That *!%%##!! metre again!

[Irene]

David, congratulations on your win. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your poem. A well deserved win, and it is great to see the different rhyming pattern.
Regarding the timeline issues with comps, and you still waiting from October - have you contacted the competition organisers? They may well have sent something that has been lost in the mail, or there may be something that has been missed.
Because I organise a couple of comps for groups whose meetings I cannot get to regularly (one that I don't get to at all!), I have had an instance whereby I had posted the results, and believed they had sent out the certificates, only to have an entrant contact me about it. I was able to follow up and discovered they hadn't sent them out as yet, and I got them to email me an electronic copy of the certificate, and did them up myself. I would rather have an entrant contact me asking about results, then to have something slip through without knowing of it.
I must admit, I am often a little tardy in getting results etc out, due to my work committments - which is not a valid excuse!! - and had not really considered it from the entrants point of view of waiting to see if they can re-enter the poem in another competition. I take on board your comments and will endeavour to get the committees to get the certificates out quicker. I know with the problem mentioned above - I think it was a Boyup Brook comp, but not sure - the committee had been so busy leading up to the festival, and doing follow up work, that they were snowed under, but that doesn't make it easier for someone who is waiting.
And certainly, I was quite late getting the Cervantes certificates out last year, although I do try to get the results posted on this forum fairly soon after so entrants at least know whether they will be receiving an award.
I think communication is the key, and we shouldn't be afraid to ask what is happening or offer suggestions. Some organisers have obviously had years of experience at running competitions - or are just super organised!! - whereas some of us do not have the same experience (yes, that's me!!! - neither am I super organised!!), but are still working on it. Even in regard to the issue of publication, I will be re-looking at our entry forms, and seeing if we can re-word anything to make it clearer to entrants. I have also had people question the fact that we have a 40 line limit on one of our comps - again, we can look at that and revise it if need be. But the feedback from the entrants is what allows us to make changes to the guidelines that will encourage more people to enter. So everyone, please feel free to contact me with any suggestions, criticisms, etc regarding the comps I organise - they will be more than welcome!!

Catchya
IRene

[David Campbell]

Hi Irene

Thank you for your response (and congratulations)...it's good to hear the perspective from the organising side of things. My comments here are aimed at improving things for both organisers and entrants, that is, maximising the number of entries (and hence income) for organisers, and giving entrants a variety of opportunities for their poems. The main thing is to let people know as early as possible what the results are...and posting them here, as you've done, is a quick and efficient way of doing that (for those on the site, anyway). And there's also email, which many competitions use. I've always assumed that, if results are announced at a festival, then certificates/cheques must have been prepared for those who are there to collect them, so it should be possible to post the remainder to those who aren't there within a week. Others presumably make the same assumption. If there's no festival involved, then organisers should establish a timeline which allows for the preparation of certificates, cheques and return envelopes before the results are announced. Then everything can be posted off immediately after. I know there's a lot of hard work, all of it voluntary, in running a competition, but it's things like this that help to establish integrity and ensure that people keep entering.

Your Boyup Brook guidelines seem very clear. I particularly like the way you avoid the 'previously published' problem by allowing anything that's been published provided it hasn't won a first prize. And you give a date for the announcement of results. I have no problem with the 40 line limit. There are plenty of opportunities for longer poems, so this is ideal for those who like writing shorter pieces. If you publish an anthology, do all entrants receive one?

Yes, I'm still waiting on the results from that October competition, and it's not a case of something being lost in the mail. They use email and post results on a website and nothing has appeared. This is a competition that's been running for a number of years, but I doubt I'll bother entering again.

With regard to my earlier posts about clarifying the rules of that other competition, I wrote to the organisers on the 22nd asking if I could identify the competition on this website, but have not received a reply as yet.

Cheers
David