an event of Costumer's Guild West, Inc.

Costume College Scholarships

By now you have heard that Scholarships being are available for Costume College®. But you might not be aware of the different types of Scholarships, where the money comes from to fund them or how you can go about applying for or winning one of them. There are two different types of Scholarship to begin with and the Scholarship Application Form lists various reasons why someone might be granted one of them. Let’s look at them individually, shall we?

First - the types of Scholarships available are “Tuition Scholarships” and “Full Scholarships”. The Tuition Scholarship is the basic, more usual form and pays for your College Registration. This gets you in the door to be able to attend classes. The Full Scholarship is the newer type and includes not just your tuition but also a ticket to both the Gala and the Fantasy Tea, as well as 2 nights at the hotel. Two of these were donated thanks to the generousity of benefactors who choose to remain anonymous. One of them has been awarded. Also, the Board has since instituted an ongoing Full Scholarship in Memory of Robin Pavlosky, a long-time member of the Guild, Past President, Past Dean and a hard working Programming Chair for many years at College. Robin passed away far too young, in 2001, and we would like to honor her memory and the College she was so instrumental in building by helping students participate and learn. This year there will be an additional Scholarship to honor Dennis Ming, who passed away the day before College 2008 began. Since they were not able to attend College, his friends and family donated the proceeds from the resale of their Gala and Tea tickets to fund this scholarship.

Most of the money to fund the Scholarships comes from Raffle tickets, Early Bird Marketplace tickets, and Bargain Basement sales during Costume College itself. In recent years we have received very generous donations from wonderful members. Some folks even organized a fundraising event specifically for the Scholarship Fund. To all of you that contribute in whatever fashion – Thank You All very much!!!!

Now on to the list of reasons Scholarships are awarded is: (1) so that the individual may be rewarded for their service to the organization; (2) be assisted due to hardship; or (3) (if beginning their costumer’s journey) be exposed to resources, gain experience and be encouraged in their costuming life.

The first reason we grant a “Tuition Scholarship,” is to people such as the Member-of-the-Year, the Dean or Programming Chair for Costume College or the President of the Guild. These Scholarships are granted because of all the time and work donated to the Guild / College during the year to help create the events or guide the group as a whole. Remember that the Committee for Costume College and the CGW Board of Directors all volunteer their time and it can be the equivalent of a 2nd (unpaid) job. Sometimes the Scholarship is given because the person will be busy performing their function during the actual event, may not have time to attend many classes and shouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of doing the work on top of it all. If they can squeak a class in while juggling their duties that is wonderful.

The second reason we grant scholarships (“Tuition” or “Full”) is so that folks who may be experiencing a hiccup in their finances will still have an opportunity to come and learn. These have been around for a long time but have not been as publicized as they should have been. We make no distinction between attendees to Costume College regarding how they applied/registered so there is no stigma attached to these. (Heck, I will attest that I have been on the receiving end of these in past years and am exceedingly thankful for it. Now it’s my turn to pass it on. Annie M.)

The third reason we award Scholarships is to encourage new Costumer’s just starting out in the world. How many of us have been blessed with someone else’s insights that saved us from having to re-invent the wheel? We hope to help them find the sources that we all searched so hard to find, to learn the things we have spend so much time to ferret out of books, paintings and photographs, and, above all, how much fun costuming can be. There is much more available to the Costumer today, and, surprise, not all of it is on the internet. It is a chance to network and hear the stories of how we learned from our mistakes or how to do an emergency fix or how to costume out of nothing. These are parts of our verbal history that would take way too long to write out but can be shared over breakfast or a grab-n-go snack. Think of it as “hob-nobbing with your fellow wizards."

There is one reason we award Scholarships that is not listed on the Scholarship Application Form. The reason is that these are prizes at events such as the Los Angeles County Fair, the LosCon Masquerade and AnimeLA. There are at least 8 Scholarships available through the CGW-sponsored categories at the County Fair. This year we gave away 4 of them (the other spaces went back into the Lottery to make space for more students). Let’s do the math here – we sponsor 4 categories with 3 prize places in each category (two of which contain scholarships) and there have historically been very few entrants. Only two of the categories seem to consistently draw entrants. However, one of these is a new category so perhaps it hasn’t caught on yet. (For those who may not know it, you do not have to live in LA County to compete in the LA Fair. The main thing is that the garment must have been completed within the last 12 months since the last Fair. See the web site for the LA County Fair for all the criteria and rules.) We offer one Scholarship at the LosCon Masquerade to the entry the Judges declare the “Best of Show” (workmanship and presentation). 2009 will be the first year for the AnimeLA award, so we are still working out what criteria will be used. Stay tuned to these pages for updates.

So you can see there are several ways to obtain scholarships to College – some old, some new. We hope to see more people participate in the competitions or apply for the various scholarships offered. It is easy enough to apply and, as my Dad used to say, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” We’ve set February 14, 2009 (Valentine’s Day) as the deadline for the applications to be received. This way, if you don’t obtain a Lottery space, you have one last chance to get in before the Limited Class packets are sent out. Go ahead . . . take the plunge!!!