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We've changed the jury selection process. It now requires your perspective and your voice. Popular vote will decide which bows receive an Invitation to The Final Test. 

Shortly after the June 1 entry deadline, all the entries will be displayed on the Bowyer's Journal website and each IP address will have 9 online votes, three per category, enabling you to  determine which bows merit closer inspection with an Invitation.

This change means that online entries will be acceptable after all. All other entry specifications remain the same. Entries that arrive by postal mail, as originally requested, will be scanned and posted to the website ballot. In other words, every entry, no matter its format, will receive a place on the ballot. 

Please check "The Bowyer's Journal Magazine", its online site, bowyersjournal.com, or bowyersedge.com for updates. The bowyersjournal.com bulletin board also contains a forum devoted exclusively to ABC discussion.

Use these links or the Bowyer's Journal homepage for contest information:
  http://www.bowyersedge.com/ABC_06.html  
  http://www.bowyersedge.com/ABC_07.html  

We will continue to improve the Challenge every way we can, and we welcome your thoughtful suggestions.

Don't miss this opportunity to challenge yourself.

Goodness I read the title and thought you were commenting about some sitcom drama on TV...

Sounds great.

QuoteOriginally posted by insttech1:
... thought you were commenting about some sitcom drama on TV...

I was.

Our concern with turning this stage of the Challenge over to popular vote is that merit would be overlooked and superficial concerns such as reputation and popularity might unduly attract the vote. For that reason, we toyed with the idea of the three judges reserving 20% of the total vote. If the jury vote turns in a superficial direction, then next year we will add a counterweight. Until then, we'll remain optimistic and trust that everyone will do his/her best job in evaluating the bows.

How did I know Florida would be involved in buying votes.  :rolleyes:    :D

Yeah but Dano, they'll mark the wrong box anyways.

I hope this on goes better than the last. I know more than one bowyer who built  a fine bow that got no consideration and they are peeved-not that they didn't win just that they didn't get even an inquiry.

I think it's a good choice. I have to believe folks are honest enough to vote on merit and not popularity. I have been wrong before though.

Everything that's good has growing pains. That's my words of wisdom for the day. That and eat more spinach.  :bigsmyl:

(Digging out my plastic Sherrif's badge and replica Festus Hagan hat and stepping up to the front porch of The Longbranch Saloon)

I think the judges do need to get a good percentage of the vote. In the end, a trained and impartial eye needs to validate the bow's merit with a hands on approach. Yes, there are problems associated with any nationwide talent search (hello American Idol), not to mention the logistics problems. Every contest has it's limitations and those limitations were summed up in many of Dean's comments last year. It's easy to say that it needs to go better but unless you're willing to help out with responsibilties, that's easier said than done.

That said, get your entry ready and submit it according to the Challenge rules and regs and let the chips, or in this case shavings, fall where they may.

(Secretly hoping for upgrade to tin badge...)

Tom

Tom, I guess you didn't get the memo. There will be no upgrades this year due to budgit contraints. BTW, you got a plastic badge??? mines made of osage.  :confused:    :D

LOL - would someone please explain to me the qualification of "the popluar vote" to select anything????  let's see popular vote has given us rap music, the compound, george bush, not to mention some of our wonderfully ethical congressmean and sentors, fast food, poor school systems, current televison programming, brittany spears.......oh need I go on!

Are you carzy  :)

rusty

Just looking to improve the process. Frankly, I get a little weary of the sniping even though I've been on these bulletin boards for a very long time (since before the LW began), seen how people conduct themselves and understand enough that I should be immune by now. Each bulletin board to varying degrees seems to have its own coterie of bowyers, identified by their shared vision, the same suspicions, the same consipiracy theories, the same protective attitude toward their turf, the same easy way with self-congratulations, and, in some instances, a startling and easy manner villifying outsiders. That's life, I reckon. But it sure has sent me for cover on more than a few occassions. I try to pretty much keep my head down nowadays.

I won't argue with your catalogue of injuries, Rusty, but I'm an optimist with faith in this sport and its ability to bring people to a higher understanding, so I'll try to engage us one way or another in this Challenge. Good for a new magazine, good for bowyers, good for the craft and the sport. Yet it continues to amaze me that people still question the ABC, still regard its results with suspicion, still distort its criteria, labeling them arbitrary and unquantifiable, and continue in these and related matters with a smugness usually reserved for those who know they are going to heaven and you and your group aren't.

So in some measure at least we're turning part of the process over to involve others, democratizing it, on the assumption that sharing responsibilities will relieve some suspicions and anxieties.

I could tell you how seriously the judges (myself, Brian and Paul Comstock) anguished over the jurying process last year, and then how seriously we took the responsibility of grading the bows invited to the Final Test, but those who supported the Challenge don't need the assurances, and those who remain cynical will be unmoved. Still, I will repeat that there's no hiding a bow once it gets to the Final Test, and that the results are fair and obvious to anyone with a mind that values truth and honesty above agendas and self interest.

So, y'all figure out which 9 bows you want invited to The Final Test, and we'll take it from there. Do a good job now, hear? We'll provide some guidelines in the weeks ahead.

LOL now Dean I was just teasing ya.  I think it is a good idea.  the people voting on the bows are not really in the class of popular vote.  they are archers.  I was just thinking about the things the "popular vote" gave use....

but I still not sure about the crazy part  :)

rusty

Rusty, that could be because you haven't made up your mind whether it's "carzy" or "crazy,"  although it's also possible I could be both.

Dano - around here osage isn't wasted on badges.

Down this way, we use it for fence posts and sometimes firewood, and an occational bow.

I vote the both of you'ins are crazy  ;)  And that may be a popular vote.

QuoteOriginally posted by trashwood:
I was just thinking about the things the "popular vote" gave us....

Need a correction on one of your items. Being as how 4nolz is from Florida and still trying to buy the popular vote, like it was 1960 in West Virginia, he should know it's not the amount, it's who counts 'em. (Ahem, Mike. That'd be me.)

LOL now that was funny.  at least on the internet we won't have any of 'em hanging or pregnant chads.  

I read the rules, worked on my bow a little and contemplated my write up??????? do we lose points for spelling and grammer???  

rusty

heee heee I got a line on some catfish skins....that's all folks.  just get ready to vote.....i don't have to sing any songs do I ???

rusty -sings as well as I type- craine

Mike, I think I still have oysters to shuck and fatwood stump to split from the last "gifts". How 'bout something that don't wear me out.

Rusty, I'd enlist the help of Keith Deters and leave the "grammer" to him. That boy has a talent for describing your bows.

4nolz, By way of explanation about the "peeved" bowyers(this isn't posted to turn this into some kind of war against Dean). One guy told me that his entry was never entered. That may have been th Post Office's fault but he was pretty aggravated . Another bowyer was irritated that quality of photographs seemed to be a big deal-he is no photographer but took snap shots and wrote accurate descriptions. His disappointment was that some bows chosen for testing  didn't make weight and were out of tiller while he had two bows that were just as described ready to shoot and show their stuff. His comment to me was "I thought it was a bow design contest not a photography contest." Maybe those complaints weren't fair to Dean and the others involved- we know that you can't please everyone-but I have to say that I shot those bows and, while they may or may not have outperformed all of the other top bows they did deserve to be evaluated hands-on.

We've been through the photograph issue more than a few times. Since you are here as spokesman for two aggrieved parties, I'll offer up a brief explanation if you'll please carry it back to them.

Last year we received photos of bows on deerskins, draped with quivers and arrows, or hanging off of whitetail deer heads, or being drawn in a trophy room with a backdrop of mounts, or in a hunting pose, partially obscured by brush, etc. and so forth. It's hard to see the bow when the bowyer wants us to see other things instead. What else can we go by but the photo? Clearly, we'd rather not have to judge a bow at full draw when it's canted severely. Perspective changes. It's a distortion to suggest this is a photography contest. It is not. We don't want bows by photographers. We want photographs of bows.

We did not specify clearly enough the photos for ABC 1. Now that we know better, we've made the photo specs clear this year. They are there for anyone to read if it matters to them.

Obviously we would not have chosen a bow for the final test if we knew it was under weight. We have addressed the problem this year in the criteria.

Finally, we have no knowledge of an entry that was never entered, but we'll try to do better this year there, too.

"do fresh oysters by the bushel count as bribes?"

Bribes will not be accepted, and those attempting to bribe judges and voters will be dealt with in a judicial manner.    :bigsmyl:  

BTW, make all checks payable to Dano, care of a soon to be announced post office box.

Some people just plain take life too seriously and are far too quick to assign blame to someone or something else.  To them I say, think positively.  Be happy for those who won.  The contest, good Lord willin', will happen every year and it should always be fun, fun, FUN!

Resolve to take better photos.  There are just a few very simple tactics to learn to do so.  If your entry was lost in the mail, resolve to get it done early, track the shipment and be prepared with backup if it isn't received in time.  Have fun and take responsibility.  We are only victims if we allow ourselves to be victims.

I highly recommend the book, "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" - by Robert Fulghum.

Peace,

John

John, are there any pictures in that book??  :bigsmyl:  

Very well said Mr. Sci-Fries  :thumbsup:

Dano don't forget to put me on the list of people authorized to "sign for your mail".  ;)

No problem Tom, I'll let you open all the big packages first.  :D

Memo to the High Sheriff and the Police. It's unseemly to be seen in public with your hand out. This is a class operation. Please restrict that behavior to the back room like other elected officials and political appointees.

Did you notice the style with which I refused Mike's offer of oysters? (Mike, that's Deno with an "e", not Dano. And I still have my  oyster knives.)

Dang, the boss caught us again  

Dean Thank you for your gentlemanly explanation. I was sincere in my inicial post when I said that I hoped this one would go better. I know that a lot of people had a lot of fun with the last one...even the guys who griped at me were tickled by the bows that they produced trying to meet the design criteria.

Dammit, Tree man, now stop that. I'd set my mouth to dislike you and now I gotta go back and do it over again.

We hit some snags last year in spite of our efforts to anticipate and avoid them. For example, asking for "revealing" photographs wasn't specific enough. We're earnest in wanting to improve the Challenge; we enlist thoughtful criticism to that purpose, and at the end of each year we'll gather up the lessons and try to do better the next time.

I've had to resort to the ol' you set the suitcase down next to the phone booth and I pick it up, after some photos showed up in one of the gossip rags. Somebody with a telephoto lens saw the envelope exchange during a seemingly innocent handshake. I'm perfecting the "walk past each other and switch" technique.

I don't know Tom, we may be outa business if everyone starts thinkin like Tree man.  :D

Just use Pay-Pal and no one will be the wiser. hehe

Is there anyway to keep the bows and their builders anonymous? So that popularity does not become an issue? That way if someone well known does build a great bow and it gets in the finals no one would have a beef.
Just a thought.

I for one would not have a beef with a well known bowyer getting into the finals, most all the well known bowyers aren't that popular anyway. I like the Idea tho Doug, maybe the JUDGES will consider it for next year, if this year does become a popularity contest.

I would just like say that I am working for world peace, I am kind to all dogs, I want to brain surgeon when I grow up, and I will use all the money I win for my college education.  :)  ps I have had no augmenting plastic surgery....

too much typing! ya guys can't be building no bows, spending all this time typing.  get out there and scarpe some wood.  trashwood is coming!  :)

rusty

Now that's a winning attitude!!! Sides no Plastic surgeon in his right mind would take the job.

LOL. Good point, Rusty. By that logic, they better fear you. Your posts are brief and your attention is obviously away from the keyboard. Now, since I have no bow in the Challenge, not only can I clack away, I can afford to go back a space to correct an error.

Considered doing it that way Doug, and there's something to be said for it, but the weights on the other side prevailed for several reasons. I'll tell you what they are and you tell me if they look heavier to you.

Since this becomes more and more an internet community, anchored by several magazines, the temptation to sleuthing would gain its own life as people try to figure out who belongs to which bow. And they would. It's only natural to puzzle over puzzles. If the speculation didn't appear on various threads, it would network through emails. Attention would divert from the bow to the bowyer.

Also, by hiding identities we'd be implying that the bowyer rather than the Challenge to the bowyer is important, that entrants as well as voters need protected from the knowledge.  Tree man and Scifres touched on what's good about this Challenge—that it's a personal matter, one of exploration and self-satisfaction. To have novice bowyers remove themselves from the Challenge because So-and-so is entered and they don't have a chance against him misses the point of the Challenge altogether, and by making no bones about who's entered, by treating each entry with equal respect, we hope to create a leveling of bows.

Lastly, the lessons of the first ABC reveal that name-recognition or reputation in the community does not automatically translate to results. I'm assuming that lesson was not lost on anybody who paid attention, and that given the bows and the entrants, some skinny little know-nothing from a marginal part of the country with just an unassuming sliver of solid wood under tension could walk away with the Grand Prize, and that an old man whom no one knows, one who is closer to Death's Door than you or I feel comfortable admitting, came within a shaving or two claming the prize.

It's always been my approach to be open and trusting. Easier on the digestive system to back off from that menu because something in good faith did not sit well than to assume a cynic's posture to begin with. When you think the best of people, you often get the best from them.

I have a few ideas.  

First off, because Timo isn't here to defend himself since he got all busy actually working on wood and not typing about it, I say we simply don't vote for him at all.

Secondly, I am hosting an ABC Jury party at my house this summer.  A keg, ice cold sweet tea, and all the bratwurst and dogs you can eat.  Unless your name is Dean, Brian, or Paul, you must have at least 7 eligible voters in your vehicle before I pay your gas money though.  Also, you must vote on my computer before I let you eat or drink.  Leemans and Dano, you guys are such good friends I know I don't have to bribe you so you are on your own.  

If you can't make it to my house, I am hosting a meat fest at Cloverdale that you are all welcome to attend.  Just show up at any camp and ask for meat.  You should be OK.

As a final prerequisite on entering the ABC, you must have posted at least 5 online buildalongs.

Must be cold out in your shop too, huh Deano?? I like your last sentence.


Humm, John's idea has some merit.

I guess there is no perfect way and since I have suffered from a sour stomach at times I am all for what's easier on the digestive system.
I used to referee a bit and try as I might there were times when a call or 2 went toward the team I was happier with at the time. But it was better than no refs at all (I think).   :bigsmyl:

Yep, and ref's ain't always popular.  

I hesitate to even write this. I haven't been very active on here for some time, and have not contributed to this forum or this sport after the manner of many that post here and elsewhere. I also do not wish to come off sounding pompous or puritanical in any way. And Dean, et al, are more than capable of defending themselves. Nevertheless I've got something to say on the subject of "The Rules Commitee."

Author.

Authorship.

Authority.

All have the same root. And you/us professing Christians ought to already know that. When you put something to paper, or to this medium (the internet), no one has any right to edit your words, except those parties that have created the forum on which you are allowed to post such words. You are the author of your work, but they are the author of the site, and while you have authority over what you write and the content therein, they have the greater authority by virtue of having authored the site within which you spout and are the final arbiter of those words and that content.

Along the same lines, the entire ABC is Dean's brainchild. He's the Author. He has, therefore, the authority to decide how, who, and what, and the why is none of our business. However, being cognizant of the realities of human limitations, and of the fact that none of us are perfect, omniscient beings, he opens up the process to those of us that would have an express interest in the plans he makes for the project, at the same time both listening to said input and giving us insight and extending to us a deeper sense of "ownership" and comraderie in the process.

If not veiwed in that light, then there exists the very real possibility on our part of overstepping our bounds and turning otherwise welcome "suggestions" into criticism, cynicism, condemnation and contempt. Kind of like biting the hand that feeds, if you will. Or criticizing Bill gates while doing so through the very media in which we vent such views, which he made possible. Ironic, eh?

I don't know Dean or most of you from Adam, except through this site. I know Linc, and I've met several of you at Tollgate, but really that's as far as it goes. I don't mean any of this toward anyone in particular, and really not to all in general. It's just that this kind of thing, by virtue of it being a challenge, incites from each of us according to our strengths, weaknesses, character and personalities. So look up, think forward, get in step with the spirit in which this was birthed, encourage each other, set aside personal bias, and whether or not you choose to participate, let your best shine forth.

I know I get on about these things and I know, by virtue of private messages and emails that I receive, that it doesn't sit well with some of you. So out of respect I don't post much on here anymore and besides, since the accident back in January and things still not being right, I'm not up to the task of doing much anyhow, whether physically, mentally or emotionally. And sniping saps our strength on all fronts.

Well, I suppose that's it for the next few months or so. Sorry for the rant. Just respect what's being done graciously for this community. And if I'm not stepping on your toes, please DON'T stomp on mine. It just means that I wasn't referring to you. There are other sites where people REALLY snipe, and many lurk here but rarely post here.

Sorry for the rant, Dean. Like I said, I know you don't need defending. If this is out of line then I'd appreciate it being deleted.

Wow John! That is soooo nice of you. All these years, it was you who hosted the meat fest? I never knew. You're so unassuming though.

BTW anyone wanting to attend John's feast at Cloverdale only need show up in the vicinity of Dano's, Otto's, or my shelter. Try not to trip over the running kids.

Very well said Tim, no more needs to be said.


Tom, you and your lovely girls can have my share of the meat this year, Gosh I'm going to miss you guy's and the RAIN!!!