British Open in November

[boatmum]

Hi

The only reason I queried the "debate" was in the latest BCU Slalom Committee minutes (21 April), minute 6.1.4 states
"The entry fee for this year will be £40, with no charge for spectators"

The Australian Open is a three day race with scheduled 3 days prior to racing for demos heats etc - but actual racing is over three days. Likewise I think the North American champs at Wasau are also 3 days.

I agree it would be terrible to "loose" the LV facility and please do not think I am criticising, I am not, I know this is a difficult situation for the committee to have to manage and in a way it is much easier to sit back and complain. However I think there may be issues with participation if not in 2013 then in future years so I am just thinking that strategically it could be detrimental to blow all options.

I am given to understand that not that many paddlers use this chatter facility? I dont know, but maybe some sort of doodle poll advertised on the main website would give a better indication as to whether the appetite to paddle at LV is stronger than any resistance to charging higher fees? Again it would be awful to run the Open at LV with the higher fee only to find fewer competitiors enter than anticipated leaving the committee with a deficit to recoup.

[Dee]

.Could the remixer ranking season be run as a series and events are charged at a slightly higher rate, there should be scope to spread fees around a bit. Particularly if the are more natural rivers included in the series. In terms of running them collectively, I don't imagine that ownership of events is taken away from the clubs, but the levy structure could be tweaked to ensure that current revenues to organisers are increased slightly as I know that everyone is being squeezed at the moment, but at say £25 there should be some scope to subsidise "special events" if there was something similar done in div 1, with more races and competitors, there is scope to have a much bigger pot to redustribute and allow access for them to the likes of lee valley...

.

I think it would be very wrong to charge more for div 1 races in order to increase subsidy of the more expensive prem venues that are rarely if ever available for div 1 races. I do however agree that raising prem fees across the season to subsidise the expensive venues could be an option though it will meet with opposition!

With regard to this November. My guess is that most paddlers will complain but pay up - we are not in this position, but if we were we would pay! A reminder to div 1 paddlers that they can paddle up if there are sufficient places will probably ensure that there are enough payments in the event that some Prems do decide against paying the premium.

To avoid potential issues of paddlers just entering for a single race, I'd make the cost hike proportionally higher. Costs have to be covered, popular or not

[djberriman]

Sponsorship is always hard to acheive, especially in the current climate, often its getting to the right person and even then they will receive such calls all the time, have limited budgets which are probably already signed off for the year.

How about every paddler who will be racing trying to get say £100-£200 in sponsorship out of the company they work for, they are best placed to directly contact their pr department and being an employee many companies will possibly look kindly on such a deal. If only 10 paddlers managed to get £200 of sponsorship the problem would pretty much be solved. Any 'excess' could be used to subsidisde other events.

Only other alternative I can think of (and this may not work for various reasons) would be to run an event on the legacy loop if that is possible on the same day, thus making the most of the water, it would also have the upside of a lot more paddlers being their to watch the event.

[andy n]

From the Yearbook "Prem race Saturday. British Open Qualification Saturday, Semis and Finals Sunday. Single Race Entry Fees apply." So price increase is from £18.50 to potentially £45.00. For non-qualifiers that's just two runs down the course. Why isn't the race a double Prem incorporating the British Open? Paddlers I believe would be happier with £45.00 for two races.

[Sven]

Or run A and B semis and finals

[Nicky]

See, I was not suggesting div 1 supports prem, I think that would be wrong, what I suggested was prem support prem and div 1 support div 1... Just charge an increased levy a d increase fees throughout the year...

[Neil H]

I probably missed it but what does it cost for the site and the pumps by the day/weekend?

[CeeBee]

I think Peter has started a very interesting discussion with no easy answers. According to the calendar is it
Premier Race Saturday
British Open Qualification Saturday
British Open Semi-Final & Final Sunday

We would like to enter this race but need to understand exactly what racing we will get and what advance dedicated training slots will be available to see whether we want to commit to the following costs -
a) the entry fee of somewhere between £20-£45
b) the travel costs for the family (> £100)
c) the travelodge costs for the family (3 nights @ £35 = £105),
d) the advance training slot costs (£40 assuming 4 slots at £10)

As a parent whose son is not usually in the top half of premier, it looks like he would get Open qualification on the Saturday only and no runs on the Sunday. I'm not sure we would want to enter on these terms given the other costs involved and nor would we be prepared to pay much above the standard entry. If, however, 2 days of racing could be factored in with a double premier on both days consisting of a first run for all as a semi final and a second run for all with a final A and final B then this looks much more attractive and we would be prepared to pay a premium double entry of say £40.

I can see advantages and disadvantages over setting individual premier races fees versus collective premier race fees. If you are a premier paddler who enters all or most premier races, the total cost would be the same regardless of whether it is individual or collective race fees and so these paddlers will fund the additional costs for pumped costs either way. The position is much less clear for those paddlers who only enter a few races as they could benefit from a collective fee by mainly racing pumped courses.

If it was a collective fee, the cost for the double event at say Grandtully could go up by £10-£15 for a double. Paddlers already select not to come to Grandtully because of the increased travel costs and so why should the organising club be potentially penalised with higher entry fees which could lead to a reduction in their entries to offset an event with much higher costs?

[PeterC]

CB just to be clear I would be expecting to run everyone through to the Sunday with semi final and A and B finals in the same format we recently used for senior selection. Everyone would therefore get four runs, hopefully 'fair' in terms of access.

I would not be providing or arranging anything other than the racing I.e. I would not be organising training slots.

Indeed there would be opportunity to organise something in parallel on the legacy loop but it would need to be synchronised and have its own organisation. There is a need to have the main pumps running to get good racing on the exact loop so we do need to consider this. Someone else would need to step up for this though.

It is not an option to turn it into a double Prem as the calendar is already set unless we lose a race somewhere.

[Frances]

I'm afraid at the proposed entry fee I will not be entering the two paddlers I pay entry fees for (1 K1M and 1 K1 W both in full time education) £90 is just too much when added to the already excessive costs of Diesel from Sth West Wales etc. for at most ten minutes water time. Balance this against the fact these paddlers can access public water slots at Lee Valley for £10 per hour ( an additional £10 if people need to do the assessment) still far better value than £45 for 10 mins.

Perhaps more creative thinking and taking account of "law of diminishing returns" suggestion you reduce entry fees significantly and open the event to all Div 1 paddlers and others who satisfy the competency e.g. proven ability to roll on white water

[Canoe123]

I would be willing to pay that to race on worldclass water.
Also I have noticed it is on the ICF calendar, http://www.canoeicf.com/icf/Aboutourspo ... vents.html , does that mean you have decieded that it is going ahead on Lee Valley?

[PeterC]

I do hope to run it at LV although we may yet have to move. I do understand that budgets may be challenged and the feelings that many have expressed. Sponsorship is unfortunately not easy to come by. I would obviously be happy to acknowledge any sponsorship however small if paddlers wish to try this. While there are comments about training sessions at £10 hour which sounds attractive however the course is shared with others and the pumps may not be on full throttle which we would have for the Open. Paddlers racing get exclusive use of the water all to themselves unlike a training session, on top of this I have not seen timing and judging at training sessions and there are no prizes for training.

I think we do have to run races designed to balance the books and the reality is that the more I can get racing the lower the entry cost can be for everyone. Even at the levels we have discussed the expectation is that we will need some financial support from the salom committee as planning to run with second hand shoestrings. The reality is that this will come from levies from other races.

Unfortunately November not the best time to try attracting spectators so cannot realistically mitigate costs this way. Charging families to watch will not endear me to anyone any less than raised entry fees!

If anyone is interested in running a race in tandem on the legacy loop it is a possibility but the idea of organising wo races myself brings on ........ The loop is clearly much improved when the main pumps are full on.

[BaldockBabe]

Running a race on the Legacy course would be great, the Div 2/3's wanted to be able to race there again.

However, there is nothing in the rules to allow for a race to be put into the calendar at this stage. Also, there would then be the addittional costs of running the legacy pumps wouldn't there?

[bankside]

Is there someone from the local club or Canoe England who can organise visits from local junior paddlers or schools, scouts, guides. Local council sports??

[PeterC]

BB I need you helping run the open in theory! I had pondered the thought of running a 'Junior Open' on the Legacy Loop for anyone who was not racing the main course. The additional costs for the pumps on the legacy loop are much less and much more reasonable. However it needs to be synchronized with the pumps on the main course if you are going to use the whole of the loop so some advanced joint planning would be needed. You could apply for a late Div 2 I suppose but this would disenfranchise the Div 1's not competing in the Open on the main course.