FIP Exhibitions – Team leaders’ qualifications and duties

[A guideline for information only, not New Zealand Philatelic Federation Policy]
Team leaders and their qualifications
Team Leaders are usually experienced jurors who have in the past judged at least three FIP exhibitions. They should be acknowledged as experienced in their class. The philatelic commissions of the FIP nominates a small number of judges as being qualified to serve as team leaders in their classes. A team leader should have a broad knowledge of his class. He must have a thorough knowledge of the FIP rules in general (the GREX and GREV) and must know intimately the SREV and Guidelines for his class.
Duties of a Team Leader
  1. Instruct the team in the use of the scoring sheet and the time schedule
  2. Appoint a team secretary
  3. Know which exhibits should be judged by your team
  4. Confirm the method of work
  5. Take care of the apprentice
  6. Take care of transfers – if in doubt check with the Presidium
  7. Discuss any doubtful judgement before the summary sheets are finalised
  8. Control the summary sheets done by the team secretary
  9. Do the apprentice evaluation
  10. Sign and give the summary sheets to the Jury Secretary for posting
  11. Take care of informal requests from other judges for review of exhibits
  12. Watch the first reading and take notice of <<objections>> and <<reviews>>
  13. Handle the proposals for Gold and Large Gold medals
  14. Nominate for Grand Prix
  15. Keep your team silent and <<clean>>
  16. Be prepared to meet the exhibitors afterwards
  17. Be always fair and unbiased
  18. Know that you are responsible
Duties of a Team Leader in Detail
1. The team leader should learn to know his team thoroughly, and should find out where each member has his/her strong or weak sides. At the beginning of the jury work he should discuss with his team their method of work and their time schedule.
2. Among the members of each team the leader should select a team secretary to keep a record of the provisional results. This should either be the least experienced member of the team – often it is desirable to give this task to the apprentice. The team secretary should enter the results on the scoring sheets provided by the Jury Secretary. However, all the members of the team should keep their personal records of the judging points.
3. The team leader should know which exhibits he and his team are supposed to judge. If the team is large enough and the number of exhibits many, he may find it expedient to split up the team in two; appointing a deputy team leader. In those cases it is the prime duty of the team leader to ensure that the same principles of judging are being followed by both sub-teams, and he should also test out the results of the sub-team himself. Team leaders in the same class should agree on principles of judging.
4. During the judging process a team leader will either lead the judging of exhibits himself or let another team member lead, particularly where they have specialised knowledge in the area of the exhibit. The team should then agree through discussion on the points to be given for each criterion and thereby agree on the medal value. Some team leaders prefer to make each team member judge each exhibit separately and then make a poll of the points to arrive at a decision. This is a matter of personal taste.
5. In the process the team leader should also test the apprentice by letting him lead the judging on several exhibits. It is also the duty of the team leader to select exhibits from the area of other teams in the same class for the apprentice to judge on his own. If there is only one team, the apprentice may be sent forward to judge on his own at least three exhibits before the team gets to it. The results of the apprentice are to be given to the team leader in writing.
6. If the teams find that any exhibit is either placed in the wrong class or might be given better points in another class, a transfer request should be given to the Jury Secretary. The team leader should also handle any transfer requests given to him by the Jury Secretary.
7. Before the summary sheets are finalised the team should discuss thoroughly any doubtful judgement. If the team leader has reasonable doubts, he should consult other jury members outside his team with special knowledge of the area. He is also allowed, if the Jury Secretary concurs, to consult experts outside the jury if present at the exhibition.
8. The team leader should always bear in mind that his first duty to the exhibitors is to procure a balanced, fair and defendable judgement of the exhibit.
9. When the preliminary judging is done, the team leader should control that all results are transferred to a summary sheet by the team secretary. It is the duty of the team leader to check that this is correctly done.
10. The team leader should collect the test scoring sheets from the apprentice and make his valuation on the apprentice’s abilities on the special apprentice form given out by the Jury President.
11. The summary sheets must be signed by the team leader and handed over to the Jury Secretary for posting
12. When the preliminary results have been posted, time is allowed for all jury members to study the results. If any jury member outside the team feels that the awarded points to an exhibit is either too low or too high, he should ask the team leader responsible for a review of the particular exhibit. The team leader may then, preferably in agreement with his team, make a reassessment, if he feels that is correct. If he does not accept to make a reassessment, the award may be challenged at the first reading of the points.
13. The team leader is responsible for impressing on his team the necessity of keeping all the jury deliberations secret to non-members of the jury.
14. During the first reading of the points (up to and including Large Vermeil medals] any members of the jury, may challenge the award given, either by stating <<objection>> or asking for a <<review>>. In both cases the Challenger will have to meet with the team leader and the team for a review. If agreement is not reached, the matter may be brought to the whole jury for a vote. A situation like that should be avoided if possible, it is too much time consuming.
15. If an objection is made, the objector should be prepared to offer alternative points for the exhibits and motivate this. If a review is asked for, this may be dispensed from and discussed on the floor.
The next step is deciding the Gold and Large Gold medals. In the past it has been the duty of all jury members to make an inspection of all the exhibits thus marked, and this is their privilege still. Lately, however, the team leaders have made up an informal group to go through the list of proposals and give their recommendation. Where there is no agreement, the team leaders will examine the exhibits together and make a recommendation – sometimes based on a poll among the team leaders.
16. For nominations for the Grand Prix either all the team leaders or some selected by the Jury Presidium, are asked to nominate candidates. Such nominations may also be done by the teams through the team leaders, except for the Championship class.
17 If a critique is organised after the publication of the awards, the team leaders should be available on the exhibition floor to guide and explain the awards to the exhibitors, if they so wish
18. A team leader, is an experienced judge, should always try to be fair and reasonable. He should avoid any bias, be it personal or national, and he should not be too much influenced by a famous exhibitor or a famous exhibit. He should keep an open eye for possible forgeries, and he should also try to see whether previously highly rewarded exhibits have had valuable objects removed.
A jury may be wrong, but it is always right. A major responsibility of a team leader is to make the jury be as right as possible, and he must realise that any jury decision is a joint decision for which the whole jury is responsible.