Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 11:00 am
Published on behalf of the signatories listed below:
An open letter to the UK Slalom Committee.
This is a personal letter from the signatories below, not the formal views of any club or region. It addresses the development of slalom within the London and Southern regions of England.
There has been much debate about the managed calendar, and the removal of ranking status of some events. One of these (Shepperton, March) would remove the last local Div1 and Div2 events accessible to competitors in the country’s southern regions. This is a symptom of a wider malaise, another ratchet notch in a long running downward spiral. This letter is a call to develop regionally based strategies to rebuild participation from the ground up.
Slalom participation has been through a slow-motion collapse from the 1990’s until now:
* Since 1989 the total number of nationally ranked K1M competitors has fallen from 2054 to 636, a two-thirds reduction.
* Fewer clubs are now active in slalom, there are far fewer experienced, active administrators and organisers. There are now NO active, slalom qualified, club coaches in London/SE who have personally competed above Div3.
* This sad, inexorable decline has come hand-in-hand with a loss of events (at least a dozen venues have been lost in L/S/SE/SW regions)
This was not inevitable, can be reversed and should be reversed. The urgency is immediate – in our regions we have clearly shown the potential of the sport to capture the imagination of youngsters.
* From a cold start in 2007, with support and encouragement from Shepperton SCC, Tandridge now runs the UK’s second largest junior squad. Recruitment is successful, coaching is delivered by enthusiastic parents without prior slalom experience.
* Winchester has seen a resurgence of interest.
* Once scratching around for trainees, Gordon Walling (the region’s one part-time BCU coach), now tries to cope with sessions attended by 25+ juniors.
2012 publicity and legacy can only help. But any further decline in the underlying structure of the sport will lead to the complete loss of these regions to the sport (and so, 30% of UK population).
Success on the international stage is a pre-occupation of the committee, an important inspiration, but not in itself enough. The sport needs strategies to support it at all levels if it is to be sustained and rebuilt. The UK Slalom committee should take a lead, giving the utmost priority to recovering grass-roots participation levels. The challenge varies greatly from region to region; only by supporting efforts at a club and regional level can any recovery be sustained. If local efforts are frustrated by ill-judged decisions taken at a national level, any progress at lower levels will prove transient and the decline continue.
As said, entry-level recruitment is NOT the problem. Access to the sport quickly becomes so. The sport has to be organised around the particular pressures on school-aged competitors. It is perfectly understandable that there are no Prem events in the southern regions. It is not acceptable that in 2011 we will have NO local Div1 events, and NO local Div2 events. Without some reasonably local events our sport cannot deliver satisfactory progression to talented youngsters. Instead;
* We have examples of enthusiastic youngsters rapidly progressing to Div2 then being withdrawn (protesting) from the sport as soon as their parents find the distances they must drive to events.
* We have several examples of talented, enthusiastic and ambitious youngsters knowingly compromising their chances of promotion. It is (rightly) impossible to argue to their parents that they should take one or two days off school to travel to a weekend of races that are 8+ hours drive away. Some withdraw from competition from March to June. Others withdraw from competition when just one more good placing would see them promoted. What sense is there in that?
This loss of potential talent is a loss to the future success of our sport. Access is fundamental, lots of other key prerequisites are in place.
* The region has venues with suitable water. Too bad that some have fallen into disuse (Old Windsor, Hambledon). Weir sites all, it’s true. Tough, chin up. Handle the water in front of you, it proved good enough to get Helen Reeves, Zach and Mallory Franklin started.
* We still have enough people around with the knowledge to run events. Just enough. With diminishing numbers they are at full stretch now and need new teams to learn the ropes – or we will lose yet more events (Loddon Div3-4 was the latest example).
* We have the green shoots of enthusiasm showing at clubs with no previous or recent slalom activity (Tandridge and Winchester).
* We have a permanently rigged training venue (Shepperton) with suitable boats available. A couple more sites would extend our catchment but at least we have something in a location accessible to huge numbers.
Good work has been done to revitalise interest in the sport in the southern regions, with very encouraging results. We urgently need to follow through with a reconstruction of the Div2 and 1 scene. The size of this task cannot be underestimated. Local coaching, organisation, training venue development, event venues, PR/recruitment, all need development in concert with a compatible competition calendar. Through this letter we are directly asking the UK Slalom Committee:
1. To acknowledge the immediate need for a Regional Re-Development Strategy with increased participation being the key goal
2. To accept this can only be successfully developed by local clubs in touch with the local participants
3. To accept that the scope of each region’s remit must include training facilities, equipment, coach development – and the local calendar of events up to and including Div 1.
4. Then to support their efforts - even if that runs counter to ideas of “re-balancing” or “streamlining” the calendar from a national perspective, or running Div1’s without the support of the national timing team.
We only get one 2012 boost per lifetime. Are we ready to capitalise on that?
Peter Bedingfield, SE Region Slalom rep
Nick & Amanda Westall, Tandridge CKC
David Lindesay, Richard Hodge, Shepperton SCC
Elaine Franklin, Windsor & District CC
Andy Avery, John Kent, Frome CC
David Waine, Shepperton SCC
Diana Fisher, Hastings & District CC
Neil Hazelwood, Justin Churcher, Andy Prout, Winchester & District CC
25 Oct 2010
An open letter to the UK Slalom Committee.
This is a personal letter from the signatories below, not the formal views of any club or region. It addresses the development of slalom within the London and Southern regions of England.
There has been much debate about the managed calendar, and the removal of ranking status of some events. One of these (Shepperton, March) would remove the last local Div1 and Div2 events accessible to competitors in the country’s southern regions. This is a symptom of a wider malaise, another ratchet notch in a long running downward spiral. This letter is a call to develop regionally based strategies to rebuild participation from the ground up.
Slalom participation has been through a slow-motion collapse from the 1990’s until now:
* Since 1989 the total number of nationally ranked K1M competitors has fallen from 2054 to 636, a two-thirds reduction.
* Fewer clubs are now active in slalom, there are far fewer experienced, active administrators and organisers. There are now NO active, slalom qualified, club coaches in London/SE who have personally competed above Div3.
* This sad, inexorable decline has come hand-in-hand with a loss of events (at least a dozen venues have been lost in L/S/SE/SW regions)
This was not inevitable, can be reversed and should be reversed. The urgency is immediate – in our regions we have clearly shown the potential of the sport to capture the imagination of youngsters.
* From a cold start in 2007, with support and encouragement from Shepperton SCC, Tandridge now runs the UK’s second largest junior squad. Recruitment is successful, coaching is delivered by enthusiastic parents without prior slalom experience.
* Winchester has seen a resurgence of interest.
* Once scratching around for trainees, Gordon Walling (the region’s one part-time BCU coach), now tries to cope with sessions attended by 25+ juniors.
2012 publicity and legacy can only help. But any further decline in the underlying structure of the sport will lead to the complete loss of these regions to the sport (and so, 30% of UK population).
Success on the international stage is a pre-occupation of the committee, an important inspiration, but not in itself enough. The sport needs strategies to support it at all levels if it is to be sustained and rebuilt. The UK Slalom committee should take a lead, giving the utmost priority to recovering grass-roots participation levels. The challenge varies greatly from region to region; only by supporting efforts at a club and regional level can any recovery be sustained. If local efforts are frustrated by ill-judged decisions taken at a national level, any progress at lower levels will prove transient and the decline continue.
As said, entry-level recruitment is NOT the problem. Access to the sport quickly becomes so. The sport has to be organised around the particular pressures on school-aged competitors. It is perfectly understandable that there are no Prem events in the southern regions. It is not acceptable that in 2011 we will have NO local Div1 events, and NO local Div2 events. Without some reasonably local events our sport cannot deliver satisfactory progression to talented youngsters. Instead;
* We have examples of enthusiastic youngsters rapidly progressing to Div2 then being withdrawn (protesting) from the sport as soon as their parents find the distances they must drive to events.
* We have several examples of talented, enthusiastic and ambitious youngsters knowingly compromising their chances of promotion. It is (rightly) impossible to argue to their parents that they should take one or two days off school to travel to a weekend of races that are 8+ hours drive away. Some withdraw from competition from March to June. Others withdraw from competition when just one more good placing would see them promoted. What sense is there in that?
This loss of potential talent is a loss to the future success of our sport. Access is fundamental, lots of other key prerequisites are in place.
* The region has venues with suitable water. Too bad that some have fallen into disuse (Old Windsor, Hambledon). Weir sites all, it’s true. Tough, chin up. Handle the water in front of you, it proved good enough to get Helen Reeves, Zach and Mallory Franklin started.
* We still have enough people around with the knowledge to run events. Just enough. With diminishing numbers they are at full stretch now and need new teams to learn the ropes – or we will lose yet more events (Loddon Div3-4 was the latest example).
* We have the green shoots of enthusiasm showing at clubs with no previous or recent slalom activity (Tandridge and Winchester).
* We have a permanently rigged training venue (Shepperton) with suitable boats available. A couple more sites would extend our catchment but at least we have something in a location accessible to huge numbers.
Good work has been done to revitalise interest in the sport in the southern regions, with very encouraging results. We urgently need to follow through with a reconstruction of the Div2 and 1 scene. The size of this task cannot be underestimated. Local coaching, organisation, training venue development, event venues, PR/recruitment, all need development in concert with a compatible competition calendar. Through this letter we are directly asking the UK Slalom Committee:
1. To acknowledge the immediate need for a Regional Re-Development Strategy with increased participation being the key goal
2. To accept this can only be successfully developed by local clubs in touch with the local participants
3. To accept that the scope of each region’s remit must include training facilities, equipment, coach development – and the local calendar of events up to and including Div 1.
4. Then to support their efforts - even if that runs counter to ideas of “re-balancing” or “streamlining” the calendar from a national perspective, or running Div1’s without the support of the national timing team.
We only get one 2012 boost per lifetime. Are we ready to capitalise on that?
Peter Bedingfield, SE Region Slalom rep
Nick & Amanda Westall, Tandridge CKC
David Lindesay, Richard Hodge, Shepperton SCC
Elaine Franklin, Windsor & District CC
Andy Avery, John Kent, Frome CC
David Waine, Shepperton SCC
Diana Fisher, Hastings & District CC
Neil Hazelwood, Justin Churcher, Andy Prout, Winchester & District CC
25 Oct 2010