Demos - Paddle up + Portable points impacting numbers?

[paddlerparent]

Having only 4 boats doing Demo's at the British open (Sat) which were all K1 & only 2 K1M demoing at Graveyard Prem (Sat) - there is a problem getting enough boats for Demo's for Prem races now, demos' are very useful for those paddlers going early in the day what ever class that may be. This could be down to paddle up's; the paddle up numbers are increasing dramatically.

I'm interested in peoples thoughts ahead of proposing a motion to scrap paddle up and to vote against portable points based on this being the cause of the issue. there may be a comprise such as you can paddle up in one class if you are in prem in another - all ideas will be good ideas

Obviously if there is capacity for increased numbers at prem race this needs to be considered too - the last thing that needs to happen is to reduce the revenue at these races (especially those where water fee's are high such as Tee's Lee Valley & Cardiff).

[SilverSurfer]

This issue has been raised before, paddle up/portable points does impact the number of paddlers available to do judges and demo runs. But those voting in favour of portable points believe the benefits outweigh the downsides. Personally I disagree, I think we are trying to fix something that isn't broken for a small number of paddlers.

Specifically to LV and Tryweryn Premier races, the race format also has an impact on available paddlers to do judges/demo runs. When a domestic Premier race is unnecessarily dragged out over 2 days following the ICF format, paddlers are less likely to attend due to cost. Any domestic race, regardless of division should be run over a single day.

[JimW]

Surely we just need paddlers to appreciate that if they aren't consistently finishing in the top half of their current division (maybe as little as top quarter?) they are wasting their time paying to paddle up and would be much better off offering to do demos or judge to get free runs on the harder course to build up their experience?

[BaldockBabe]

. But those voting in favour of portable points believe the benefits outweigh the downsides. Personally I disagree, I think we are trying to fix something that isn't broken for a small number of paddlers.
.

I agree!!! I thought that as the committee had dropped PP as a motion that this would finally kill it but unfortunately it is still going

I still can't see that it will benefit the sport as a whole in the long run.

I also think that paddle-up should be limited to, say, the top 15 in the lower division at, say 2 weeks, before the paddle up event...

[CeeBee]

Some Paddle Ups may have opted to be demo boats but they would need to know they have this option.

So for races where we want demo boats, we need to publicise what we are looking for and how they will be selected. There were actually more than 4 demo boats at the British Open as my son did C1 demos rather than race as he wasn't race fit. There were also additional demo boats on the Sunday as people were eliminated after Saturday.

It is quite clear from the start list for Prem races, that Paddle Ups are popular. There are a lot of Div 1 paddlers chasing promotion to Premier and getting experience of racing at Prem with no practice runs is beneficial for when they do get to Prem. Similarly for Div 2 paddlers chasing promotion to Div 1, racing at Div 1 on a harder course is also beneficial for when they get to Div 1.

If a family are travelling to an event with 1 prem paddler and a Div 1 paddler, a Paddle Up is a good option as they get proper race experience on a scheduled start list with the buzz that goes with competing properly in a ranking race.

The officials race will never be the same. Officials runs are squeezed in often at the start of the day when an event may start late and at the end of the day. Paddlers are often judging just before their runs and have got cold judging so there is no comparison between an officials race and a ranking race hence why paddlers are opting to pay the entry fee. And if you have already committed to the travel and accommodation costs to attend the race, you want to compete rather than race as an official.

We have always relied on volunteers - paddlers and parents to come forward at ranking races to help judge. This has always been a juggling act and has required organisers to be quite tenacious to recruit the volunteers required. There are enough non paddling adults at all Div 1 and prem races that could judge who don't. So, we need to look at how we get more parents to volunteer at races they are at anyway starting off with Prem?

In an ideal world, all paddlers and their families would give time back by judging at races.

Consider a typical Premier race. On average, at any one time there will be 7 Section Judges, 3 timing team, 7 gate judges, 1 starter, 1 finisher and 2 control clerks taking penalties = 21 volunteers x 6 hours racing per day = 126 volunteer hours. This works out at 250 hours over the weekend. If there are 160 competitors , this works out at about 1.5 volunteer hours per person to run the race. (This doesn't take into account the time that the organising club spend pre and post event on paperwork and the course).

I think we need to set some expectations on what volunteers are required by each club based on ranking paddlers for that club. as we are currently relying far too heavily on too few people. All clubs with paddlers racing in Prem on a regular basis need to play their part in running ranking races and/or helping at races over the year.

So, each club with paddlers racing regularly in Prem would be asked to provide a certain number of volunteers working a certain number of voluntary hours across the races in a season . If the club had 10 prem paddlers they would provide twice the voluntary hours of a club with 5 paddlers. Each club would declare who their volunteers are (parents or paddlers) and what skills they have e.g. My club has a Section Judge, a finisher and timing team members and also runs 3 races. Club volunteers would be trained for any roles required starting off as gate judges.

It wouldn't be an exact science but by doing this based on end 2016 rankings, it might nudge paddlers and parents from clubs who are not currently sharing the workload to consider doing so. Maybe even publishing a complete list of the volunteers and the clubs they are assigned to would educate us all.

[Slapdash Sal]

I agree that lack of demos and judges is an issue. I think many of the younger paddlers don't even think about it. I suggested judging and doing an official's run to a paddler on Sunday at Graveyard and she got so much out of it. Several of us are thinking that it might be useful to limit the number of paddle-ups e.g. Top 20% of each division at the time of the race.
Thoughts?

[andy n]

I completed an analysis of the Lee Valley Prem race in April and submitted the following proposal to the Slalom Committee for consideration. The idea is to allocate gate judges by club according to the number of entries that the club has at the event. Hope it makes some sense - difficult to post what was originally a PDF.

Lee Valley Prem and GB u23/Junior Selection Saturday 9th April 2016

Entries by Class C1M 34 (inc 5 PU), C1W 19 (inc 4 PU), K1M 77 (inc 22 PU), K1W 53 (inc 15 PU), C2 5
Total 188 (inc 46 PU)

Entries by Club

HPP 32 Lee Valley 28 Stafford & Stone 22 CRCats 15 Breadalbane 11 Tees 10
Ind or Sponsored 10 Seren Dwr 9 Strathallan 7 Shepperton 5 Bradford & Bingley 4
Manchester 4 Bala 3 Viking 3 Windsor 3 Aberdeen 2 Copeland 2 Lisburn 2
Llandysul 2 Lower Wharfe 2 Mold 2 Rugby 2 Stirling 2 Break Out 1
Forth 1 Midland 1 Proteus 1 Selkirk 1 Winchester 1

Allocation of Gate Judging Stints
The event ran for approx 2 x 3½ hours.
There were 6 Section Judge positions.
Assume 8 Gate Judge positions to allow for more difficult sections.
If each Gate Judge stint is 1h 10m then 48 stints are required to cover the race.
With 188 entries, allocate stints at ratio 1:4 per club e.g. HPP with 32 entries would cover 8 stints.

Practicalities and Issues
Needs coordinating by race organiser and also within each club. Easier for a club or close group (e.g. nation or region) but who coordinates the clubs with very few paddlers and the independents?
Easiest if a club or group of clubs share a gate judge position all day.
Some clubs will not have sufficiently knowledgeable/experienced gate judges. The overall standard of judging at the event may fall.
The judging duties would hopefully fall on parents rather than the paddlers themselves.

Example Gate Judge Allocation

Judge Pos Stint 1 Stint 2 Stint 3 Stint 4 Stint 5 Stint 6
Section A HPP HPP HPP HPP HPP HPP
Section B1 HPP HPP LV LV LV LV
Section B2 LV LV LV South South South
Section C S&S S&S S&S S&S S&S S&S
Section D Sco Sco Sco Sco Sco Sco
Section E1 Sco Sco Sco Sco Misc Misc
Section E2 Wales Wales Wales Wales Ind Ind
Section F North North North North North North

[andy n]

There is a need for demos of a reasonable quality not just choosing the best of the available judges. At one time many of the coaches on the bank would have completed demo runs. Many are, after all, former International paddlers, some even World Champions!

[JimW]

Something similar was proposed for one of the Scottish races this year (I can't remember which one, probably ours!) when there were very few volunteers to judge within a few days of the event.

It was a more simple (perhaps less fair) proposal - simply to allocate a judging position and time slot to each club (or groups of 2 or 3 clubs with not many entries) and leave it entirely up to the club who they sent to judge at the alloted time whether that be paddlers, parents, siblings, someone from another club they could sweet talk into doing it etc. In the end I recall enough volunteers came forward on the day. There were probably only 4 or 5 sections and 4 stints though.

That is another issue for judging (and probably demos), people not bothering to send in officials cards or email to volunteer in advance, but turning up on the day to help (I'll pretend none ever turn up expecting to do officials runs without working). It helps, but it would help the organisers a lot more if you could let them know at least 2 weeks before the event, after that things start getting frantic and there are lots of jobs to fill.

As for quality of demos at prem races, don't worry - I'm not going to volunteer!

[Nick Taylor]

Kudos to Andy for making a proposal we can discuss

I completed an analysis of the Lee Valley Prem race in April and submitted the following proposal to the Slalom Committee for consideration. The idea is to allocate gate judges by club according to the number of entries that the club has at the event.

My instinct is that a framework that makes people want to judge will be easier to run & more successful than one that forces them to judge but I also think that there is a role for the clubs to play in moving forward & solving the problem of insufficient judges.

How would we deal with 'the clubs''?
I'm Viking's club secretary. Would the event organiser ask me to provide judges? What would the sanction be if I failed?

Please don't take this as negative - just trying to work out what making clubs responsible for judging would look like

[John Sturgess]

It would require a (long overdue) development of the role of Slalom Clubs
2 situations where it works:
in GB: Interclubs
in France: at all slaloms
Situation where it used to work:
Inter-regionals at Llangollen
What do those three have in common? Entries were/are submitted by the club/region, not by individuals
People would howl that it could not work in Britain: what about the Independents?
Answer to that: it works in Sprint

[CeeBee]

I would see anyone from the club at the event coordinating the judges from their club for the timeslots they have been allocated.

We have done this at the Alva Div 3/4 for many years and it works well. We've either given 1 position to 1 club or to a couple of clubs to share so it could be first runs Judge A is Club A and second runs Club B. It allows the people in the club to get together and work out what judging slots suit them when and also allows paddlers to be used for short stints more easily after they have raced.

It does however need to take into account the clubs that are providing people to the timing team and as Section judges on the weekend at this will diminish the number of people they have available and these clubs should be given credit for their contribution to that race.

It would also reduce the burden on the organiser and the organising club who have enough to do already.

[lesf]

There's a bit of a presumption that paddle up equals less people to judge and help out.

I paddled up at the British Open at Lee Valley, and did several stints on safety. I paddled up at the Graveyard Prem race and when asked happily did a judging stint. Had it not been for paddle up I probably wouldn't have gone to the events so you'd have had less volunteers. Likewise others that were paddling up did similar or their parents did various volunteering roles.

As for Demo runs, it has always been a problem getting enough. I know at the Graveyard race there were paddlers there doing judges runs that could have done demo runs but weren't asked.

[djberriman]

At Howsham this year I 'advertised' on this board and asked well in advance at other events for judges and safety etc and also accepted officials entries by any means possible (text, email, facebook, instant mesage etc) and had no shortage of help - thank you to everyone who helped or offered to help.

Judging was organised by a member of our team but was done on a white board (idea stolen from Les) so it was easy to update and if a stint didn't fit with their commitment as long as judges could find someone to swop with then they could do so. It wasn't a perfect system but seemed to work pretty well.

I assigned a number of people to a particular judging headset in control and they worked out their own routine around their other commitments. I can't remember having to chase anyone up as they all knew what they had comitted to as they had organised it.

So I think the key to getting volunteers is asking well in advance, if you don't attend races then get someone who does to do this on your behalf and hopefully you will be pretty much sorted before the event.

My advice is to be as flexible as possible and fit round the times your volunteers can commit as they will all have other things to do.

If you are still short perhaps its worth putting up a very clear signup board on Friday with a list of jobs/positions that need filling, often I am sure people are willing to help but it's not always obvious who to ask and then you have to find them. PA announcements don't always get heard and if you are making them just before the event starts its probably too late.

[JimW]

It occurs to me that we have digressed from the original point which was about demos rather than judges - the potential pool from which to draw demo paddlers is considerably smaller than the pool from which to draw judges.
It also only affects prem events and div 1 paddlers.

CeeBee makes the point that many paddlers would rather paddle up than be officials because having travelled they prefer to race properly than in the officials race against a mix of divisions and often with insufficient prep time between their other duties and their runs, thos probably goes for demo paddlers too?

How about:

- Change paddle up at prem into a demo competition, where the top certain percent get a credit similar to paddle up which can accelerate their promotion
or
- Introduce a demo competition similarly to the officials competition but only open to div 1 paddlers, with end of year prize and/or credit towards promotion

I would envisage still allowing officials runs for those who do just want to try the course as a reward for helping out, and anyone who seriously contends for the officials title.