Bert,
With all due respect to you as a retired Professor of Chemistry, you are totally unqualified to judge at a World Orchid Conference as you would be unqualified to judge at any AOS judging. This provides further evidence why the judging was so poor in Dijon, believe me, you were not the only unqualified judge in attendance! I think this is why it is so important for knowledgeable people to screen all applicants for judging credentials at WOC's. I remember some idiot from Malta who got credentials for Glasgow (another Dragon Lady judging fiasco) by claiming he was a judge of the Malta Orchid Society. They turned out to be some small group who met in each other's homes, once a month and had neither a training program nor any serious orchids. I ran into him in Port Elizabeth, South Africa where they astutely denied his bogus credentials and escorted him from the judging area.
It's no different Bert, was I to turn up at an inorganic chemistry class and start lecturing. Probably the students would quickly sense my lack of expertise but even if I could hoodwink them for 50 minutes, I would still be a fraud. And that is what you were in Dijon and Bob Fuchs and Dorothy Bennett would have been seriously remiss if they had not brought this to the attention of the judging organizers. That these people did not rectify the situation speaks more about them than about Dorothy and Bob. I am sure there will be no bogus judges in 2008 and I would refuse to participate in any WOC judging which granted such people credentials.
Andy Easton
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