Over the past few years much time and effort has been put in by NIPA and the Competitions and Exhibitions Committee to develop the Interclub Competition and the Adjudication evenings. Despite the images and results all being available on our website the adjudication evenings routinely attract audiences of 100+. We take this as a positive but we do recognise that there are always opportunities for improvement. This doesn’t only apply to the adjudication evenings, the format of the competition, the entry system, the judging process are equally important and are constantly scrutinised for possible improvements.  

 

Format

The format of the competition has been agreed by the NIPA Council and any significant change to it is not in the gift of the Competitions and Exhibitions Committee. Suggestions for change would need the approval of the NIPA Council.

 

Entries

The entry system has seen some change over the past couple of years, mainly with respect to online entry submission. The physical process of print handling remains the same.

 

Judging Process

As you are probably aware each round of the competition is judged a week or so before each adjudication evening and the results are only released on the adjudication evening.  

 

Participant clubs and their members put their trust in the NIPA Competitions Committee to apply the rules and organise a fair process where we can guarantee that all images are treated the same. 

 

The judging process is often seen as a closed or even secretive event. There is an element of secrecy as we hold back the results until the adjudication evening but there is no reason why the process cannot be observed. Occasionally people have attended the judging evenings as observers, usually those considering becoming judges or those who we might be trying to encourage to help out with the process.  We feel that the competition would benefit and become more open and transparent if we were to open this facility up to any club member who would like to observe the judging process.

 

This year, to give clubs and their members confidence in our processes, we are making available three or four seats at each judging evening for any club members who would like to come along and “observe” the judging process.

 

• Open to all club members

• Prior to each round all those who have expressed an interest in attending will be sent an email notifying them that applications are open.

• The seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

• With a limited number of seats available, if we are oversubscribed, preference will be given to first time attendees.

• We also don’t see this as a club outing and don’t expect all of the seats to be filled by any one club.

• The list of applicants will be reset after each round.

• Those still interested in attending will need to resubmit when applications for the next round open.

• Previous lists will only be revisited if spare seats can’t be filled from the current list. 

 

It may be that there won’t be much interest in this initiative but the Competitions and Exhibitions Committee think it important that the facility is available and are keen to present an open and transparent process.