Competition review - Changes in the competition structure
i take your point and agree with it please dont forget the old time paddlers who at times will kick #### (sorry for the rude word) in the paddleing world but have not got the fittness against the youngerster any more but we still compete against them and i belive they look up to us oldies
lets get it on
Comments from my perspective of organising the Nene event.
Changing to best of 3 runs will reduce the number of entries we can accept by one third - because our water time is severely limited. Actually we could have more time, if we paid more for it.
Reducing our entry reduces our income without having any effect on costs. Currently we just about break even. Any adverse effect on the balance would make the event non-viable.
Not permitting triple-division events would mean that we had to drop Division 4 - on economic grounds. Most of our net income (after admin fees) comes from Div2, partly because of higher fees, mostly because of larger numbers.
Commenting as an ex-competitor from the glory days of the '70s and '80s. The entries in each division are a small fraction of those in the past. One significant factor is that we now have 5 divisions compared to 3 and a bit in 1971 (novice paddlers were pretty much certain of promotion after 2 events, as they just had to record 2 times). This has had another long-term effect, when combined with the smaller number of events then. Clubs used to go to events as a club, so you'd get the div 1, 2 and 3 paddlers together. When the number of divisions reached 6, and it got harder to be promoted or avoid relegation, paddlers scattered, and the club structure was badly weakened. Then the paddlers went independent, and there were no longer role models in a club to pull the youngsters along.
The final nail was when playboating arrived. Until then the only effective way to go and paddle decent water, without a lot of letter-writing and phone calls, was to go to slaloms. Now there are park-and-play sites which have taken over. As a result the "social paddlers" who topped up the numbers are in playboating instead of slalom.
A side effect of that change was that slalom became more competitive, as the more casual members were absent, and the image became cliquey and hostile to non-slalom paddlers, discouraging new participation. That perception still lingers, although the grounds for it are no longer present.
Which doesn't help in creating a resurrection, but I hope it might stir some thoughts from other people.
My feeling is that we need less divisions, and less events, which should get the numbers up at each division in an event, which in turn makes it possible to return to single or double division events. At the moment triple division events are an economic necessity. The reason for it is the small number of entrants.
Changing to best of 3 runs will reduce the number of entries we can accept by one third - because our water time is severely limited. Actually we could have more time, if we paid more for it.
Reducing our entry reduces our income without having any effect on costs. Currently we just about break even. Any adverse effect on the balance would make the event non-viable.
Not permitting triple-division events would mean that we had to drop Division 4 - on economic grounds. Most of our net income (after admin fees) comes from Div2, partly because of higher fees, mostly because of larger numbers.
Commenting as an ex-competitor from the glory days of the '70s and '80s. The entries in each division are a small fraction of those in the past. One significant factor is that we now have 5 divisions compared to 3 and a bit in 1971 (novice paddlers were pretty much certain of promotion after 2 events, as they just had to record 2 times). This has had another long-term effect, when combined with the smaller number of events then. Clubs used to go to events as a club, so you'd get the div 1, 2 and 3 paddlers together. When the number of divisions reached 6, and it got harder to be promoted or avoid relegation, paddlers scattered, and the club structure was badly weakened. Then the paddlers went independent, and there were no longer role models in a club to pull the youngsters along.
The final nail was when playboating arrived. Until then the only effective way to go and paddle decent water, without a lot of letter-writing and phone calls, was to go to slaloms. Now there are park-and-play sites which have taken over. As a result the "social paddlers" who topped up the numbers are in playboating instead of slalom.
A side effect of that change was that slalom became more competitive, as the more casual members were absent, and the image became cliquey and hostile to non-slalom paddlers, discouraging new participation. That perception still lingers, although the grounds for it are no longer present.
Which doesn't help in creating a resurrection, but I hope it might stir some thoughts from other people.
My feeling is that we need less divisions, and less events, which should get the numbers up at each division in an event, which in turn makes it possible to return to single or double division events. At the moment triple division events are an economic necessity. The reason for it is the small number of entrants.
Several people have commented on entry systems. As you may know we have taken online entries the last two years, and it has worked well, especially this year. (We don't take the money online, as credit cards get far too complicated. We could use PayPal, but I don't know what proportion of paddlers would be prepared to use it.)
I would love to be able to link the system to a database of current rankings - but the important word is CURRENT. An online yearbook would be much too far out of date by August. Every one of the entries which had questionable bib numbers, or none, were not in the yearbook for the division concerned.
For the technically minded, I'll describe the system. First is the web page. This is written in a script language called php, because it works with the greatest selection of browsers- not just Internet Explorer. This emails the details entered to me. That's the visible bit.
An import program reads the emails, works out what data to put into which files and enters the competitor. It also creates a file which is later used to print the cards. Because I wrote the whole package which runs the event, it was relatively simple to add the importer.
The cards are printed by mail-merging them into a DTP document which holds the card layout. This means that if the card design is changed, it is simple to move the printed output on the card.
The only problem I has this year was that I take my main holiday during the entry period, and my mailbox filled up with junk email, so a number of entries were lost. Fortunately, because we didn't take money online, people posted me cheques, which alerted me to the missing entries. I have worked out how to prevent this next year.
The big advantage for us is that we have most of the entries in advance, so the huge typing job on Sunday morning, which held up the event, wasn't necessary this year. As a result we managed to start on time. The expectation of reaching our entry limit also prompted people to enter in advance - shades of 1980 when your entry would be returned if it wasn't at least 4 weeks before the event.
I would love to be able to link the system to a database of current rankings - but the important word is CURRENT. An online yearbook would be much too far out of date by August. Every one of the entries which had questionable bib numbers, or none, were not in the yearbook for the division concerned.
For the technically minded, I'll describe the system. First is the web page. This is written in a script language called php, because it works with the greatest selection of browsers- not just Internet Explorer. This emails the details entered to me. That's the visible bit.
An import program reads the emails, works out what data to put into which files and enters the competitor. It also creates a file which is later used to print the cards. Because I wrote the whole package which runs the event, it was relatively simple to add the importer.
The cards are printed by mail-merging them into a DTP document which holds the card layout. This means that if the card design is changed, it is simple to move the printed output on the card.
The only problem I has this year was that I take my main holiday during the entry period, and my mailbox filled up with junk email, so a number of entries were lost. Fortunately, because we didn't take money online, people posted me cheques, which alerted me to the missing entries. I have worked out how to prevent this next year.
The big advantage for us is that we have most of the entries in advance, so the huge typing job on Sunday morning, which held up the event, wasn't necessary this year. As a result we managed to start on time. The expectation of reaching our entry limit also prompted people to enter in advance - shades of 1980 when your entry would be returned if it wasn't at least 4 weeks before the event.
Alan, very interesting personal view of the problems as you see them with the current slalom set up, and nothing there that i disagree with.
I think that there could/should be drop in the number of divisions. I know that alot of people will argue that if 2/3/4 were combined then the chances of having very little whitewater experience before going into Div 1 would weaken the sport. But to be honest i think thats rubbish.
Alot of the time i see little to no difference between div 4 and 3 paddlers so this should be combined anyway, and the difference between div 4/3 paddlers and the those who finish in the bottom half of div 2 is often negligible.
If this combination of divisions was undertaken and the promotion from the combined divisions made a little harder then i think events would swell in numbers with more clubs attending.
Plus if the performances of the paddlers in all divisions was re evaluated and a greater number of low result full season competitors demoted at the end of the season then perhaps the number of entries to events would even out. I know demotion is not nice for those that experience it but if you are struggling to get even a reasonable amount of points over a given number of events then being in lower division is probably more suitable.
I only half heartly paddled for K1 2 seasons in the late eighties as a teenager got to division 2, enjoyed it loads but the lure of going to the pub with my mates was too much. So late last year after a break of 17 years i applied for ranking status got ranked into div 2, paddled for 2 months and got promoted to div 1 without really touching white water. Obviously i am not the most experienced paddler but i can hold my own in div 1 and to be honest i think if a paddler can get to div1 with a good flatwater gate technique then they will also be able to learn how to handle the water to reasonable degree at the Div 1 events fairly quickly.
I think that there could/should be drop in the number of divisions. I know that alot of people will argue that if 2/3/4 were combined then the chances of having very little whitewater experience before going into Div 1 would weaken the sport. But to be honest i think thats rubbish.
Alot of the time i see little to no difference between div 4 and 3 paddlers so this should be combined anyway, and the difference between div 4/3 paddlers and the those who finish in the bottom half of div 2 is often negligible.
If this combination of divisions was undertaken and the promotion from the combined divisions made a little harder then i think events would swell in numbers with more clubs attending.
Plus if the performances of the paddlers in all divisions was re evaluated and a greater number of low result full season competitors demoted at the end of the season then perhaps the number of entries to events would even out. I know demotion is not nice for those that experience it but if you are struggling to get even a reasonable amount of points over a given number of events then being in lower division is probably more suitable.
I only half heartly paddled for K1 2 seasons in the late eighties as a teenager got to division 2, enjoyed it loads but the lure of going to the pub with my mates was too much. So late last year after a break of 17 years i applied for ranking status got ranked into div 2, paddled for 2 months and got promoted to div 1 without really touching white water. Obviously i am not the most experienced paddler but i can hold my own in div 1 and to be honest i think if a paddler can get to div1 with a good flatwater gate technique then they will also be able to learn how to handle the water to reasonable degree at the Div 1 events fairly quickly.