Ringing the changes

I'm a firm believer that shows should adapt to change. I've entered a local village show for 15 years now and in all that time the schedule has hardly altered. In fact even the mistakes have remained the same despite my pointing them out annually. When it plops onto my doormat I file it with the others and don't look at it until the night before the show. I'm THAT sure I know what classes I will be entering.

Held on August Bank Holiday weekend there were 9 dahlia classes, a large championship style gladioli class and 3 chrysanth classes. The dahlia growers have dwindled, the gladioli class is way too large and now attracts only one grower, and August is a little early for chrysanths so again there are very few entries. As some of my old show growing pals have passed away it left myself and a couple of stalwarts to enter the majority of exhibits and consequently walk away with most of the trophies and not inconsiderable prize money. There were, however, still large gaps on the show benches where some classes received no entries.

But at last year's show I did notice that quite a few villagers had started to come forward and try their hand, albeit their entries didn't haven't a chance of winning. So I approached the organisers and asked if they might allow me to suggest a new schedule and they agreed. I've been beavering away at it since Christmas and at a meeting on Monday night they unanimously voted to accept my changes.

I haven't gone mad......I've done what I've done at a couple of other local shows.....reduced things like long carrots and parsnips to 2 instead of 3. A pair of cabbages now becomes a single cabbage. 5 tomatoes instead of 6, 4 potatoes instead of 5 and so forth. I've reduced the number of dahlia classes to 5 only, and cut the gladioli class from 3 vases of 2 to 2 vases of two.

There is also a class called 'Master Gardener' which in the past has called for a vase of flowers and a plate of veg chosen from the schedule. I've altered this to read:

1 vase 3 flowers
Choose from 3 dahlia/3 chrysanthemums/3 gladioli/3 annuals or 3 perennials,

and

3 dishes of 3 different veg, 2 matching veg per dish, selected from the schedule classes, any combination e.g. 2 potato/2 tomato/2 leeks or 2 runner bean/2 beetroot/2 cabbage etc, etc.

At first glance that appears to be a whole lot more complicated but as an exhibitor I know that very often when pulling and preparing my veg for a show I can very often find two matching specimens but not a third so that these veg get left behind at home. I'm sure this class will attract more interest because of my changes.

The most important thing I've done however is to introduce three new classes for 'villagers only', and the organisers have promised me they will advertise this in the local pubs, clubs and on notices. I've sidelined one of the trophies from the chrysanth section for the best exhibit in the villager only section, and so I'm hoping that this will generate a lot of interest from the locals and get one or two of them sufficiently interested to want to know how to go the next step. My telephone number and email address will appear in the schedule for people to phone if they need advice on preparing their exhibits in the run up to the show. Hopefully, in 5 years time I'll be struggling to win a class because the locals are starting to beat me, and this scene will be a thing of the past!!

One final point to mention is that I have consulted with the other regular exhibitors and judges and asked for their opinions, sending them all a draft copy of the new schedule. I was gratified to hear that they all unanimously agreed with me when they either phoned me or wrote back.