2018 Organization

[BigRedRiceRocket]

As most of the main chapter already knows, I will not be available to handle judging this year. I know that grapevine chapter members are handling a lot of the organization this year, and I do not know if they have arranged to have this role filled, or if they even know that it needs filling. I am, of course, willing to assist whoever winds up handling judging by helping to make arrangements. I have some notes on the process that might help you decide if this is how you want to help the club and to know what goes into doing this job:

1. The trophy plaques are very easy to set up. We use the same company every year; we just call him and tell him we want another batch a few months ahead of time, he updates the year on the plaques, and adds any we ask him to add. He calls when they are done, and we pick them up and pay him for them before IHWR.
2. If you think it will make the judging more fun, it never hurts to add plaques. They are pretty inexpensive so I doubt you will have much trouble from the IHWR committee to add one.
3. John Glancy's Nationals show website has started listing our event as a qualifying regional event, and he confirmed this for me in person at our event last year, so I suggest we try and maintain that status by making the changes we can to keep that status going. While he did not particularly care for our judging sheets that we have been using the last few years, he did care that we bothered to use one at all. Whoever runs judging gets to make the decision, but I think it would be a good idea if we continued to use some kind of written system that produces an actual numerical value.
4. If you are going to use some kind of numerical value system, you need to have a chart that lists the weights of points for everything you are going to score. Adjusting the weights was something I did the first year of using the system by democratic questionnaire, and I have made subsequent adjustments manually every year since. You need to have these numbers set in advance of the event and clearly laid out so you can apply them fairly to everyone.
5. If you want to use the old forms, we already have lots of them printed, and I am happy to explain how the scoring works. If not, I am happy to help you set up your own scoring system, and point you in the right direction to get them printed (a member kindly donates the printing for free every year)
6. I don't recommend you try and do this job alone. it is absolutely faster and easier if your scoring system is simpler than mine, but there are always people that show up the day of the raffle, leave for a trail run, and get back less than an hour before the event starts who would like to be judged and take part in the show. On top of which, the winners of some plaques, such as worst break down, cannot be determined until all the runs have returned. Be proactive, and get AT LEAST one dedicated assistant, or co-head of judging, or whatever. I was lucky enough to have lots of help from a few generous members and lesser help from several more members every year that I did this event, and it still came down to the wire every single time.
7. Since many of us sit very near our own IH during the raffle, it might be fun this year if we arranged to hand the plaques out at the vehicles so the winner could have their photo taken with the vehicle and plaque at the time the award is given. It might also help people who visit our website to understand how our judging is different if they got to see photos of all the dirty rigs with their dirty drivers right next to them from the trail that day, as it is my understanding that our event is somewhat unusual in that we don't necessarily see a dirt covered windshield as a bad thing.
8. To that end, it might be fun if we added a dirtiest trail rig plaque this year.

-Jacob Slaughter

[Big John]

Jason will you or can you be at MC meeting 11 January 2018?