# What Are AOS Charges for Awards?



## paphreek (Nov 18, 2010)

Does anyone know what the charge is for an AOS award? I remember that they had gone down and are lower for AOS members.


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## Rick (Nov 18, 2010)

Since I haven't been getting any awards lately I haven't paid any attention to recent price changes, but I think it used to be $60 for members.

Are you expecting a bunch


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## SlipperFan (Nov 18, 2010)

$60 for non-members, $36 for members. It pays to be a member:
http://www.aos.org/source/Orders/index.cfm?section=Shop_AOS&task=3&CATEGORY=AWARDS

You have to log on to see the members' price.


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## likespaphs (Nov 18, 2010)

i thought if you were not a member you had to join
thanks for clearing that up for me!


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## goldenrose (Nov 18, 2010)

Whew, glad I'm a member, not that I have anything award worthy  yet.


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## cnycharles (Nov 20, 2010)

careful! if you have odd plants and one gets a cbr or chm, you have to pay for the 'award' (ouch)


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## Ernie (Nov 20, 2010)

cnycharles said:


> careful! if you have odd plants and one gets a cbr or chm, you have to pay for the 'award' (ouch)



Write "Not for AOS" clearly on your show entry tags and judges are supposed to leave it alone for AOS consideration, but it is still eligible for show ribbons etc. If they ignore the sign and pull it then award it, you're not required to pony up.


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## smartie2000 (Nov 20, 2010)

cnycharles said:


> careful! if you have odd plants and one gets a cbr or chm, you have to pay for the 'award' (ouch)



well at least you are supporting the AOS and the judges. it feels good to be awarded too (not that I know yet)


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## Hera (Nov 20, 2010)

I'm glad this was brought up. Not that I've had anything worthy, but I never knew there was a fee!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Rick (Nov 20, 2010)

cnycharles said:


> careful! if you have odd plants and one gets a cbr or chm, you have to pay for the 'award' (ouch)



The odds of this happening are pretty low to not be worried of publicly showing your plants.

At the dozens of shows I go to I rarely see more than 10 AOS awards for every 300+ shown plants (although probably 25% will receive a local free ribbon award). And the percent of those getting cbr/chm is a tiny fraction of that. The bulk of cbr/chm are given to plants at judging centers where growers specifically bring in plants to be judged (and know about the cost).

So when the big first time (like for kovachii or exstaminodium) gets a CHM at a public show, those people are paving the way for that species to get the higher level awards for that species in the future (and usually with the same plants or selfings that bloom even better the 2nd and 3rd time around). Also the folks who own those same big first time plants paid big $$ to be the first to own them, and $40 is a cheap investment to improve the perceived quality of the plant.

AOS awards really are a form of marketing and increase the perceived value of a plant so you can get better prices for divisions and seedlings from this plant. So as Ernie says you can label your show plants to not get AOS judging if you want to stay out of the game.


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## cnycharles (Nov 20, 2010)

lol I had what I thought wasn't really a 'new' phal species and entered it in our show a while back and it turned out that nobody had every entered it for aos judging (phal braceana). It was nice that it got a chm, though the 'award curse' did claim the plant, and I did pay the fee. nobody had given the advice at our shows before that to point out 'not for aos judging'.

the odds are higher at our small show in syracuse and also in binghamton, because lots of our members like the 'insignificant' botanical species that often haven't been displayed in flower before and they get chm's or cbr's, rather than lots of catt and phal hybrids. true that the odds are fairly low overall though


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## Rick (Nov 20, 2010)

cnycharles said:


> lol I had what I thought wasn't really a 'new' phal species and entered it in our show a while back and it turned out that nobody had every entered it for aos judging (phal braceana). It was nice that it got a chm, though the 'award curse' did claim the plant, and I did pay the fee. nobody had given the advice at our shows before that to point out 'not for aos judging'.



It's always amazing what judges will go for, and what has or hasn't been given those early awards. I used to bring odd ball pleuros to shows and never got much more than a "neato" out of em. My only CHM is for a Malaxis calophyla that I brought to a judging center. When doing award research on the Pleuro group I found that Lynn OShaugnessy has put CHM/CBRs on a bazillion of that group. So that is amazing that Phal braceana had made it this long without seeing a judge. Oh well you've set the standard now!! 

Is the award curse that the plant has perished?


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## cnycharles (Nov 21, 2010)

yes, and the seedlings that I had made from a selfing  . I think the award was five years ago now, at least

after seeing other's success growing these types of phal species (chinese) I've decided that they really require greenhouse conditions to do well, which I don't have


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## tenman (Dec 4, 2010)

I'm sorry, but if a plant is awarded, then as far as I'm concerned, you have the right to put the award on the tag - paid for or not. The money doesn't change the fact one whit that the plant was judged worthy and above the rest. It still is the same plant. It won the award. Period. Paying for it has nothing to do at all with the plant's quality. They have it all bass ackwards [as usual] - the awards are a SERVICE of the organization to which the clubs hosting the shows belong. 

The only other option I see is just selling the awards outright, say $50 for an AM, $75 for an HCC and maybe $100 for an FCC. What's the friggin difference?


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## SlipperKing (Dec 5, 2010)

I see your point Tenman but AOS will pull the award if not paid for. For high price, flower quality award plants, a buyer will not find records of the award. He may not want to pay the sellers price. On the other hand, who ever looks up award info before they buy?


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## paphreek (Dec 5, 2010)

tenman said:


> I'm sorry, but if a plant is awarded, then as far as I'm concerned, you have the right to put the award on the tag - paid for or not. The money doesn't change the fact one whit that the plant was judged worthy and above the rest. It still is the same plant. It won the award. Period. Paying for it has nothing to do at all with the plant's quality. They have it all bass ackwards [as usual] - the awards are a SERVICE of the organization to which the clubs hosting the shows belong.
> 
> The only other option I see is just selling the awards outright, say $50 for an AM, $75 for an HCC and maybe $100 for an FCC. What's the friggin difference?



I would suspect that this is the reason one finds HCC's and AM's on tags of older plants and no record of the award in AQ+. Well, the $36 is down from the old $50 for members, reflecting, in part, the digitizing of photos. I'm curious, what do the charges go to pay for? The judges are not reimbursed at all for their time. Is it to pay for the cost of a professional photographer?

Here's an example of one such flower. I bought this one from an AOS judge who was reducing the size of his collection. The award was given provisionally, but the cross has never been named, and therefore, the award does not formally exist. Here also is a link to a previous discussion of the plant on Slippertalk: http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6130&highlight=Loft


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## tim (Dec 5, 2010)

another good example of this is Thunder Bay 'Flash' AM/AOS - no record of the AOS award anywhere...


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## cnycharles (Dec 5, 2010)

paphreek said:


> Well, the $36 is down from the old $50 for members, reflecting, in part, the digitizing of photos. I'm curious, what do the charges go to pay for? The judges are not reimbursed at all for their time. Is it to pay for the cost of a professional photographer?



digitizing I think has had a large impact. in the past, the awards photographer would have to pay for creating a slide for every awards center (it was 32 or 36 or something like that). for local orchid shows, the show organizers (not the aos) are responsible for the photographer and any costs; don't know about the awards centers, they may have to pay and of course if they do in the past they would have to pay for making copies of every awards slide which used to go into the hundreds of dollars for a few awards. if you had to mail one or a few slides to each judging center, then postage would be a large part of that awards fee (36 times whatever a small slide mailing envelope would be). 
now without slides, tons of images can be put on one cd, or they can be emailed to each center. I know orchid clubs/awards photographers are very happy that there are no more slides; that was a major pain in the [email protected]$%$ and very expensive


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## SlipperKing (Dec 6, 2010)

The slide production and distrubution is part of the cost but also the publishing in the AQ cost monies as well. Most of the time the photographer gets only out-of-pocket expenses back, no profit.


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## Shiva (Dec 6, 2010)

To me, AOS awards can achieve two purposes: 
For a seller of orchids, that's very cheap publicity considering the cost. And the more you get, the more your name gets mentioned in magazines such as Orchids or Orchid Digest among others. If you're in business, awards are an essential part of your business.
For other people like me, they are a recognition of their growing prowess. It helps bolster their self esteem as orchid growers. How much of that self esteem they need is up to them. I got an AM for a masdevallia and I really don't want to pay for another AM or a HCC. I would pay for an FCC if I ever get a plant good enough for one. After that, I'll keep my money for buying plants (or food).


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## tenman (Dec 10, 2010)

SlipperKing said:


> The slide production and distrubution is part of the cost but also the publishing in the AQ cost monies as well. Most of the time the photographer gets only out-of-pocket expenses back, no profit.



As for the AQ, they already charge everyone for it, so that's no expense.


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## Howzat (Jan 26, 2011)

Gee you guys got it cheap. Here the AOC charges $75 for an award. The local (state) regional judging charges $25. So for an HCC I usualy apply for a state award and AM or if ever I get an FCC then I have to pay $75 for the AOC (national) award.
In Taiwan, a team (about 30) AOS judges gave AOS award and charge $55/award. Even so some Taiwanese owners put a sign if they don't want to pay for AOS award. Last year at TIOS2010, I think 215 AOS award were granted, including about 15 FCC's.


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## Brian Monk (Jan 27, 2011)

Do those that win awards get anything? A certificate, or photo??


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## Rick (Jan 27, 2011)

Brian Monk said:


> Do those that win awards get anything? A certificate, or photo??



In the US?

Yes there is a certificate.
The plant name is registered and maintained in the records.
Photo published in AQ.

The Atlanta center made me note/greeting cards from the award photo of the couple of AM's I got. But I don't think that's a standard AOS thing.


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