6.11 Portable Points

[Canadian Paddler]

The advantage of the Aldi/Lidl model is that you can buy more stock or more stores.
Slalom is still voluntary and relies on volunteer organisers. Without doing the research it feels as though we have a shrinking pool of people willing to do the work to organise events or clubs wiling to support them.
Paddlers have been asking for div 2 events on 'better' water for a while and I do not see the Aldi model providing them.
Or am I wrong and there are lots of organisers clubs and sites ready to put on more events? If so volunteer here.
Or do.we want increased entry fees to pay for professional organisers?

[BaldockBabe]

Unfortunately Colin you are preaching to the converted, those that participate in this forum are representative of the very active, very valuable members of our community. We need to reach those that arrive at events, sit in their groups on their nice comfy camping chairs, munching on their picnic whilst moaning about how "little [insert name here] has had their [day/life] ruined because of some [incompetent/ blind/ biased] volunteer who clearly hates [insert name of child/ club]".

It would really be interesting to know how much entry fees would need to be if the true cost of the event was charged to the competitors. By that cost we would need to include the cost of all volunteer hours (including minimum wage/ holiday pay/ NI/ pension contributions), professional costs of timing/ event management/ safety crews/ first assists etc. Sometimes when watching people take take take from the sport and give nothing back I wonder if they ever consider the value of those they moan/ ####/ complain about.

On a more positive note, having now had the opportunity to talk to people from around the world involved in our sport I think we really need to advertise how lucky we are. We are one of best funded nations and give our paddlers far more opportunity at all levels to compete at domestic races. Some nations only manage a handful of events per year and that includes their selection races, others have regional events but only the very best will then get the opportunity to race at the key national events. You really would be pushed to find many nations (if any) that offer more than we do. It should also be pointed out that there are some nations that require paddlers to be entered by their clubs and at the same time of entry the club must nominate a minimum number of qualified volunteers to assist at the event - the number depends on the number of entrants. Thus, even at a club level the entries are ranked!

[djberriman]

Firstly can I point out a lot of time and thought went into this years PU proposal from a lot of people. It was published many months ago for comment and voted on at the ACM. All that has actually happened with regards promotion is it has been made harder to achieve via PU, therefore there should be less promotions based on PU so the situation if anything for those worried about the size of Prem it should be improved.

Regarding affects on prem, 55 paddlers were promoted to Prem this year of which 15 used a paddle up result to achieve promotion, of those 2 used 2 PU results and 2 used 3 PU results, Thats 21 results by my reckoning spread over 4 classes so about 5 per class. It probably means perhaps 1 person extra per class got promoted than would have by racing at Div 1 alone.

A PU result means they beat 40% of the prem paddlers at the event and next year they will have to beat 50%. I'm not sure how anyone can equate that as easy or undeserving, perhaps they had more opportunity that's about all but then as JS says without PU we are constraining peoples talent based on keeping a certain number of paddlers in each division rather than based on talent.

Don't forget those PU paddlers are helping make Prem races affordable and also helping at Prem events. It's also allowing them to gain experience on bigger more testing courses and learning to race without practice etc.

[djberriman]

Can someone explain how the quality of Prem is compromised by having more paddlers in it, some of whom it appears are classed as underqualified as they haven't served their time in Div 1, surely the same people win and those classed as underqualified paddlers come last, I don't really understand how keeping it an exclusive elite club based on numbers somehow improves the paddlers who remain or by having those extra paddlers the quality of the elite paddlers somehow diminish.

One thing a smaller division does do is increase race fees or means races have to be subsidised by those in lower divisions (via the slalom committee giving financial support).

[CeeBee]

Portable Points gives all paddlers the opportunity to choose more events to race at. This doesn't necessarily mean they will do many more races but does allow all our competitors in the sport more choice which has to be a good thing. Some paddlers, through work commitments, find entering 5 races quite challenging and this gives them more opportunities.

It will be monitored this year to see how it beds in , but I would have thought that for some families, with children in more than 1 division, this is an attractive proposition.

We currently cannot satisfy demand at Div 1 competitions and allowing Div 1 paddlers to paddle and earn points at Prem races will help this. For Div 2 paddlers who want better water, they can enter a Div 1 competition and know they are earning ranking points. It may be that the demand at Div 1 competitions will reduce as Div 1 paddlers will race in some Prem competitions instead which may then allow more Div 2 paddlers to race at Div 1 competitions.

If it is found that earning points in the Division above results in significantly more promotions than previous years, then the promotion points targets can be changed at the AGM next year. The most important thing it to let the paddlers paddle and keep them in the sport by creating positive opportunities. If you don't want to paddle in the Division above, you won't but some will be delighted to have this choice.

[paddlerparent]

If you are in div 1, this will give you 20 races from which to gain the promotion points that you need in order to get to Prem. This is instead of the 10 that you have currently.

I dont see where you get teh numbers from - there are the same number of races in Div1 + Prem next year as this year. Furthermore as someone pointed out, you will now need to beat 45% of prem paddlers to get 'promotion worthy' points where as last year it was only 40%.


SO i'm not sure i get what you are trying to explain re promotions

I was expecting to be corrected but seen nothing yet - so presume my assumptions above are correct

Lets look forward to 2017 & enjoy Christmas on the way


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[Arrowcraft]

There are 10 div 1's at which there will probably be 3 or 4 paddlers that score around 900 points or more, thereby accruing promotion points. There will also be 9 Prems this year at which a div 1 paddler that is winning races might score promotion points too. So that makes 9 +10 = 19 races at which people can earn promotion points. Last year you had to beat 40% to get 1000 points, but you don't need a thousand points, you might only need 900 points. (depending on your other results)

So the first paddlers to be promoted are likely to be promoted earlier in the season thus clearing them out of the division, then the second round of paddlers promoted will have more chances to win div 1's etc. So they will clear out too. Thus there is likely to be a third round of promotees at the end of the season, that would not normally be promoted. So there will simply be more people promoted. There will be people in Prem that might not normally get to prem and thus the division will become of poorer quality (at the mean).

That said, John Sturgess has a valid and compelling point. It's not about promotion or demotion, this is a false league. There are already three layers within Prem as it is. Operating open events and rank the race not the paddler is probably a better way. Unless you add in an extra competitive division between div 1 and Prem.

[Nick Penfold]

There are actually 20 races on the Div 1 calendar, counting each double as two races (two points-getting opportunities) and that has been the approximate number for quite a few years. So the extra 9 opportunities are, proportionately, not such a huge extra. And although you can just about get up with a 900 to count - as long as your other results are damn good, because you've got to have 5 results that average 950 - you can get up on three 1000s.

I think we'll find that we've set the bar a little higher, not lower, and there'll be a marginal decrease in promotions to Prem. Either way, the difference will be small.

In my book it's the 52-odd races available to Div 2s (not counting paddle up opportunities, which will be limited by the squeeze on entries at Div 1s) that are a bit of a problem. Counting all classes, 103 were promoted last year while 55 went up from Div 1 to Prem, so Div 1 gets very crowded as the year goes on.

[Dee]

I think there is less of a squeeze on div 1 paddling places this year.

Last year, Sheppy was full by 18 January.
This year we are only two thirds full.

Admittedly last year we ran as a 1/2, which we can't do this year.

Rather than lose the div 2 we are running it the weekend immediately following the div 1 - we currently only have a small number of entries for both days. It will run this year but if it proves non-viable then it will not happen next year and another Southern div 2 race will hit the dust.