Attention all regional championship meet directors! This message comes from the capital of master racing--New England. Here in the upper right hand of the U.S. our members participate in competitons at rate of close to 50%. This year, we are putting out a challenge to all other parts of the country for this year's SCM season. We propose to score our 2002 New England Short Course Meters Competition, scheduled for December 14-15th against all other regional SCM competitions to determine regional bragging rights for SCM Regional Team Championship. SPMA has already accepted the challenge and will go head-to-head against New England.
Here's how it works: We will take results file from all participating regional USMS sanctioned SCM championship meets held from October 1st through December 31st of this year. We will treat ever participant in that meet as a member of one "regional team" and score to the 16th place by age group (relays score twice the number of points and will also be scored to the 16th place). We will include all individual events through the 1500 m and all realys through the 800m. We will present results in two different ways: 1) Virtual SCM Championship and 2) Bilateral Regional meets (NE vs SPMA, for example).
Here's how you can participate: Send me an email "registering" your regional championship in this contest. We plan to score this meet using Hy Tek so we ask that people provide appropriate Hy Tek file.
Why are we doing this?
Over the years, we've learned that getting people to participate in competition keeps them swimming masters longer. New England's membership really took off when we created large regional championship meets with LOTS OF RELAYS. This made the meet fun for everyone and first-time competitors find relays the least intimidating way of getting into the racing spirit. We believe the regional championships are the key to getting USMS membership growth up to 25% range and getting our membership retention rate over 80%- that has been our four year average rate in both categories here in New England.
More information on the New England meet can be found at:
www.greatbaymasters.org/02scmchamp.html
How can you help?
I need a good list of regional SCM championship meets (I do have the list from the USMS calendar but it's not complete) and also need the email contacts for people, other than meet directors, who can help promote this in their region
Bob Seltzer
NEM Championship Meet Coordinator
We're off to a pretty good start with Pacific Masters and Northwest joining SPMA and NEM. We still hope that several more regional meets will join us. (Mel Goldstein--are you out there?)
Under the rules of engagement, if Bill Volckening elects to swim in your regional meet he belongs to your team.
Michael: Congratulations on reaching the 10,000 mark. At our current growth rate of 20% we should reach 2,000 in 2003 or 2004. We are pretty much accepting different rules for different meets in terms of entries/events. For example, in NE we do allow people to enter up to five event per day for 10 events per individual. We also are not offering the 800m or 1500m this year due to time constraints.
We do hope to repeat this challenge in some form for 2003 and will initiate discussions on this topic right around the New Year.
Re 2003 NE SCY Championships: Not scheduled yet but hope to finalize in next several weeks. We might also try a virtual dual meet in real-time via the webcam. You'll note that 3 of the regional SCM meets are the same weekend this year (NEM, NW and SPMA).
Michael,
I downloaded the SDIF file with the intention of putting it into the USMS searchable database. However, there is a formatting problem with it as it now stands. The date header (the 'B11' line near the top of the file) has the meet coded with a 'Y' at the end. This is the code normally reserved for a SCY meet. Similarly, all the times are followed by a 'Y' indicating the same course distance. In both cases there should be an 'S' for short course meters. I'm nervous about loading in this file because I'm not sure how the database will interpret it. Is there any chance of getting a corrected version? Unfortunately, for me to correct the file would mean changing each one by hand -- I can't easily do a search on 'Y' and do a simple replace since some names have 'Y' in them.
Thanks for the help....
Mel Dyck
Aren't ALL meets, technically, "regional"? The participants come from a "region" that may be large or small. Might be an LMSC or a ZONE or a state or a neighborhood.
Until and unless the Virtual Meet Director defines what "regional" means, it would be logical to include all SCM meets in the input stream.
Question: Will the person who swims in multiple "Regional Championships" during this period end up "representing" multiple "teams"? Though, since this is an informal virtual meet there are no USMS affiliation considerations. Never mind.
Originally posted by meldyck
... do you want non-regional meets as well? Arizona annually hosts a pretty fair SCM meet & this year's meet is expected to draw some good talent from CA, although it's not a zone meet. ...
One tidbit along these lines: looking at last year's results of the AZ SCM meet, in one particular event that interests me--the 30-34 mens 800 free--even the fourth place swimmer swam a USMS Top Ten time. It would be a shame not to get swims like this into the proposed virtual meet, IMHO.
--Brad
Bob,
do you want non-regional meets as well? Arizona annually hosts a pretty fair SCM meet & this year's meet is expected to draw some good talent from CA, although it's not a zone meet. I expect to have a copy when it's done.
Also, as a part of my responsibility for tracking down results for the USMS database, I'll get copies of others.
Let me know what is of interest.
mel
A "regional" meet includes state, regional (New England) and Zone meets. We are most interested in getting most of these meets, including AZ. AND we'll make sure that the results get submitted to Mel for the USMS database.
NEM proclaimed first ever "mythical" 2001 SCM Champion. In a very creative application of database technology and Hy Tek software, Ed Gendreau of NEM, with the help of Pieter Cath, Esther Lyman, and Louise Valois have created a "mythical" 2001 SCM National Championship based on top ten times.
To view the results and associated data go to:
www.greatbaymasters.org/mythical.htm
Points were awarded based on the results of the USMS 2001 SCM National Top Ten Times. The top ten individual swims in each age group event were scored in the following sequence: 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Double points were awarded for relays. To view the USMS top ten times see the following link: www.usms.org/.../
The data analysis proves another point, easily observed at USMS Nationals, that current age group racing format eliminates some very competitive racing across age groups. For example, the mythical SCM Championship for the Women's 100 free would include swimmers from ages 23-38 and the winner would be: Tracy Moll at age 38 beating out her competitor Emily Wang who is 15 years younger.
Based on distribution of "all-in" top ten times the fastest age groups were Women 35-39 and Men 30-34 --interestingly enough there was almost an even distribution of top ten times from ages 25-39 for both genders. Wouldn't a nationally recognized "all-in" ages competition be great publicity for masters swimming?
Looking towards the close of the SCM Season, NEM will defend it's mythical SCM title on December 14-15 as well as take on all comers in the regional SCM Championship Team Competition against Pacific Masters, Southern Pacific Masters, Norwest Zone, Great Lakes Zone and Arizona State meet. Other regional meet directors are invited to participate (see above for details)
One month down and two months to go in the NEM SCM Challenge. This is a challenge to all regional SCM championship meets to submit your results and see who can claim bragging rights to the title of "epicenter of aquatics competition for masters." Pacific Masters (LSMC), Arizona Masters (State) and GRIN (multi-LMSC) have all completed their respective regional championship meet. Pacific Northwest (Zone) and Southern Pacific Masters (Zone) and New England (LMSC) will compete the weekend of December 13-15th. Other regional SCM meets held between October 1st through December 31st can participate by sending an email to me at: seltzer@metasoft.com
Meanwhile, here in New England we are rallying the troops for victory. We know that we are badly outnumbered by Pacific Masters (10,000) Southern Pacific (2,500) and GRIN (2,600 from the combined LMSC that participate) but will strive through teamwork and organization to prevail. As a boost to our hopes, our very own Greg Shaw set 3 world records at a tune-up mini-meet at Northeastern (see related story at www.swiminfo.com) We expect to set several more world records at forthcoming mini-meet at Portsmouth on November 10th. But we will ultimately defeat our much more numerous foes not through superlative individual performance but via mass participation.
It's still not too late to participate in the excitement of a NE championship meet. For more information go to: www.greatbaymasters.org/gbmmeets.html
Good luck to all competitors.
Southern Masters SCM Championship has joined our challenge. For more information on this regional SCM championship to be held weekend of December 6-8th contact John E. Roth, Jr. at: E-mail address "jerothjr@cox.net".
We now have 7 participating regional championships!
