledging, once it was clear what the ugly little jobs actually were,
support never came (both from within and without this group).  I wasn't
completely happy with the way the donations were initially handled jointly
with the convention (but it's never easy when you've got one person trying
to handle this, plus schedule the entire rest of the convention AND work a
regular job!), nor was I thrilled with the flack we was catching on the
APD & member lists because of this... one individual in particular
harrassed us twice in these public forums because there was no list of
prizes, and (once donations started appearing & I created the list on the
website) then turned around and harrased the coordinator as a business
because their donation wasn't immediately added to the listing.  The lack
of entries seemed to say to me "see, without the heavy advertising and big
prizes, nobody cares!"  So at that point, it seemed sensible to close up
shop.

The past two weeks have kinda changed my view.  Like some weird Dr. Seuss
story, "they entered without prizes, they entered without trappings! They
entered without ribblons, or fliberrty-flappings!"  We went from something
like 15 entries received on September 15th, to around 60 as of today.  
Lots of letters of support & thanks from the entrants.  Maybe, maybe, it 
would be worth it to run it again next year.

But the ordeal still ain't over.  Based on last year, the REAL fun will be
just beginning.  Coordinating four judges all over the world, making sure
they get finished by the deadline. Trying to distribute prizes and ribbons
to people in Singapore and Norway. It has, for example, taken almost a
YEAR to get last year's grand prize handled (I'm finally at the last
stage, transferring the EBay money to the guy who won).

Thankfully, Dave Gomberg has volunteered to sponsor the ribbons, so at
least part of this is taken care of.

So let's revisit in January.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

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