Jerry said,
<Just wondering... Why don't we have *two* Championship
series that would go on at the same time?
One, the "Here" series, would be in the Bay Area: Oakland
Candlestick, and GGF.
The other, the "Away" series, would be held outside: Marina,
Castle, maybe Crows Landing (if ever).
Two sets of trophies. Maybe the "Away" series has smaller,
less important trophies or only certificates, to reduce cost.>
An interesting proposal, got me thinking of suggestions for changes and
wondering if other members' motivations are similar.
If the concern is just the locations, well, the fact is that we have three
series already. The other two are called Sacramento Chapter and Fresno
Chapter. I don't know what Fresno's trophies look like, but Sac's program is
generally comparable to SFR plus last year they gave a jacket for 100%
attendance!
When comparing to Midwestern clubs/venues, I find that I must count my
blessings. Over thirty events I could attend per year! I can drive 100
minutes or less to any of the above, excepting Marina. (Do we encourage the
members living closer to Marina to be Chair for their short commute event?
It's an idea.)
I like the arrangement pretty well the way it is. Personally, I'd put a
minimum two week gap between events, as during mid-season just SFR events tend
to stack up pretty close together, not even counting Sacramento's. We had six
back to back weekends. And some more coordination between SFR and Sac to
reduce conflicts would be welcome in my opinion, because I have been running
at both.
Would an alternative of adding some more drops be of more interest? Is the
distinction between series fairly stated as "Home = close enough to drive to",
"Away = further than I really want to go"? More drops would solve that
problem.
Would any historians / schedulers care to expound on why we run where we do?
Making the Away trophies smaller, I do not see the point. If it is more
difficult to get there, you'd want a larger trophy to balance that out; unless
your view is to discourage or eliminate the further events that is.
And for what it's worth, the Atwater and Marina venues will no longer give
that taste of National surface; the Club has decreed that the Finals will be
at an asphalt site for years to come as I understand. Atwater will still give
that big grip potential but it won't specifically help prepare for Topeka, so
there's one less reason for that venue.
Paul T.
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