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
Congratulations to Arizona for putting on a very fast meet. Looks like they'll give Pacific Masters some pretty good competition in this first very virtual SCM championshipo.
We've also received results from the Greater Indiania Classic another participant in the NEM SCM Challenge.
Meanwhile, NEM continues to get ready for its SCM Championship in mid-December. At Sunday's mini-meet in Portsmouth, NH, NEM set 2 World and 1 USMS National record. For more information see the story at: www.swiminfo.com
Attention all SCM Championship Meet directors. There's still time to participate in the NEM SCM Challenge. Simply send me an email and we'll sign you up.
Also, it's not too late to participate in the NE 2002 SCM Championship on December 14-15th. For more information go to:
www.greatbaymasters.org/02scmchamp.html
Arizona has completed its SCM State Championships. While we are only a tenth the size of Pacific, we were able to post more records of every type with 19 World, 28 National and 83 Arizona records broken, thus making this the fastest meet of the year (so far).
Due to a bit of rain, we were only able to complete the 200 free relays, so we may have a bit of trouble completing against the many relays of New England.
Complete results of the meet are posted at www.sundevilmasters.org under results.
Good luck to the other teams yet to swim.
Mark Gill
Just how do you score these meets? It seems about half the world records in the Arizona meet were set by swimmers from othr LMSC's. Do they count for Arizona? And if those same swimmers swim in their own LMSC, do they count again? Who is doing the record keeping?
Bob: A question about scoring for the virtual championship. If swimmers from several different LMSCs and/or differenct clubs combine to form a relay at one the the participating scm events, do the results of that relay count for scoring the virtual event (even though they would not count, for instance, for records)?
The devil is in the details.
From a technical point of view we are going to simply take all results in the correct format and score them in Hy Tek. Since everyone who participates in a regional meet will be considered from one team I believe that Hy Tek will take the relays and not check the team affiliation (this is pending my expert's input).
If regional meet directors want to massage their Hy Tek files to allow such relays (danger, danger, don't try to submit them for Top ten) then we aren't going to the trouble of eliminating them.
So, it's possible---and while not legal certainly consistent with the purpose of this challenge which is to get more people to participate in regional meets.
Gail:
Inter-Club, inter-LMSC relays do not count towards world records. However, they may help in the regional bragging rights competition.
For what it's worth, 90% of the NEM relays at SCM competition will be composed of NEMs who swim at the same pool (local workout group)--that's because we also have a very intense intra-NEM competition among some 40+ local pools. All of the relays at the NE meet will be legal under USMS rules (all members belong to the same club).
We have already received the Arizona, GRIN, Walnut Creek and Dixie Zone meets and I don't believe any have such inter-Club or inter-LMSC meets.
It is not really a competition between regions, zones, or LMSCs, but a competition between meets. A meet that pulls many quality swimmers from all over will do better than a meet limited to local swimmers.
Expanding on Gail's question, how do you take into account swimmers who participated in three or even more of the zone championships this year? Since one of the burning questions seems to be the total attendence count, would not such a one be counted in each?
Maybe there are other considerations. e.g., Any thought to a scoring system that did not take account of relay participants?
In addition, of course, to the system that does take relays into account.
Please note the following regarding the 2002 NE SCM Championships:
SIX WORLD RECORDS AND 12 NATIONAL RECORDS BROKEN
On the weekend of December 14th-15th at the Balfour Natatorium of Wheaton College in Norton, MA, more than 400 masters swimmers throughout the region came together for the 2003 New England Short Course Meters Championship to race and have fun . Sponsored by New England Masters (NEM), this year’s meet broke previous attendance records and was also the scene of some very fast swimming as six new USMS/FINA world records and 12 USMS national records were broken. Complete results can be found at: www.greatbaymasters.org/02scmchamp.html
NEM PROSPECTS FOR VIRTUAL SCM NATIONAL CHAMPION LOOK GOOD
This year, NEM instigated the first every virtual SCM national championship. We’ve been receiving meet results from around the country thanks to the effort of different meet directors and the coordinated push by Mel Dyck. We will combine all of these results into one large meet file and score, down to the 16th place, each regional meet as members of one team (e.g. New England versus Pacific Masters). Any SCM meets held from October 1st through December 31, 2001 will be eligible. So far we’ve received results from:
Pacific Masters LMSC , Arizona State Championships, Indiana and Great Lakes Zones, Dixie Zones, Southern Masters LMSC, Southern Pacific Masters Zone and hope to receive results from the Pacific Northwest Zones and Colonies Zones. We expect to process the results next month. Prospects for New England victory look good since based on the information received to date we have at least 60% more splashes than the other meets.
We hope to have the results processed in mid-January
NEXT UP: THE ONE HOUR SWIM
NEM recorded 1.7 million yards in 2002. That was 25% of all yards swum by USMS teams. NEM is less than 4% of USMS membership. This year we're aiming for 2.0 million .
LOOKING AHEAD: 2003 SHORT COURSE YARD CHAMPIONSHIP
The 2003 SCY Championship will be held at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool in Cambridge, MA. Once again, we have the unsurpassed talents of Rick Osterberg, Stephanie Morwaski and others from Cambridge Masters running this meet. Well feature on-line results and live webcam broadcast. This year, we drew 670 participants. Next year, we expect between 700 -800 participants. We have expanded the meet into four days. Please note the following dates:
2003 SCY Championship
Saturday March 22nd 1000 and 1650 only
Fri March 28-Sun March 30 All other events
A meet information sheet and entry form will be ready next month.
Gail:
This will no doubt be the case given that we are including LMSC, State and Zone Championships. One proposal is to take the fastest swim (this is consistent with the approach taken in the "mythical" SCM championships based on top ten). We need to discuss the practicality of this or other proposed solutions before we report back to the group.
Bob
