AH1WSnake started this most interesting thread with an invitation to share personal experiences and views. I'll take the liberty of joining in from the perspective of one post-middle-age ship modeler. My mindset is, I guess, rather similar to Blackwolf's. I used to enter lots of model contests, but I no longer believe in them. In my opinion they've done at least as much damage to the hobby as they've done good for it.
About 35 years ago I was one of a group of folks in my home town who formed a local IPMS chapter. (The IPMS was relatively young in those days; so was I.) One of the first things we did was set up a series of regular competitions. They practically wrecked the club. The bad feelings between judges and competitors, and between winners and losers, drove some people out; those who stayed divided into armed camps that barely spoke to each other. I was as guilty as anybody else. Eventually I took a deep breath, realized what a fool I was making of myself, and went on to other things.
I ought to acknowledge that the Mariners' Museum ship model competition in 1980 had a good bit to do with getting my professional career on track. Shortly after that contest I got a job at the museum. Among my responsibilities was writing the rules for the next contest, which was set for 1985. In an effort to make it as good a contest as possible, I sent out a form letter to all the folks who'd entered the previous one, soliciting suggestions. Some - most - of those people responded courteously, intelligently, and constructively. The letters I got from some of the others (a minority, to be sure) constituted the most conspicuous exhibition of egotistical and downright babyish behavior I've ever seen from a bunch of alleged adults. I came close to sending back another form letter consisting of two words: "Grow up."
A particular bone of contention was the number of categories the next contest ought to have. Everybody, it seemed, was irritated that his or her model had been "forced" to compete against models of different types, periods, scales, materials, etc., etc. If we had heeded every suggestion we got, some competitor in the 1985 competition would have gotten a letter reading: "Congratulations! You've won the second place medal for an unpainted semi-scratchbuilt full-hull fully-rigged plank-on-frame model of a nineteenth-century sailing vessel with a prototype length of over 100 feet, built to a scale between 1/96 and 1/64 out of wood with hand tools by an amateur - outside a bottle."
I left the museum in 1983. I was invited to be a judge in the 1985 contest, but wound up in the hospital with a bladder stone at the crucial time. (Fate works in strange ways.) I did serve as a judge in the 1991 competition. It was a fascinating but frustrating experience. The three judges (one from Massachusetts, one from DC, and me) worked three full-time days on it. The models included some of the finest I've ever had the pleasure of seeing; it was a privilege to get such a close-up look at them. One big problem was that there were so many of them - about a hundred. The first thing we had to do was make a sweep through the whole group and rule most of them out of contention. That really bothered me. People had brought their models literally from all over the country and beyond - and most of them got excluded on the basis of about five minutes' attention from the judges. But we didn't have much choice. That process took half a day. We had a total of three days to work; we were taking leave from jobs and families, and the museum was paying our hotel bills. After we had the list of serious competitors down to about thirty, we spent two and a half more days picking the winners - and spent our evenings in the hotel going over the notebooks the modelers had submitted. By the time we got done we were making notes on the fact that the 1/64" photo-etched lettering on the dashboard of a naphtha launch contained a misspelled word. (The guy left out the first H in "naphtha." We gave him a gold medal anyway.) In any such event there's bound to be disagreement, but the winning models certainly were outstanding.
The judges, in the interest of self-preservation, got out of town before the winners were announced, so the museum staff had to take the brunt the reactions from the non-winners. Once again, there was a great flood of indignant correspondence and phone calls. One non-winner kept up a stream of letters for about three months; at one point he threatened to report the museum - and the judges - to the authorities. He started cooling off when he was informed that no such authorities existed.
Since then I've become a big booster of non-competitive exhibitions. Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum sponsored one a few years back. Modelers were invited to bring their models to the museum on a certain date. The judges examined all of them and identified all those that met a certain standard of research, scale fidelity, and workmanship. The museum then put all those models on public exhibition for several months. No model in the exhibition was identified as superior to any of the others; the public was simply told that all of them were excellent models. That strikes me as a remarkably civilized and sensible way to operate.
I now belong to a ship model club that meets at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, in Beaufort. (The next meeting is this coming Saturday, May 21, at 2:00; if anybody reading this is in the neighborhood and would like to stop by, we'd be delighted to see you.) I, at age 54, am one of the younger members. (That worries me a little.) When we set up the organization, ten years ago or thereabouts, we all agreed that it would have nothing to do with competition of any sort. Every May, in conjunction with the museum's Wooden Boat Show, we put on a public exhibition. The club members bring in their models, and the museum displays them to the public. We set up a background and photo lights, and take pictures of them. Members volunteer to man a booth in which kids, for $3.00 apiece, are invited to build models of fishing trawlers. (Average construction time: 15 minutes. Typical reaction to the experience: pride and ecstasy.) I can't recall hearing a single non-civil word pass between members of the organization. The members have a huge variety of interests, ranging from experimental radio-controlled power plants to 1/700 plastic warships. Everybody has a great time, we've all made new friends through the club, and I think it's fair to say that all our modeling skills have improved.
I suppose it's conceivable that somebody, some day may hold a competition that I'd like to enter. But at this point in my life I doubt it. I think I have a fairly realistic appreciation of my own models, and those of other people. A trophy won at a contest frankly doesn't mean much to me at this point. I don't feel like I need a judge - who may or may not know the subject better than I or the other competitors do - to tell me which models are better than mine; I'm perfectly capable of figuring that out for myself. And if by chance I do win something, I know I won only because Donald McNarry, Harold Hahn, and various other people, whose models are far superior to mine, didn't show up.
This post has gone on far too long. I know some folks get a great deal of satisfaction out of model contests, and it's not for me to say they shouldn't. I'm not suggesting that all model competitions should cease to exist. I do think, though, that the concept of the non-competitive exhibition is worth a look.