Venue Thread Drift

[Rick Shellhouse]

Oh, absolutely, that would have been preferable. I wasn't there but I've been in that venue before, and I'm not sure there would have been space to do so. That's why I'm saying that making one big sports zone was probably the next best thing.

As for lacking space... space is expensive around here. Renting a space suitable for fencing and large enough to create barricaded sports zone with sufficient aisles between them would likely have put the event in the red.

To prevent thread drift I moved this to here.

Ok to start with I have attached the venue form and bid qualifier form to this thread to start with. Some is my ideas...some stolen from others across the web so I wasn't a rocket scientist. This was originally set forth that each club/organization wishing to host events would be required to fill out the venue questionnaire for each host bid for a tournament.

Now I include organizations in the mix so that groups such as parent fund raising groups for high school clubs could bid for events to be held at their respective schools

Now...my original design was each club/organization would submit bids two weeks prior to the tournament committee meeting. Each bid would be evaluated based on the forms and dates and awarded based on the bids.

Now as to the national qualifiers etc...guidelines are set forth the division will only pay a base fee for the use of the club or venue. The venue will get say 500 dollars for the day but is allowed to sell food...arrange vendors i.e. rent space...and advertise their club and coaches.

Say lets pick a couple of clubs say Club A and Club B and Club C


Each organization places a bid ....now the committee reviews for conflicts of interest (a heavy epee club wanting to host the epee event , a sabre club wanting to host the sabre event basically anything that might grant a unfair advantage) they then look at space...parking...ease of travel then each event is granted

Now any of them is capable of hosting any of the weapons and genders but normally the division would go out and rent a venue such as Hoop Heaven to run such an event...so lets say Club A wants to host the epee event..Club B the foil and Club C the sabre event...and then there is a school group wishing to host all of them..Each club has x number of grounded strips..refs..machines..parking etc and the school has all of the above

The committee might choose to grant the men/womens epee for sat to Club A....the men/women’s foil to Club B on Sat and the Men/Womens Sabre to Club C on Saturday. They could all start at 9 am and be done the same day or the school organization might be able to host them all in the same location if the division decided that was best


Now what this does is it reduces the number of people, refs, parking, coaches time spent by the division etc organizing events. The division should simply have to show up and run the event

Now lets address the few “concerns”

Throw them at me…


R

[Rick Shellhouse]

Venue Questionnaire and Bid Form

Attached

[catwood1]

To prevent thread drift I moved this to here.

Ok to start with I have attached the venue form and bid qualifier form to this thread to start with. Some is my ideas...some stolen from others across the web so I wasn't a rocket scientist. This was originally set forth that each club/organization wishing to host events would be required to fill out the venue questionnaire for each host bid for a tournament.

Now I include organizations in the mix so that groups such as parent fund raising groups for high school clubs could bid for events to be held at their respective schools

Now...my original design was each club/organization would submit bids two weeks prior to the tournament committee meeting. Each bid would be evaluated based on the forms and dates and awarded based on the bids.

Now as to the national qualifiers etc...guidelines are set forth the division will only pay a base fee for the use of the club or venue. The venue will get say 500 dollars for the day but is allowed to sell food...arrange vendors i.e. rent space...and advertise their club and coaches.

Say lets pick a couple of clubs say Club A and Club B and Club C


Each organization places a bid ....now the committee reviews for conflicts of interest (a heavy epee club wanting to host the epee event , a sabre club wanting to host the sabre event basically anything that might grant a unfair advantage) they then look at space...parking...ease of travel then each event is granted

Now any of them is capable of hosting any of the weapons and genders but normally the division would go out and rent a venue such as Hoop Heaven to run such an event...so lets say Club A wants to host the epee event..Club B the foil and Club C the sabre event...and then there is a school group wishing to host all of them..Each club has x number of grounded strips..refs..machines..parking etc and the school has all of the above

The committee might choose to grant the men/womens epee for sat to Club A....the men/women’s foil to Club B on Sat and the Men/Womens Sabre to Club C on Saturday. They could all start at 9 am and be done the same day or the school organization might be able to host them all in the same location if the division decided that was best


Now what this does is it reduces the number of people, refs, parking, coaches time spent by the division etc organizing events. The division should simply have to show up and run the event

Now lets address the few “concerns”

Throw them at me…


R

First off, if the club is providing the refs, who is making sure the refs are qualified. And the club can't provide a list of refs to potentially work the event before it has been given the event. What ref commits to an event that may or may not happen?

[Rick Shellhouse]

First off, if the club is providing the refs, who is making sure the refs are qualified. And the club can't provide a list of refs to potentially work the event before it has been given the event. What ref commits to an event that may or may not happen?

Most clubs here in NJ has a ref cadre they call on consistently i.e. NJFA calls on St John's quite often etc... While they may not be able to guarantee each and every ref...they can find out ,ok if i have this date this ref is free..

Those slots could also be completed in more detail once event is awarded....

This was a rough draft idea I had over a year ago remember..lol..Im sure there are a few bugs...

R

[catwood1]

The biggest problem, IMHO, is how it affects multiweapon fencers, and multi weapon coaches. Coaches would be forced to pick 1 event to go to.

[Rick Shellhouse]

The biggest problem, IMHO, is how it affects multiweapon fencers, and multi weapon coaches. Coaches would be forced to pick 1 event to go to.

Yup


Such is life though for multi-weapon fencers...I know personally
Such is the life for multi-weapon coaches..I know personally

That ranks with the "well we are going to hold this poule for Joe Fencer who is fencing foil and epee" and hold everyone else up while he runs back and forth. Not the divisions responsibility. I once saw a qualifier delayed for an extra hour and a half due to ONE multi weapon fencer...that's not fair to the rest.
R

[fdad]

The biggest problem, IMHO, is how it affects multiweapon fencers, and multi weapon coaches. Coaches would be forced to pick 1 event to go to.

There is no reason all of the qualifying events have to occur on the same day. Metro does separate qualifiers for each weapon, and sometimes even splits events by gender.

In Metro, the "conflict of interest" issue is less contentious. MFC typically hosts many of the Sabre, NYAC hosts Epee, Brooklyn hosts the Foil qualifiers. I suspect the reason for the lack of conflict is that the smaller clubs don't have the space, and FC is usually busy even without the qualifiers.

[AndrewH]

I think the big issue here is how to prevent the perception of favoritism/corruption. Who would be on the committee who awards events? It would have to be people who aren't associated with any NJ club, haven't been associated for x number of years, don't have kids at any club, etc. I suppose you could track down such a panel of impartial members but it'd be difficult.

Also, if there's events going on across multiple venues on the same day, I'd say that you need more bout committee/refs, not less. BC is self explanatory, but with refs most can do at least 2 weapons and can be moved back and forth as necessary, making the hiring process a bit more efficient. If there's two parallel tournaments, you'd need to hire a couple extra refs in each location to make sure things finish on time. Or maybe not, I guess it'd depend on how large the events are.

One final caveat, what happens when clubs can't compete financially with outside venues who don't bid? For example, say clubs X and Y bid for an event. The division also solicits a price for basketball gym Z, which turns out to be less expensive than either clubs' bid. Does the division pay more than the free market price for the space in the interests of helping the member clubs? Or does it go with the lowest price?

[rsy]

Such is life though for multi-weapon fencers...I know personally
Such is the life for multi-weapon coaches..I know personally.

Such is the life...except when scheduling qualifiers. The USFA Operations Manual, Ch.8, Sec.4A says:

(2)...Divisions and Sections must make every reasonable effort to ensure that competition schedules permit competitors to qualify for all competitions for which they are eligible.

(3) All qualifying competitions should be scheduled with regard to date, time, and location in such a manner as to prevent undue hardship to members wishing to attend such competitions....

When scheduling qualifiers divisions have to take into account the possibility that fencers may want to qualify in more than one weapon and the division must make every reasonable effort to schedule the events to make that a possibility. The description of how you would run the events does not allow for that.

Also, in running them as you propose, you will find that there are parents who will have conflicts caused by having two or more children fencing simultaneously in two or more venues and that may present those parents with an undue hardship. There are also safety issues in setting up competitions in such a way that may cause a parent to leave a child unattended at one venue in order to go to a child at another venue.

Splitting the venues as you suggest also requires that you hire duplicate or triplicate tournament staff including armorers and medical personnel for each of the venues.

And as far as the coaches go, you and others were complaining in the thread that this thread was spun off from that the Section's rules separated you by 20 or 30 feet from the pool of the fencer you were coaching. Imagine the complaints when the rules separate the coach from his fencer by 20-30 miles.

Lastly, as to refs being provided by the venue from the pool of refs that the venue normally uses for their own events, that would at the very least give rise to the appearance of a conflict of interest and would leave the division with officials that may not meet the division's expectations or the requirements imposed on the division by the Operations Manual Ch.8, Sec.4A(4).

-r

[Rick Shellhouse]

Richard...

Now lets clarify for everyone here that you are in fact the gentleman I ran against for head of the tournament committee after your "resignation".

You in fact wrote the MOU and Tournament Manual which has been discussed numerous times and you quote here.

I could get into the facts that you would love to discuss again and again to distract from the simple point.

Answer me one simple question ....

If all of this you state is correct...then how does the Metro division as stated by Fdad do it?



Rick

[jeff]

He didn't write the USFA Operations Manual which he quoted above.

[rsy]

If all of this you state is correct...then how does the Metro division as stated by Fdad do it?

Rick

The Metro Div runs their Y14, U16, Div2/3, U19 sectional, Sr sectional and both Team qualifiers for one weapon all on one day. They can do this because the division is also the section and also because for all of the seven events they run on one day they probably don't get more than 25-30 fencers total and a fair number of the events have 3 fencers or less so those don't actually have to be run at all since all of the fencers automatically qualify at an event that small.

-r

P.S. Didn't notice that you thought I was quoting from the NJ division tournament manual. As Jeff pointed out, I was quoting from the USFA Operations Manual. Theses rules do present more than a few problems with your proposal and I don't understand how bringing up an election that you lost several years ago addresses those problems.

[fdad]

Rick

The Metro Div runs their Y14, U16, Div2/3, U19 sectional, Sr sectional and both Team qualifiers for one weapon all on one day. They can do this because the division is also the section and also because for all of the seven events they run on one day they probably don't get more than 25-30 fencers total and a fair number of the events have 3 fencers or less so those don't actually have to be run at all since all of the fencers automatically qualify at an event that small.

-r

P.S. Didn't notice that you thought I was quoting from the NJ division tournament manual. As Jeff pointed out, I was quoting from the USFA Operations Manual. Theses rules do present more than a few problems with your proposal and I don't understand how bringing up an election that you lost several years ago addresses those problems.

Actually, at least for foil, they do it over two days. Taking advantage of their admittedly unique position as a section/division, on Saturday the U19 Team (which typically is skipped due to auto-qualifiers to FC and Empire and lack of more than the minimum other teams) is followed by U19, then U16, then Y14. On Sunday the Senior Team (again usually skipped) is followed by Div1A, then a combined Div 2/3. I think the girls Y14 is the only event that did not have more than 3 fencers, even with the withdrawals of auto-qualifiers based on prior events.

[rsy]

Taking advantage of their admittedly unique position as a section/division...

Which is the point. Rick apparently didn't understand that Metro's unique position and small turnouts allow them to run their qualifiers in an idiosyncratic way yet still comply with the requirements of the USFA Operations Manual.

-r