I received a photo of a dog with a large chest and short legs that drives home my point on how the wicket penalizes such dogs. The photo below pictures a Labrador/Corgi mix, which weighs 60 pounds and measures 16 inches in NAFA and jumps 12-inch jumps. In U-FLI the same dog would jump 6-inch jumps. Even if NAFA adapted the 5-inch vs. 4-inch calculation, the dog would still jump 11-inch jumps.
For all of the wicket advocates out there, tell me how this is fair. I will concede that jumping 6-inch jumps may be too low but 11 or 12-inch jumps are too high for this dog. Every dog with this same make up that plays in NAFA events is being unfairly penalized.
Larry
The 2007 NAFA Regional Champion winners have been selected and announced but has anything changed from last year or the year before that? The Regional Champions race against other clubs in their region but isn’t the outcome pretty much assured from year to year? The same club is selected year after year and all of the other clubs are left with nothing. If there are several fast clubs in the region, they may switch back and forth each year but for the most part club placement is pretty static.
I wrote about this before on my post, Focus on the Championships. I still think that NAFA should look into this so more clubs get a share of the recognition. After all, there are more clubs out there than just Division 1. The people that race in other divisional levels need a larger share of the recognition. After all, they pay the largest percentage of the bills and deserve a chance to win at their racing level.
I know that people have proposed this to NAFA, yet nothing has been done. Did this just die or was it buried. What happen to the suggestions submitted to the BoD on this?
Cynosport® Flyball Championship
The Cynosport Flyball Championship that NAFA has supported over the last couple of years is a meaningless championship. Sure, it’s a good way to promote Flyball but is it worth the cost? Could the money spent on this event be better utilized by some other advertising means?
I say that it is meaningless because the only clubs that benefit from this tournament are the clubs that can afford to attend the event. Winning means nothing, because it does nothing to change the outcome of the Regional Champions and overall Champion and the cost is way out of proportion to what is provided to the Regional Champions.
Cynospost vs. Regional Champion Cost
Any club fortunate enough to place first in the region for Regular and Multi Breed is awarded a plaque that cost $25.00. Only one plaque is given per club. If other members in the club wish to have a plaque, they can purchase one at the cost of $25.00 per plaque. The cost for Regional Championship plaques for 2006 came to roughly $750.00 (30 clubs x $25 = $750).
Now let’s look at what NAFA spent for awards (Shirts and Ribbons) at Cynosport. For 2006, NAFA spent $2928.37 for awards. They had about 24 teams (some from the same club) for a total of around 13 clubs. So let’s figure it out, for simple numbers lets just say there are 5 people per team, times 24 teams, for a total of 120 awards. Therefore, $2928.37 for 120 awards comes to an average of $24.40 per award. If you look at the overall cost of Cynospost, NAFA lost $7,038.63 in 2006 for this one event. I’m assuming this year, 2007, it should turn a small profit because of the 50-team entries but we will have to see the numbers when they are published.
For a meaningless event, as I explained above, it seems there’s a large disparity. The clubs that raced all season generated much more money for NAFA throughout the year, yet this one event (Cynosport) garnered a significant proportion of the award money. It doesn’t seem fair to me. Could the money lost on this event been better utilized promoting NAFA Flyball in another way?
Larry
Note: Information used in this post was obtained from the NAFA Profit & Loss Sheet.
I’m back and I would like to take a few minutes of your time to look at the measuring issue from the other side. Well, if you’re a speed-reader it may only take a few minutes. I want to make it clear I am not worried that the dreaded NAFA Board of Directors is going to come after me and as such, I am back peddling from previous posts. I don’t believe Tony Soprano is a board member, at least no yet. Until then, my concern that a member of the board is going to come after me, in the dark of night, to break my kneecaps is pretty minimal.
I just don’t see the BoD getting together ringing their hands, with sinister laughs, and thinking if they could just shut Mike up they could easily implement their evil plan. (I almost wrote twisting their handlebar mustaches but then I thought one or two board members just might go Tony Soprano on my posterior. It’s up to you to decide which members might.) Also, my ego is not so large that I believe that I am having a significant impact on the outcome of this issue, or any others. I know this article is going to sound like I’m a schizophrenic with duel personalities after my previous posts. Who among you can say that I’m not? Really, I’m just struggling with the viable alternatives for a difficult issue.
Continue reading →
