Howdy,
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Paula Whitney wrote:
> Out of the 1097 entries at this years Nationals, 171 were in Ladies classes.
> I am sure that if there were no ladies classes, a percentage of those would
> have run open class but some would have just stayed home. Just as in the
> open classes sometimes the entry level is low, but on the whole ladies
> classes have been a success, since there introduction years ago.
Some math gives us an average number of ladies per class: 171/30 = 5.7,
compared to open at (1097-171) / 30 = 30.8. That already, to me,
illustrates a problem. So lets look at some other numbers. The ladies
class entrants accounted for 15% of the total entries. Assume half don't
continue to compete if Ladies classes are eliminated and we're potentially
negatively impacting 7.5% of our competitors. The next one is a judgement
call, but I'd bet half of those who don't continue to compete are doing so
becaue they can't win or get a trophy, not because they're "afraid of the
big bad men". So now we're down to 3.75% of competitors.
In my mind, maintaining an entirely seperate and "equal" class hierachy
for even 15% of the total competitors doesn't make sense, let alone the
3.75% that (I believe) wouldn't compete otherwise for the "right reasons".
> I believe that until the letters written to do away with ladies
> classes are signed by ladies participants or the number drop, leave it
> alone.
I think there's a pretty severe conflict of interest with this approach.
Mark
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