Board Meeting - February 14, 2010

[Inquartata]

Hmmm...looking more and more like

"We needed to piss everybody off with a new tournament schedule because we had put a Tournament Committee together and otherwise all the hours they spent working on this would have seemed like a waste of time."

[keith]

For people arguing that the board needs to provide a clear rationale it would be useful if you could point out an easily recognizable board or governance structure that regularly does this (other then the Supreme Court). There aren't many out there.

Really my experience is there are lots. I guess it comes down to the level of explanation being looked for. Congress, parliament, the supreme court are not terribly useful examples. Philistine provided a nice outline of how this sort of thing should work.

[gladius]

all I did was list reasons that have been given by others, in order to point out that reasons have been given. And therefore it is irritating to continually read the two of you (esp hello?) say no reasons have been given

I am making no claim whatsoever about the validity of the reasons, or whether they are good bad or indifferent, just pointing out that they exist and have been stated on this board.

I think you are a bit too rough on them for having left out the adjective "valid" in front of the word "reasons."

I wrote:

[Mark]/USFA never brought any logical justification or cogent reasoning of why this change had to be made now and this way.


Even the reasons you listed are not justified in terms of logic and/or coherence. I think you might agree...

Yes, "reasons" were given but not "valid reasons," hence the complaints.

[hello?]

(kicking myself for replying even as I write this)

seriously hello? and teacup you two need to improve your reading comprehension, all I did was list reasons that have been given by others, in order to point out that reasons have been given. And therefore it is irritating to continually read the two of you (esp hello?) say no reasons have been given
:

The problem (at this point) is not whether or not we agree with the "reasons" that have been given...

Seriously, seak. It appears that it is you who should improve your reading comprehension. (UNC? Really?) I agreed that the "reasons" you had listed had indeed been given...

[dcrocket]

This thread should be closed for lack of usefull discourse.

"cesspool" is too kind.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

OK, here's something useful to discuss:

One of the rationales seemed to be that the National Coaches wanted a "tune-up" meet before the Senior Worlds. However; NAtional Team member participation at NAC events in close proximity to important international competitions is often very spotty.

Furthermore, many of the weapon squads have historically elected to travel to the site of the Worlds well in advance; to hold a training camp, and most importantly, get acclimated to the time zone.

Have the NAtional Coaches now decided that that methodology is flawed, and what metrics did the USFA employ to assure that the October NAC/US training camp was a superior training plan?

[MdA]

Metrics....coaches....?

[edew]

OK, here's something useful to discuss:

One of the rationales seemed to be that the National Coaches wanted a "tune-up" meet before the Senior Worlds. However; NAtional Team member participation at NAC events in close proximity to important international competitions is often very spotty.

Furthermore, many of the weapon squads have historically elected to travel to the site of the Worlds well in advance; to hold a training camp, and most importantly, get acclimated to the time zone.

Have the NAtional Coaches now decided that that methodology is flawed, and what metrics did the USFA employ to assure that the October NAC/US training camp was a superior training plan?

I find this rationale the most egregious of all. You mean we're going to host a party for the 4 fencers in each weapon/sex category and invite everyone over, just for the ducking benefit of those 24 special folks? For 24 guys, we're going to inconvenience thousands of people?

If the national team fencers want to tune up, they can set up their own little camp, invite the next 4 or 5 top fencers on the list and have a blast working out. Which is probably far more productive than to run a tournament somewheres.

[gladius]

I find this rationale the most egregious of all. You mean we're going to host a party for the 4 fencers in each weapon/sex category and invite everyone over, just for the ducking benefit of those 24 special folks? For 24 guys, we're going to inconvenience thousands of people?

If the national team fencers want to tune up, they can set up their own little camp, invite the next 4 or 5 top fencers on the list and have a blast working out. Which is probably far more productive than to run a tournament somewheres.

Glad to see that I am not the only one who thinks this to be the dumbest idea ever and in all honesty I cannot believe even our national coaches could come up with anything like this. This is why I questioned Mark's "reasoning" which is--in this case--neither logical nor cogent.

And if this doesn't make any sense what other considerations were taken into account to solve a problem which was never presented and many did not know even existed? Is this a solution in search of a problem???

[bigdawg2121]

Who elected the people that sit in this apparently dysfuntional Board? Who should be keeping their Board reps accountable for making decisions they find to be logical and cogent? These are the people we should be yelling at...

[darius]

Amid all the uproar, my brain looks at the Div1/Div2 pairing in Oct and goes, "Hey, that's pretty nice."

If the national coaching staff wants to "inconvenience" people to have a Div1 event pre-Worlds, that's fine by me - I'd guess those points count for next year, so it's likely that Div1 competitors who'd like to make a team run should attend, especially if they're not assured of having the int'l results come the end of season.

Plus, the pool of potential competitors in Div2 vs Vet is much greater. Nearly any fencer can fence a Div1/Div2 or both. Not true for a Div1/Vet. So it makes a good kick-off event for people who are marginally qualified for Div1, and gives them a legitimate event in Div2. Vets can play, too!

darius

[edew]

Div I is C or higher, Div II is C or lower. The intersection is just the C's. There aren't too many for Div I, but for Div II, it's plenty. I don't think just because there's a Div I as well, that the C fencers would go sign up. Given that the entry fee and an extra day lodging can add up to a tidy sum, it's not worth the extra moolah to get spanked. Get to fence a national team member? If you're in ME with 200+ entries, you have 1 in 50 chance of having a national team member in your pool.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Metrics....coaches....?

Surely there was more to it than simply thwapping a used Ballestra on the podium and exclaiming "Thees ees what I want!"

[bigdawg2121]

Div I is C or higher, Div II is C or lower. The intersection is just the C's. There aren't too many for Div I, but for Div II, it's plenty. I don't think just because there's a Div I as well, that the C fencers would go sign up. Given that the entry fee and an extra day lodging can add up to a tidy sum, it's not worth the extra moolah to get spanked. Get to fence a national team member? If you're in ME with 200+ entries, you have 1 in 50 chance of having a national team member in your pool.

I think that Darius' point was that pretty much all fencer's are eligible for either Div 1 or Div 2. Eligible for both? That's just icing on the cake. Vets may or may not be eligible for Div 1 (which is what Dec has given us till now) a d even if they are many might not be interested in fencing it. With the addition of Div 2 many Vets gain a second event, possibly a third, and aspiring Div 1 fencers don't have to fly out just for the opportunity to be pool b****. In my experience people willing to travel to national events are often more concerned about spending money for a plane to fence one potentially weak* event than they are about ponying up for an extra night and event to get more bang out of the experience.

* in this case "weak" refers to the event relative to one's own expected performance. A div 1 where you score 14 touches and then watch good fencers is a relatively weak performance. The div 2 or vet where you come out top half of your pool and make a L32,L16, etc is considerably stronger.