Proposed USFSA Regional & Sectional Changes

[Mazurka Girl]

Scroll halfway down the page:

http://www.usfsa.org/news/2002-03/GC2003/competitions-roa.htm

So what are everyone's thoughts about the proposed changes?

[Mazurka Girl]

This issue is also addressed under Strategic Planning:

http://www.usfsa.org/news/2002-03/GC2003/strategicplan-roa.htm

[manleywoman]

WOW! They're not going to offer medical byes?

That's the only thing I read that I found surprising.

[vesperholly]

I like the 12/4 plan better than the 9/3 plan.

9/3 has a huge flaw - it assumes that a region is more difficult because it has more skaters and therefore the more people enter, the more people they get to send to Sectionals. For example, North Atlantics had 66 Novice ladies this past year and none made it to Nationals (8,9,11, 12 place). Souths had 58 Novice Ladies and sent two to Nationals, New Englands had 29 and sent two to Nationals.

This was outlined in excellent detail in the Governing Council meeting book, with financial info and the like.

The two things I do not like is the "absolutely no byes" policy, and sending the top 3 skaters to Nationals instead of 4. USFSA, if you feel skaters are abusing medical byes, don't grant so many! Also, I feel bad for the Western/Pacific Coast section, which would include Los Angeles skaters (SoCal gets its own region) plus Colorado Springs. Connecticut is no longer part of New Englands (goes into Norths) Easterns still has SCNY, Boston and UDel which I don't really like. I'd be interested to see what the regionals names are - don't take "Norths" away!!

You can see the map of the 12/4 plan here:

http://www.usfsa.org/about/committees/stratplan/12region-largepage.htm

Jocelyn

edited to fix link

[BABYSKATES]

I'm really sorry that they plan to make the little ones go to sectionals before making it to Junior Nationals. It seems to me that takes a valuable opportunity away from some younger kids. Skating is a hard sport. It doesn't need to be made harder. The Juvenile and Intermediate kids need encouragement! I've seen kids come back from Junior Nationals "on fire" and so motivated that they inspire those who didn't go to work harder. I think the USFSA should make success more attainable early so the kids will want to continue.

A worse problem (at least for our region) is the plan to add a section but decrease the number of those who qualify from each section. The West Coast Section would suffer a lot! The section isn't reconfigured, just the regions. The same overabundance of talented kids will be competing for less spots. One less qualifying spot would hurt our kids.

[ChicaTica]

Originally posted by BABYSKATES
I'm really sorry that they plan to make the little ones go to sectionals before making it to Junior Nationals. It seems to me that takes a valuable opportunity away from some younger kids. Skating is a hard sport. It doesn't need to be made harder. The Juvenile and Intermediate kids need encouragement! I've seen kids come back from Junior Nationals "on fire" and so motivated that they inspire those who didn't go to work harder. I think the USFSA should make success more attainable early so the kids will want to continue.

A worse problem (at least for our region) is the plan to add a section but decrease the number of those who qualify from each section. The West Coast Section would suffer a lot! The section isn't reconfigured, just the regions. The same overabundance of talented kids will be competing for less spots. One less qualifying spot would hurt our kids.

But as things stand now, the little ones have to miss a whole week of school to travel sometimes very far distances to skate once. Also, at regionals these kids have to miss a whole week of school and compete their programs 3 times in 4 days to qualify for Jr. Nationals. That is too much for any child. It is still a huge honor to make sectionals. I think that this is a compromise between the way things used to be (it ended at regionals for juvies) and the way things are.

--ChicaTica

[what?meworry?]

Originally posted by vesperholly
I like the 12/4 plan better than the 9/3 plan...
...The two things I do not like is the "absolutely no byes" policy, and sending the top 3 skaters to Nationals instead of 4. You can see the map of the 12/4 plan here:

http://www.usfsa.org/about/committees/stratplan/12region-largepage.htm

Jocelyn

edited to fix link


i agree with the no "medical bye" but would like (in the 12/4 plan) to still have 4 advance from sectionals to nationals.

a more inclusive policy gives more developing skaters a chance to gain valuable experience.

[pennskater]

I agree with the 12/4 plan but wish they were sending 4 from each section - it won't really hurt in the numbers to send 4 more kids in each discipline. Especially now that only the top get to move on to nationals at the Juv and Int levels. I agree that Juv and Int need encouragement by sending 4. At least this should be done for singles since there are so many more kids that compete in singles, thus making it harder to get to nationals than dance and pairs.
Since almost everyone in dance and pairs moves on from regionals, they don't need the encouragement as much, and some teams that are not up to the skill level of the top groups will have to stay home. But in singles, it really comes down to who has that great day that determines who moves on in many cases. Sometimes kids get left home that just had a bad final event, but there are so many kids that are fairly equal that they miss out based on one 'bad' event. With dance there's compulsories and original factored in with free dance, so it doesn't come down to one bad final event that causes kids to not move on.
In pairs, there just aren't enough teams, so everyone moves on.
I also question why they moved Connecticut out of New Englands and didn't leave New York by itself, as they did with Michigan. If it is based on number of skaters, the New England region was one of the smallest, so it doesn't need to get smaller.
I think they should name the new region Middle Atlantics (although SCNY will have to rename their big competition if that happens).