Dear Jan: I am obviously not a judge but I did want to offer a suggestion as I have been in your shoes before :) Hope it's okay??
The suggestion will be totally dependant upon the venue of your show. If it is possible to either go to a member's home, or even just a private room within the complex of the show, you might want to have a buffet style lunch. I was president of a small all breed club. What we did was wisk the judges off to a member's home that was 10 minutes away. We had a buffet lunch; however, we prepared "menus" which listed our lunch foods in such a way as to appear "very" special. eg. we described our salmon salad croissants as fresh atlantic salmon blended with a unique combination of crisp imported celery, garden fresh green onion and our chef's secret sause that draws everything together in perfect harmony. This medley is all laid upon a melt in your mouth tender crisp croissant. Each of our items was listed and described in colourful detail as a choice for the judge, then we offered an alternate choice, which turned out to be the same exact foods, but listed in reverse order. All of this was presented in a homemade menu. The front cover was different for each of the three days (as were the foods). The decorative touch was either nose prints, paw prints, or a list of breed clubs in the general geographic area. After the initial humour of the menus, and the lunch consumed, the judges were able to kick of their shoes and relax in the member's living room in recliner chairs. We catered to their every whim, more coffee, fussy stuff in the washroom, soothing music. The judges were emphatic about how much they enjoyed our efforts and stated that this was truly a relaxing atmosphere. They were flattered that we went to such lengths for their comfort. For years afterwards, whenever I ran into one of our judges from that weekend, they never failed to bring up how royally they were treated. It was a fair amount of work, but it was fun too - especially once we saw how well it went over. Pat Barrington - Barrington Cavaliers (Southern Ontario-Canada) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
