I am so glad that the NAFA delegates voted to allow the NAFA board to “…explore the pick-up team concept further.” The voting results show that 773 (71.2%) delegate votes were in favor of the board developing rules for pick-up teams, while 291 (26.8%) where not in favor of the proposal.
While I completely support the addition of these two concepts, I have some problems with the way they are being implemented during this trial period. I am sure the rules committee tried to do the right thing when creating these rules but in my opinion they have old NAFA ideas and they are stuck in this mindset.
Open Class
If you have not read the rules for this new class, I will try to give you a quick overview. This class allows dogs from other clubs/teams to run together as a team. The 87-day rule does not apply to the dogs racing on an Open Class team and therefore the dog’s club affiliation is not affected by running on an Open Class team. The dogs on the team still earn racing points, but an Open Class team cannot set a world record and no regional placement points are awarded. It seems that Open Class teams can only compete against other Open Class teams or a Veteran Class team but no other team. When an Open Class team competes against a Veteran Class team, the rules governing the Veteran Class team take precedence. Dogs running on an Open Class team can run on one other team from a different class.
The highlighted area is where I have a problem. Since an Open Class team is no different from a Regular Class team, why can’t they run against other like teams in the same division? What fun is that if you cannot run in a division with like teams? Why did we need another class? It could have been called Regular Open with the team seeded and raced against other teams in the same division.
Performance Teams
Most of the same rules apply to Performance Teams as in the Open Class i.e. the dogs running on the team earn racing points, the 87-day rule does not apply and the dog’s club affiliation status is not affect for dogs running on a Performance Team, and Performance Teams cannot set a world record and no regional placement points are awarded.
The Performance Team was created to allow a team that has entered a tournament and then finds that they cannot field a team because of extenuating circumstances. The rules give some examples of these circumstances such as dog injury, illness, or other unforeseen situations. However, in order to change the team status to Performance Team the unforeseen situation must be brought to the attentions of the Tournament Director before the start of racing. The rules do not cover dogs that are injured or become sick during the tournament.
I my opinion this is a good rule but it could have gone one-step further and allowed for sick or injured dogs during the tournament. If something happens to a team dog during the tournament the team is no better off than it was before. If they only have four dogs on the team and one goes down, they just have to sit out the rest of the tournament just as they do now.
Conclusion
I suppose the delegates that voted in favor of this should be happy because it is a step in the right direction. However, it does leave me wondering about the leadership on the board and the rules committee. If you read my last post, Technically Legal, and are of the opinion that the box should not be legal, you may, as I do, start to question the thinking of this committee and the board. My information is that one person from the rules committee and one board member approved the box. Maybe it is time for the people that have served the longest in these positions step down so that newer fresher blood can serve in these positions. What do you think?
Larry
Addendum
I was just reading the board minutes from the Board of Directors meeting in Detroit, MI on August 25th and find that in section 11 of the minutes the box in question was discussed at some length. To see who voted against rule changes that would have corrected this problem, please see the board minutes. I see that two people on the board that voted against rule changes are up for reelection. Additionally, the person that owns the box is running for the board. Please let your future votes reflect how you feel about this and other issues.
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9 comments ↓
Larry, I agree that your idea about Peformance rules is a better idea, but I am guessing that the BoD proposal was keeping the continuity of existing rules — ALL lineups must be listed by the start of racing. Maybe the community can persuade the Bod to make the change that would allow teams to earn points in the face of a team breakdown DURING a tourney. I also share your concern about the Open *class*… instead of a separate class, or one that mixes with Veterans, let the *open* teams run in the division they would seed for, with like teams and a more satisfying competition in the lanes. The Open teams would not *win* anything — just earn points for dogs that wouldn’t be able to run otherwise. More entries for the club, more fees for NAFA and happy dog owners that could participate in the tourneys.
Larry,
I am confused about the point you are trying to make with this post.
Is this article a discussion about the merits or the drawbacks of the recently adopted Open Class and Performance Team Rules?
Or, is this article a referendumon on certain members of the NAFA Board and the NAFA Elections?
For clarity’s sake, which is it?
Chris,
I guess you can say it is both.
I started out on the merits and drawbacks of the recently adopted Open Class and Performance Team rules but found myself thinking back to the box discussion. Maybe I am wrong, but I cannot find anywhere in the chat transcripts or minutes where the board or rules committee received any input from the flyball community before these rules were written. Since all of the delegates voted on this issue, you would have thought that these rules would have been open for comment before they were finalized. Tell me if I am wrong but if this happened, I missed it. These combined issues make me wonder what is going on with the board
I agree with Larry.
Since under both classes, teams neither get tournament points nor record times, seems it would have been simpler just to have one designation and let a pickup team run in it’s regular division for dog points only. Seems it would be easy enough for a team to designate “performance” at the beginning of a race day or prior to, if they have an injured dog (or unforseen circumstance). As a club who’s just submitted an appication to hold a tournament, we’d rather not add a separate division. I guess I assumed that the rules committee would take a simliar path to how U-fli handles it. Maybe after the trial period they will decide differently. It IS a step in the right direction, though, I agree.
Beth
Given that most tournaments are two over two days now a days, as long as it’s a new tournament the next day you could declare performance. You might miss out on some racing say on Saturday in face of a breakdown during saturday racing, but could still field a performance team for sunday if the tournament allows.
Regarding the rules further, one of that attachments to the minutes states that the rules committees thinks potentially another delegate vote may be needed to approve any final rules.
Some good news on Open class, though nothing exactly official in the pipeline, it sounds like open class racing combined with vets could potentially have a single elimination added to the end of racing on their own to add some heats beyond the 16 limit (Vets of course could still not). We’ll have to wait to see if something official gets handed down on this.
It’s certainly a step in the right direction and as delegates let’s put our votes where are mouth is and get out and compete in Open making comments to our regional directors on how we might think it could be better, email board members, etc, so they know for certain what it is we want from the open class.
So here’s a question, if the Open class runs with the vets, what height can they run at? If they follow vets rules, that would be 7″ regardless of dogs on the team. That might make planning your open team a bit interesting, you might not know if you need a ht dog or not on the team until the tourney info comes out.
How do team’s price it open class? If they run with vets you’ll only get 16 heats, if you are your own class will it be limited to 16 or can you do a more conventional # of heats? Maybe regions charge the same regardless of expected # of heats per class.
I guess it is my fault for this misunderstanding. If a Veteran Class team runs against an Open Class team, the Open Class team is subject to the false start and heat limit rules that apply to the Veteran Class team. Therefore, this rule has nothing to do with the jump heights of the Open Class team. The Open Class team would be subject to the same rules as a Regular Class team in regards to jump heights. Sorry for not explaining that better in my post.
To comment on what Stuart said - my home Region does NOT do 2 tournaments over 2 days. So the performance rule does not help us if we lose a dog on Saturday during racing. For regions like mine a little tweaking of the rules for performance teams might help teams with an injury get some play time in over the course of a weekend.
Of course… there’s also a flip side to this. Since we now have the option of entering Open Class teams… entering a team with only 4 dogs may be considered a foolish risk by some. Why not enter an Open Class team and draft 2 dogs from another team as ’spares’ if you don’t have enough dogs on your own team to cover all 6 spots? I guess if you are a D1 team fighting for a Regional title you might not want to enter as an Open Team - but if you’re not racing due to an injury or illness - you aren’t getting Regional points either. *Just something to ponder.
I totally agree that instead of creating an entirely new division I too was under the impression that the ‘pick-up’ team rule would allow you to build a team and enter it into a like regular division based upon seed time. Your penalty… no Regional points - plain and simple. When they created a separate division for it I was a bit baffled. And when they said Open Classes would be subject to Vet’s rules if there weren’t at least 4 Open Teams per event… I was even more dumbfounded. It was kind of a let down for a team anxiously awaiting the new rule.
I do have to say that my team has already entered an event with the Open Division and the host team did (what I think) is the right thing. They put it right out there that if there was not enough interest in the Open Class to fill it and the Open Teams were forced to run with the Vets, then the entry fee for Open Teams would be reduced to the Vets rate for the decrease in the total number of races. My team was willing to take the chance and enter an Open Team due to issues with a height dog. It was either that… or don’t play. I’d rather play!
Curious to know how it turned out???
The Open Class was apparently a big hit because the seed chart came out and low and behold… there were PLENTY of Open Teams entered into this particular tournament. Does that mean we’ll be that fortunate at every tournament? Probably not… but that’s a chance we have to take to run well.
In closing, while I’m glad they instituted the new rules… they definitely leave almost as many questions as answers.
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