I am concerned about the announcement that the society will award a prize of $1000 for the best editing of an annual report published in Canberra in 2002-03.
An annual prize is a good idea to publicise the significance and quality of editors' work. Institutional reports of many kinds are a large part of the work of society members, and reports can provide a challenging demonstration of their best work.
But restricting the prize to annual reports is a mistake. The number of annual reports published is small when compared with the number of publications produced in Canberra in one year. This limitation restricts the potential entries to a small number of society members. (I suspect that only society members would be informed about this competition, as the effort required to publicise it widely would be considerable for an already overloaded committee.)
Annual reports typically have a limited distribution, restricting the publicity that could be possible - publicity aimed at those who are already convinced of the benefits of employing editors.
The cash prize of $1000 is large. In my view, it is too large for a supposedly cash-strapped society (as discussed at the last AGM), and too large for such a limited number of potential entrants.
I urge the committee to consider opening the category to include other kinds of reports. The entries might need some restrictions on length (not too long, not too short) and type of content, or intended audience (not too technical) to allow the entries to be fairly compared.
I anticipate that next year the number of categories would be increased to, say, three, each carrying a prize of $500: shorter printed publications, longer printed publications and electronic publications.
Ann Parkinson
1. We see two primary aims in running this competition:
- to raise the profile of the editing profession and the Canberra Society of Editors
- to recognise and reward, from within the profession, excellence in editing.
2. The committee has thought long and hard about the competition and the form it should take. Our deliberations about some type of competition began in the early part of 2002.
3. It was to help the judges and find our feet that we chose annual reports for this inaugural competition. Editing is a difficult business and so too, we think, will be the assessment of it. We felt that it would be easier to judge entries in a specific category rather than across a range of different types of publications, and annual reports are a well-circumscribed class of document. When we have more experience, we intend to think more broadly about different categories of publications, as Ann suggests. We see the competition becoming an annual event, embracing different classes or ranges of publications each time it is run, so that editors of all types of publications will, in one year or another, have the opportunity to enter.
4. The competition will be widely promoted, not just within the Society. In accord with the aims stated above, we have a strategy for wide publicity, including notices and editorial copy in The Canberra Times, the newsletters of all State and Territory editing and writing societies, and anywhere else we can make a mark. We would welcome suggestions on that.
5. The Society is not cash-strapped. We have some $17,000 in a reserve fund. The current committee sees these moneys as providing opportunities to mount special activities such as this competition. About half of our current reserve derives from profit from the 2001 national conference of editors and indexers. That money was received after the last AGM. Our financial problem lies in the day-to-day overheads of the Society. We have to work hard to ensure that our current membership fees cover the costs of routine activities such as monthly meetings, newsletter printing and mailing, participation in CASE meetings and so forth. We believe that the annual membership subscription should fully cover all aspects of such activities. The committee and membership have addressed that problem by agreeing, at the 2002 AGM, to increase the 2003-04 subscription rates.
6. We believe that the prize of $1000 is in no way excessive to recognise the work of an editor who brings great credit to the profession.
7. This is an ambitious project that is geared to bring significant benefits to the members of the Society. As noted above, we aim next time to run with a competition covering a different range of publications, but first let's learn to walk.
[27 May 2003]