AV News 187 - February 2012
Editorial
Jill K Bunting CPAGB & John Smith APAGB CPAGB
A Happy New Year to all our readers!
A new year often means change and
sometimes new ways of looking at
things. Both the RPS and PAGB are in
the process of redefining the criteria for
their individual distinctions in AV. The
inaugral six members of the new RPS
Multimedia & Narrative panel have met
to decide on the criteria they will adopt
and are to hold an Advisory Day on
Wednesday 29th February. The first
adjudication is on Wednesday 4th April,
both to be held in Fenton House, Bath at 10.30am. All their recommendations will
then have to go before the Distictions Advisory Board for approval.
The PAGB decided to provide an on-line survey and to ask the opinion of the
'AV fraternity' regarding certain aspects of their proposed criteria - this survey it
was felt would assist them in coming to a more informed decision at their
February meeting. We hope that you took part and gave your views.
The thorny problem of Pre-selection certainly caused a number of letters to
come in both for and against. Here are a few interesting comments:
'Entrants who have spent many months preparing their entry need to know
why they have failed to reach an acceptable level of production'. 'Surely it is not
beyond the whit of man to tick a few columns on a sheet to help the punters and
why not limit entries to one per person? Are all these suggestions impossible to
implement or is it that they come from outsiders?
The answers, 'There have been several suggestions recently on how we could
improve our methods of pre-selection. This is a more complex and complicated
procedure than is realised if one has not actually taken part. We have thought of
alternative methods - for example regional selection. We will continue to consider
and if viable, adopt any further alterations to our procedures'. 'Obviously there are
bound to be many dissapointments and possibly some system could be designed
to provide disappointed entrants with more information, but by exposing their
work as much as possible from club level to RPS regional groups they would
gather informed feedback which is absolutely invaluable.'
Interestingly these comments were taken from AV News in 1985!!
So what are our own views on this matter - the Championships are over but
maybe we can learn from them and move forward. With the current economic
climate, the cost of entering and attending festivals needs to be looked into and
maybe cheaper alternatives and procedures adopted. If someone is unsucessful
then as a courtesy they should at least be told why, a proportion of their entry fee
refunded and if that is not possible, then invite them to attend some or all of the
sessions free of charge so that they can see just what the accepted standard is.
Why are we so passionate about this? We spend a great deal of time visititing
clubs encouraging and spreading the gospel of AV. These
newcomers are the future of AV - we need to encourage them.
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