John in Toledo
Mame
Here it is. You've all been waiting for it. (Moderator: feel free to move this thread to wherever you think it best fits)
Rules: Rules schmoolz. Play nice. Play fair. Be ready to learn and to work at it. Minimally, keep the plant alive for four years.
Purpose: Provide an arena in which rookies are pushed and supported to identify and put into practice fundamental tenets of Bonsai development. Wanna play? Be young enough at this to honestly call yourself a Rookie.
Overview: This is a long-range engagement, spanning multiple calendar years. We're trying to develop seminal skills and critical thinking in us rookies. We're hoping to get terrific level of support from "mentors" here, and to shift rookie thinking from "How much should I get done this season, and what is my next step?" to "What is my long-range plan, and what should I do this season to head that way?" The more and better we engage and listen, the better off we will be, and the better our plants will be four years from now. Focusing only on comparison to others and on ranking is (for the most part) not going to serve us well as rookies. Compare yourself to yourself, that is where the real growth happens.
Guidelines
Responsibilities of participants:
Judges will give some feedback here. Perhaps even a relative ranking.
Repeat this cycle 4 times and at the Autumnal Equinox in 2022 somebody will somehow identify those who have been most successful.
Judging guidance - @sorce is taking the lead on this. He'll hash it out behind the scenes and let us know what is happening. "Judging panel composition and grading scale aspects" are all in his court. Points are not really as important as learning to think long-term and to be strategic.
Prizes:
If your are in this for the prize, then you are missing the point. The tree and your connection to it will be the prize. Anything beyond that will be a "su"prize
We'll probably get lollipops or doughnuts when we are at the 4 year mark.
Any questions? Look for the simplest answer and that's probably it.
Rules: Rules schmoolz. Play nice. Play fair. Be ready to learn and to work at it. Minimally, keep the plant alive for four years.
Purpose: Provide an arena in which rookies are pushed and supported to identify and put into practice fundamental tenets of Bonsai development. Wanna play? Be young enough at this to honestly call yourself a Rookie.
Overview: This is a long-range engagement, spanning multiple calendar years. We're trying to develop seminal skills and critical thinking in us rookies. We're hoping to get terrific level of support from "mentors" here, and to shift rookie thinking from "How much should I get done this season, and what is my next step?" to "What is my long-range plan, and what should I do this season to head that way?" The more and better we engage and listen, the better off we will be, and the better our plants will be four years from now. Focusing only on comparison to others and on ranking is (for the most part) not going to serve us well as rookies. Compare yourself to yourself, that is where the real growth happens.
Guidelines
Responsibilities of participants:
- Find your schtuff. Pick a plant! Whatever you want to work on, from wherever you can get it, from whenever you got it, for however much you spent on it (it's not about the plant, it's about the learner!)
- If you want in and to "officially" start your clock, then start your thread before the end of April 1st 2018
- Tell/post about it at the start so everyone knows what your working with, and can see what it looked like at the beginning of the project. Share as much background on the material as you can. Folks will be cheering for us, and often that will show up in the form of advice. It's up to us to sort through it and see how it applies.
- Show/tell your first step. Share updates as needed. Feel free to ask questions, but don't be sad if the first response is "check out this resource and come back when you are done reading it"
- Don't be afraid to run this with several of your plants at the same time, but the one you choose to post in your first thread will be the one that everyone will be expecting to see throughout this non-contest.
- Continue to post updates as needed and seek guidance as required. The Big-Dogs are here to help and they want to see us succeed.
Judges will give some feedback here. Perhaps even a relative ranking.
Repeat this cycle 4 times and at the Autumnal Equinox in 2022 somebody will somehow identify those who have been most successful.
Judging guidance - @sorce is taking the lead on this. He'll hash it out behind the scenes and let us know what is happening. "Judging panel composition and grading scale aspects" are all in his court. Points are not really as important as learning to think long-term and to be strategic.
Prizes:
If your are in this for the prize, then you are missing the point. The tree and your connection to it will be the prize. Anything beyond that will be a "su"prize
We'll probably get lollipops or doughnuts when we are at the 4 year mark.
Any questions? Look for the simplest answer and that's probably it.