CA Judging Team

I'm sure the local CA youth who have participated in the judging competitions this year know all about what I'm about to type, but I thought I'd share my experiences up to this point on trying to get on CA Judging Team with those who did not get a chance to participate in it.

Since I'm fairly certain a majority of my readers are active in the rabbit community, most of you know that the '09 ARBA Convention is in San Diego, CA this year! Due to this, the number of Judging and Breed ID applicants have soared, which resulted in the organizers of the team selection to make 'judge-off' competitions, where all potential applicants were seperated into our respective age groups and given 3 rabbit classes and one cavy class to go over and place. The classes had previously been judged by a licensed ARBA judge and our placements were compared to theirs, with a maximum possible score of 200. There were multiple judge-offs at shows throughout the year, though if you were planning to apply to get on a team you were required to participate in at least two. If you participated in more than two you would keep your two highest scores. The last competition was at the San Bernadino show this past month. I personally participated in the March Hanford and April Bakersfield judge-offs.

If you had done the minimum of two competitions, then you had to fill out a questionare in which you described why you thought you were qualified to be on the judging team. This was the last requirement and was due at the end of June.

From this, several people will go over our scores and answers to questionare and pick 4 people from each age group to represent California at Convention this year. We should be hearing back from them in the next one to two weeks.

Anyway, I thought that some might find this interesting. (: This is just a very rought overview, I could have went into much more detail about the judge-offs themselves. I'd like to personally thank Jennifer Munoz, who was kind enough to answer all of my questions and organizing the judge-offs. This would have not been possible without her! I'm crossing my fingers and toes that I scored well enough to make the team! Lots of worthy youth applied and it's a shame that some will have to be turned away.

- Michael