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.

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.

Beth

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 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?