PROVISIONAL Slalom Managed Calendar 2011

[boatmum]

Just playing devils advocate here but presumably somewhere there are costs for course maintenance, grounds maintenance, repairs and replacements etc which I suspect are pretty high at a venue such as HPP.

I suspect that the venue is now in commercial hands as it was a financial burden on the public purse?

Unfortunately public sector spending is being slashed in the current financial environment and monies that have previously been used to "subsidise and fund" sports activities are being diverted to fill the gaps in projects that are no longer being government funded.

[lesf]

Further to Dave's point, the revamp of HPP - was that paid for with public money? I suspect so

Les

[Dee]

Quote (Meg @ July 23 2010,22:42)
Quote
Only two divsion 1 doubles in 2011?


That is pretty disappointing.


We are also disappointed that the proposed number of Div1 double events has been reduced.

It would be great to see more Div 1 / Div 2 event doubles (or at least the same as 2008 and 2009) as this would:
keep the travel costs down;
give the competitors more exposure to the slalom site;
help reduce the demand on volunteers;
reduce pollution
and
could help maintain / incease revenues for clubs and local communities.
Happy to help.

As you will see from other threads Shepperton did apply (well before deadline) for a double div 1/2 and has been turned down.

[Seedy Paddler]

So for a strategically managed calendar:

Shepperton applied for a double on a natural site with no significant rental charges and were turned down?

We have included a double on HPP which has not been approved by site management and is liable to be unsustainable due to rental fees for use of the site?

We have several other events at HPP of a similar standing but Shepperton would be the only event of this level in the South Region.

Anyone like to explain the strategic rationale to the Managed Calendar?

[kendall chew]

I am new to this, so forgive my ignorance and daft observations; double events raise standards and keep costs down, yes? Better attended (double)events are more efficient, require less management than two separate competitions and raise more money for the organising club, Yes? Shepperton is a natural waterflow that can support a Div1/2 event,yes?

HPP is suggesting that we pay £8000 for the hire of the course for two days, yes? - Who owns HPP? what was agreed when HPP was taken over by this private organisation?
How much did we pay last year? Shouldn't HPP as a commercial entity support Slalom through its commercial activities. I was not aware that Rafting, no matter how exciting it may be, had become an Olympic sport!

There is a logic here that I am not following

[Munchkin]

I am new to this, so forgive my ignorance and daft observations; double events raise standards and keep costs down, yes? Better attended (double)events are more efficient, require less management than two separate competitions and raise more money for the organising club, Yes? Shepperton is a natural waterflow that can support a Div1/2 event,yes?

HPP is suggesting that we pay £8000 for the hire of the course for two days, yes? - Who owns HPP? what was agreed when HPP was taken over by this private organisation?
How much did we pay last year? Shouldn't HPP as a commercial entity support Slalom through its commercial activities. I was not aware that Rafting, no matter how exciting it may be, had become an Olympic sport!

There is a logic here that I am not following

Better attended? Nope, see my post on one of the other threads that showed that being a double event does not increase numbers. The only event this year that "suffered" from being a single event was Shepperton, all other events had similar numbers whether they are doubles or singles.

Less management? Why? Even a double is supposed to be two separate events.

Double events raise standards? How? To be honest I would have thought that they lower standards at many events. Why? Because at a single event you have the opportunity to officiate at the other event, sometimes this means you get to officiate at a higher level event which gives you exposure to the higher standard event.

[John Sturgess]

At the risk of repeating myself (Wot? Me repeat myself?) the complications on this and other threads that we are all wrestling with, arises out of one salient point.

We are assuming that we have to use a Divisional system to do four/five contradictory things:

1) Provide motivation for paddlers to progress (promotion, enabling them to compare themselves with other paddlers over a season, etc)

2) Ensure that there is a correct balance, spread, and quantity of races so that participants can race as often as they can/want to on the sort of water they want to race on.

3) Ensure that paddlers advance through the water-grades at a speed that means they are neither under-challenged nor over-challenged - and therefore do not give up as a result either of boredom or of fright

4) Execute our duty of care in terms of Health and Safety

5) Oh yes, and ensure a supply of judges at races.

I have news for you - there is NO SUCH SYSTEM

No other country even attempts this. And certainly those foreigners who I have heard express admiration for our system - it is because they assume that we have achieved some sort of magic trick.

So we need to turn the whole thing on its head, and ask ourselves how we would meet each of the in dividual needs listed if that was`the only need for us to look at. Then, provided with our five ideal models, see how they could be combined.

5) Judges.
(a) We could expect the last entries to judge - or expect all paddlers to judge - as we sometimes do/threaten to do now
(b) We could follow the French system - make each Club provide judges in proportion to their number of entries - and before someone raises the dreaded I-word, in France you cannot race if you are not a member of a Club: that is how you get yours FFCK card. Wouldn't work in England? Ask the Sprint paddlers ...
© We could follow the system used in most of Europe and the rest of the world, and make the provision of judges the organisers' responsibility

Whatever the system we choose, the same people would end up doing most of the judging as do now: largely paddlers' parents/significant others who have have had their arms twisted ...

4) If we were serious about Health and Safety we would hardly let Div 1 and Div 2 paddlers take Judges' runs at Prem races, while regarding them as not safe to race in the main event.

This one has the simplest answer: we have a slalom guide-book in the same way that river runners have river-guides, and climbers have climbing guides; and we grade the courses, with a suitable table of descriptors (Sowerby Bridge: Hard V Diff?)

3) No system can do this: but a slalom grading system would help parents and coaches to provide suitable guidance (you were OK at Sowerby Bridge - Matlock is also Hard V Diff - so Matlock would be OK)

2) This where the programme needs to be built up from the bottom, not imposed from the top - groupings of Clubs however constituted try to predict how many events on given standards of water their members need, and where. If nothing else, this would avoid nonsnse like those currently proposed for Shepperton and the Washburn.

1) Despite what has been suggested I am not an advocate of a single-division system: open entry is by no means the same thing.

But once we have liberated this point from its connection with a race programme, issues like a pyramid structure of divisions become non-controversial

We need to look at how other countries do their divisional numbers, and decide which one we prefer. In some case Divisional status governs entry to a few end-of-season races; in most countries divisional ranking has no effect on what races paddlers can do. But even where there are those 'confined' races, they are based on performance this year, not in previous years.

A suggestion: try the exercise outlined above, i.e. looking for separate solutions for each problem, and see where you get.