Hi Ken:
Thanks for the feedback. I'm often accused of letting my mouth override my rearend so I was kind of afraid to say anything at all. I agree that no one should be excluded if they sincerely want to learn. The instructor just needs to understand who his/her audience is and that can be a difficult task especially if the audience covers a spectrum such as what is normally found in seminars. If the subject is too generalized, then you risk boring a lot of people. If the subject assumes a base level of understanding that is over a lot of heads, then you may as well be whistling in the wind.
Jim mentioned dividing the seminars into levels with prerequistes. That might be one way to approach it. Personally, if I was the cattle-caller, I would concentrate more on introducing a systematic approach to timber frame design, and leave the details for the guild workshops.
