The Callers Advisory Board is not forgotten...

[proturkeyhntr]

I know everyone is busy bustin heads right now, but I just wanted you guys to know that I will start getting this thing ready to go in the next few months. Everything is kind of on hold right now. I will be getting in touch with my contact at the NWTF to set a meeting date soon.......

scott

[Jason Conrad]

Well since this thing has been kind of DEAD for a while I will fire things back up.

LOOKS LIKE THIS CALLING ADVISORY BOARD WAS A CROCK OF ----.

[ssm]

An email was sent to Tammy Condrey last week with all of the suggestions that were discussed here on dedturkey.

I recieved a phone call Monday night from Dennis Cogner. if you don't know Dennis, he the guy that is always back stage that tells you who is next to call at the GNCC. He has now taken Joe Fowlers spot over the GNCC. He told me that Tammy Condrey and himself were going to have a meeting on Tuesday to discuss everything that was sent to them. Once they have had time to look it over, they will then discuss it all with Bob Fountain. He said he would either email or call in the next week or so and tell me what changes they would implemment.

It sounded very promising. Here is the list that was sent to her:


Tammy, in an earlier email I told you that the callers were putting together some suggestions for the upcoming calling year. We have drug our feet and are just now sending them to you. All of these suggestions were discussed on an Internet Talk Forum that most all callers frequent and discuss contest calling. The following suggestions/rule changes were picked from wide variety of suggestions and level of callers. These seemed to be the most pressing or the easiest to implement.


These are in no particular order or importance:
1. Some sort of financial statement needs to be sent in by local contest organizers showing how much money was taken in versus how much was spent.
2. Free NWTF membership for a first time caller.
3. The local media should be contacted for all contests, whether it is the local newspaper, Channel 32 or ESPN. Let someone know!
4. Try to keep all judges away from the callers before the contest. That will be hard to do at most local venues, but it is a must at any major contest. No more judges sitting in the audience for two hours listening to his or her favorite caller practice.
5. Partitions between the judges.
6. No Cell phones allowed by the judges, a judge was text messaging two years ago as the GNCC finals were starting.
7. NEW SCOREDCARDS- Just a 1-20 blank, no more excellent, good, bad, poor at the top.
8. Have a CD put together to send to the local contest organizer with real audio of wild turkeys. The organizer can play it before the contest; this might help local judges be more on the right page.
9. Qualifications for all divisions. Who can call where?
10. Last chance qualifying contest on Thursday night. Would allow anyone in the country that is not already qualified for the GNCC prelims, to have another shot of getting in.
11. Change the Champion of Champions Division to a Master Division. They would compete just like the Senior Finals. The contest is open to whoever is qualified for it now, instead of using five different calling devices, you use whatever you feel you need to sound like a real turkey. Whatever five calls were used in the Senior Finals, that is what is used for the Champion of Champions/ Masters. The system must be changed to a 20 point system for this contest also, instead of the current 50 point scale. We believe judges have a hard time converting a 19 that they heard in the finals to a 50 point scale for the C of C. Do you give the caller a 47.5?
12. If the Intermediate Champion turns 21 during the year after he or she wins the GNCC Intermediate, that caller is qualified for the following years GNCC Prelims. It is harder to win the GNCC Intermediate contest than most local contest.
13. A contest should be handicap accessible, or at least a plan is thought about.
14. The ½ point system needs to be taken into consideration, was it a 19 or was that an 18, sometimes they are just right there in the middle. Might alleviate ties.
15. The term two series has got to be taken out of the rules. Many local judges take that two literally and will deduct points when a caller does not do two series or they cannot tell the break between the two series. A call should be asked for and the judge needs to compare that call to the best of his ability to what the real thing would have done.
16. The term head judge needs to be taken out the rules. Often times when a person is the “head “ judge, they will sway what others think.
17. Regional directors should attend some of the contests in their respective states each year. We do not know what all their duties are for the NWTF, but is seems that they could attend a contest and do several things:
A. Be versed in running a contest and help local organizers that have never hosted one.
B. Monitor existing contest to make sure that sanctioned rules are followed.
C. Sign up new NWTF members or at least talk with someone that might be interested in starting a new chapter.
18. Allow the CALLERS to choose who they would like to judge the Friction, Prelims and the Finals. Allow the callers to rank potential judges in a judging pool. The NWTF will select judges from this pool of judges. If a person is asked to judge the prelims, and that judge says they do not wish to judge the prelims, but they want to judge the finals. They get bumped back to the judges pool for the next year. The prelims are as important as the finals. The judges will be ranked on a numerical scale. If Judge Johnny Callsalot is the highest ranking judge by the callers, he is the first one that is contacted by the NWTF to judge one of the major contests at the convention. The judges must sign there scorecard of be given a number or color of score sheet, so that the callers can decide who is good or bad
Here are 50 possible judges to use for the judges pool, more would need to be added for this system.
1. Denny Gulvas
2. Larry Shockey
3. Ray Eye
4. Ernie Callendrelli
5. Paul Butski
6. Mark Drury
7. Scott Baeshore
8. Alex Rutledge
9. Mike Halter
10. Brad Taylor
11. Pat Strawser
12. Chris Kirby
13. Tucker Crisp
14. Dick Clevenger
15. Steve Morganstern
16. Kevin Matthews
17. Chuck Sykes
18. Terry Rohm
19. Kerry Terrell
20. Larry Linder
21. Tom Drake
22. Joe Drake
23. Butch Dill
24. Lamar Fussell
25. Cory Gulvas
26. Brian Gulvas
27. Steve Cobb
28. Benny Briggs
29. Steven Mitchell
30. Joe Blomes
31. David Metcalf
32. Valentine(won a bunch of World Friction)
33. Craig “Cornbread” Corbit
34. Larry Norton
35. Bob Walker ( the one from Alabama)
36. Randy Rose
37. Mike Battey
38. Randy Smith
39. Terrance Williamson
40. Jim Pollard
41. Shane Hendershot
42. Jason Conrad
43. James Harrison
44. J.R. Lanham
45. Tom Morrett
46. Robert Linder
47. Jesse Martin
48. Todd Clements
49. Wade Watson
50. Bill Zearing


Tammy, we all hope that these suggestions will be a help to you. We all think that you do a phenomenal job every year with the contest. We love our sport immensely, and want nothing but the best for contest calling and the NWTF. We have many more rule changes and suggestions to share with you, but we don’t want to come across like we are suffering from the “Whine Flu”. But there are a lot of small things that could be addressed in calling contest that would make things run a lot smoother for all involved.

Thanks, please let us know if any or all of this could be or will be implemented for the next year.
Sadler McGraw

[DWhitt]

Glad to see it's going somewhere. Great job, hope they change things around.

[proturkeyhntr]

I just wanted to thank Sadler for putting together the list of the suggestions and submitting to the NWTF. I have had several failed attempts at setting up a meeting with the "powers that be" like we had originally discussed. A round table meeting with an elected group to represent the callers, I guess wasn't in the cards. My apologies to everyone.

S.E.