My only ***** about Nats.

[neevel]

Oh, and about the issue of referee compensation. We (the armory guys) were talking about that with Mike Massik at the hotel bar Tuesday afternoon. It turns out that they did a survey of what the various "non-revenue" sports NGBs pay their staff, and fencing came out the be the 4th best of all the IOC funded sports. The worst was Judo, where refs get _nothing_: pay their own airfare, pay their own hotel & meals, no per-diem.

So far as I'm concerned so long as they can keep the running time and workload reasonable (so you've got at least _most_ evenings free) and house you in an area where there's decent restaurants and stuff to do in the evening to enjoy yourself, and provide good food at the venue for staff, the current system of airfare+hotel+$40 per day is fine with me. Austin last year met all those critera, and I had a good time. This year (for the reasons I gave previously) wasn't as good.

-Dave

[attila]

HI Neevel

I would like to thank you for those long hours.A job well done. I fenced four straight events and blew outta town. Should I ever have a off day between events, do you guys take in volunteers? I armour all the gear at our club except the guts of a scoring box. Let me know what kind of training I need to get in order to help out.



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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[Stryder]

Dave-

Won't using the aluminum strips triple the cost of shipping them to and from?
They are nice, but they are not that nice.

PS: I add my thanks for your work as an armourer. Fencing is fun, refereeing is hard, BC is boring. But armouring is hell.
Without volunteers, we would be fencing dry halfway through half of these events.

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www.geocities.com/strydermike

[edew]

Using aluminium strips may save costs (and the back-breaking work) of putting down the blasted tapes to hold down the strips. Those 4" gaffers tape ain't cheap, coming in around $10-15/60yd roll. The tapes are also not re-usable, so it's definitely money down the drain.

If they can get aluminium strips which can be secured without using tapes, and the strips can withhold the beatings longer than the current rolled-styled strips (and I'm sure that would be the case), USFA can save money on the long run. Also, if the aluminium strips can be detached and stacked, they can fit into a volume smaller than needed for the rolled up types.

[Zelda]

From experience.... Aluminium strips are slippery.....however ifyou get the type of strips wich they used at the olypmics.... THEY were nice....

[neevel]

The prototype strip will take up more space than rolled-up copper ones (you're looking at 120 slats, each about 180 cm X 2.5 cm X 15 cm, as opposed to a roll of 1 mm-thick copper mesh), but be lighter. So far as shipping is concerned, costs would probably be comparable when you balance out weight vs. bulk. The top surface has a fine-gritty finish to it to provide traction. You could just lay down rubber carpet-grip under the things to keep them from slipping, which is re-useable. The slats are hollow (and thus have some give), with a single vertical reinforcement running all the way across the center internally, and are cast in one piece with ~4 mm thick walls. The interlocking lips are integral to the form of the slat, so you just lay them down, and then afterwards attach side-pieces for lateral rigidity-- no taping or bolts. They look to be quite durable (unlike wood-backed or cheese-grater sheet aluminum strips), and if one does get damaged, you only have to replace that slat.

The idea is that BG will ship the prototype to Ron Herman, who's planning on taking it up to Twin Cities Fencing Club for a weekend to test it out, and then get feedback to Mr. Chen, who'll be visiting the factory in China.

-Dave

[This message has been edited by neevel (edited 07-13-2001).]

[arcon]

[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: arcon ]

[vegan]

Guys,
Actually I thought the Directing at nats was ok, not great- I had one guy in my div 2 pool who was crazy (really inconsistant- so that unless it was one light it was a toss up) and one in div 2 for my DE who did not card the other fencer for clocking me with his back elbow in the mask (at 14-14!!), because we were both closing distance. ARGH!
However, most of the directing I had was quite good, especially during the Div 1 team, dispite my teamate yelling at one director for about 5 minutes (opps- thats ok he seems sorry now, and it did not cost us the match).
all in all I was quite pleased with the Directing, BC, and armoring- congrats to all the volunteers, and I will step up and direct next year in Greenville (taking the test in a month or so, for foil and sabre- epee's got too many rules involving gear!).
Cheers,
Ben
Ps. Epee is the hardest test because of the issues involving the fencing gear, and the cards given for problems not caused by fencing