Discussion: Should there be a ***** in 2008?

I'll leave whether there ought to be a relay champs up to Americans, though I can't see why not - there's even already an A meet including a relay on the calendar for next year so it's not as though some club needs to scramble to assemble a sanctioning proposal starting from nothing.

As to the sprint series, I don't recall whether you've published any assessments recently but I think earlier ones I hazily recall still hold good - the series has been strikingly successful in meeting the main stated goal of encouraging clubs to offer sprints and people to run them. Since I'm not confident that this would be self-sustaining without the structure of the competitive series, I think it definitely ought to continue. Which said, you've written that you want to be less involved but it's your baby. Should people, in your view, be volunteering to run it next year or would you prefer to recruit new management yourself?

there's even already an A meet including a relay on the calendar for next year...

Which one?

Sprint series thoughts --

1. I would like to see it continue. I would be willing to stay involved, but only with some significant help.

2. So far I have had notes from Cristina Luis and Rob Gils offering to get involved. I meant to talk to them last weekend about it, but never found time....

3. I'd be delighted to hear from any other interested parties.

4. There is no reason that 2008 has to operate under the same rules as 2007. My own inclinations right now would be to try and simplify the operation somewhat. That could mean limiting the series to U.S. events. Also, reducing the number of points per event (maybe going with 10 for club events, 20 for regional, and 30 for major national), since many of the folks finishing further down the list don't seem much interested in the series, yet we are doing all the work to include them. And maybe other things.

5. I still thing it has been a great success!

I'll put something on the general AP discussion thread if/when I get my act together.

April 19 - 20 ROC A Meet
Sprint, Relay and Middle distance
Camp Pinewood, Dansville NY & Mendon Ponds Park, Rochester, NY

Hmmm... I'd be saddened by only US events, though admittedly getting Canadians to travel south for the finals hasn't been the most successful aspect of the series. I was rather hoping a Canadian club could be convinced to host next year.

It's the old saying, Actions speak louder than words.

Even before we scheduled the finals both the last two years, I checked with Canadians who had been active in the series, and made sure the dates were ok, no conflicts. Last year minimal participation, this year none.

And the scoring for the Canadian events in the series is not trivial. They have 5 separate courses.

My thoughts are, Why bother?

Well, JT is almost Canadian.

I'm not sure how the ROC meet wound up listing a Relay. We were bidding for Intercollegiates and I thought we went thru sanctioning with a Sprint, Middle and Classic. When we lost out on the Intercollegiates, I was going to ask if the ROC board was interested in bidding for the open Middle and/or Relay champs instead, but I wasn't able to attend the last board discussion on this. I know they were considering whether we can handle an A-meet and the US Rogaine Champs so close together.

So, I'm not sure there really is a relay scheduled, yet.

The ROC meet was sanctioned as:
1/ Sprint Relay
2/ Middle
3/ Classic
If this changes, Sanctioning should be notified.