Establishing Club Class/Too Many Nationals/Not Enough Competitors

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:52:27 +0000, Jim White wrote:

Hi

I've been following the thread for a while and a common theme seems to
be that 'organising a comp is difficult and a huge effort'. I am
surprised by this. In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a
annual comp to BGA rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating
points which are used for prioritising entry to Nationals comps which
are run in FAI classes.

Likewise.

I've been wondering if the Inter Club League (ICL) model would work in
the US or if clubs are just to far apart for it to be practical.

Explanation: The ICL is organised on regional grounds. Participating
clubs within a small part of the UK form each league. Several
competitions are spread through the season and points are totalled for
the year to determine the winning club. Each competition is a low key,
two day (weekend) event organised by each participating club in turn.
Task setting etc. isn't much more formal than you'd find during a club
Task Week. BGA national league handicapping is used, so any glider is
eligible: IIRC tasks have been flown in ASK-21s.

Competitor numbers are small too: there are three classes with one pilot
per club in each class, though this can be shared with a different pilot
flying each day. Pilots represent their club in only one or two
competitions during the year so almost everybody who's interested gets an
opportunity to fly. The classes are Novice, Intermediate and Pundit,
based on the pilot's cross country and competition experience, e.g. you
can only be a Novice if you haven't yet flown 300 km.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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