Dave is not kidding about urgency. He has two (2) people signed up to tabulate. One is going despite medical problems. The other serves as her husband's helper and coach. Typically we have at least three people tabulating: two entering data nonstop for four days and one keeping scoresheets organized, resolving computer issues, and updating the scoreboard. We really should have more than two people entering data so the others can get some breaks, hence the difficulty in recruiting data entry people for subsequent Nats.
Judging is another problem. Dave has been beating the bushes for judges. One dropped out yesterday. Dave has an emergency plan to recruit Advanced guys to judge Open and Open guys to judge Advanced. Sounds good, but there are devils in the details. Suppose one circle has an Open guy--me, for example-- judging Advanced and an Advanced guy--call him Igor--judging Open. On a given qualifications day, I judge Igor, then he judges me, then I judge Igor, then he judges me. You suppose that could raise some eyebrows? What if it gets windy and I want to see if I have enough score to scratch the second round? Judges can't look at the scoreboard.
For qualifications rounds, I reckon we'd have to recruit fliers from circles 1 and 3 to judge on circles 2 and 4 and vice versa. The tabulation program can accommodate this with a workaround, I think, but there are still a couple of problems: 1) We'd be waiting for one circle to finish a half round before starting the next half round in another circle. This could cause three delays per circle per day and push the contest further into each day's unpredictable June weather. 2) Open and Advanced judge volunteers must be in pairs. How do you propose manipulating the seeding to make those who volunteered to judge come out in pairs?
Top-20 day will also be problematic. This is a big Nats. Looks like there will be 20 guys in each event flying Friday. Typically we use four circles simultaneously, putting Advanced on two and Open on two. We have eight judges currently signed up. That's two per circle. At the highest levels of stunt it takes five or six judges to rank fliers accurately enough. You could supplement the two per circle with contestant-judges who didn't qualify for the top 20 and recruit more trained nonqualifiers on the spot. Alternatively, you could either hold up the contest each time a qualifying contestant-judge flies or lump everybody on two circles, having the day run twice as long and having each judge look at 40 flights.
Please consider volunteering to judge at the Nats. It's not too late.
Topic: 2021 CLPA US National Championships (Read 12113 times)
