You're right Gil, I too would like to see the judging teams set up previous to the convention. On the national registration forms it ask if you are a national judge. It would be so easy to add a question of what category (ies) and although it would pose more work for the registrar they could send a list to the various head judges and since most head judges have worked with many of the individuals they in turn could set up judging teams.....lots of work and time , but possible. As usual a judge could opt out of a category in which he or she had an entry and go to another team while that class was being judged...we see this all the time so no big controversy there. I personally know of several individuals who regularly compete (and win) at nationals in the automotive categories who just "refuse" to judge. I have in the past asked these folks to help out and they have just flat said, "No way, I'm going to do thus and such on Friday evening or just said they're not interested"...so, what to do? Volunteers are volunteers you can't force them. On the point of recruiting armor and/or aircraft judges in my experience they have been very competent in judging the "basics" which is always a major point. As to "authenticity" of a particular model sometimes they can be a little leary of weighing in on that area but all in all they have always seemed to me at least very competent as are most of the experienced judges. Now I need to go back and read more of the earlier contributions to this topic and see if a really comprehensive group of suggestions and ideas can be compiled for approaching the NCC.