PACIFIC ASSOCIATION/USATF LDR MINUTES FROM MAY 12, 2002 MEETING
Golden Gate Park
Please respond with questions and comments to your LDR Chairs.
Men: Tyler Abbott, [email protected]; 415/563-6355
Masters: Tony Fong, [email protected]; 510/865-4605
Women: Susan Beck, [email protected]; 415/824-3045
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco following the Zippy 5K Championship
Meeting called to order at 11:02 a.m.
Those present: Those present: Tyler Abbott, men's LDR chair, Hoy's
Excelsior; Susan Beck, women's LDR chair, Hoy's Excelsior; Todd
Kelly, XC Subcommittee Chair, WVTC; Hollis Lenderking, Ultra
subcommittee Co-chair, BAUR; Cynci Calvin, PA Communications
Committee chair, LDR Secretary, Chips; Irene Herman, PA Membership
Committee chair, Impalas; Carol Keller, Impalas; Jerry Lyman,
Empire; Kim Rupert, WVTC; Pat Carr, Tamalpa; Gordon Abbott, Tamalpa;
Frank Ruona Tamalpa; Christopher Phipps, Hoy's Excelsior; Dave Ahn,
Reebok Aggies
Minutes from the March 24 Houlihan's meeting were unanimously
approved with the clarification that the Christmas Relays (12/22)
would not be on the PA/USATF LDR Grand Prix Championship schedule.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS
2002 Cross Country Grand Prix Schedule unanimously approved; points
and prize money are all set except for Golden Gate Open and PA/USATF
Championship. [Note: they were determined shortly thereafter -
complete schedule is posted at www.pausatf.org .]
LDR Banquet: Empire Runners and Buffalo Chips will cohost; date tba
but will be the end of January, 2003.
Budget unanimously approved, including removal of the previously free
post-Houlihan's lunch.
Postponed to Humboldt meeting: Proposal to adopt certain policies and
recommendations re: non-resident membership (see App. A).
RULES CHANGES
Not passed (3 abstentions, none in favor): change concerning team
scoring (19.3): "Athletes may drop down to score for more than one
age-division team in a grand prix event. An athlete of an older age
group may score for his or her own age group and for younger age
groups."
Passed (unanimously): Rule change in Road Grand Pix to allow "best
of" scoring with points - individuals could score points in a total
of one less that the number of events held in each Road Grand Prix
with the amendment that for the open athletes this applies only for
the short series. An amendment to this rule change allowing open
athletes to drop one long and one short was not passed (6 no, 5 yes).
Passed (2 abstentions): Road Grand Prix rule change to allow, at the
discretion of the LDR Committee, non-proportional allocation of race
point values above 1.0 between individuals and teams. (I.e. a race
with an overall scoring of 2.0 points may be allocated 1.0 individual
and 3.0 team).
Referred to committee (unanimously): Possible changes in the XC GP scoring
system, to a new ad hoc subcommittee/task force to be chaired by Todd
Kelly and charged with presenting three options at the Humboldt meeting in
October.
NEW BUSINESS
Passed (2 opposed): Each cross country race must get the prize money
to the PA office within 10 days of the event. PA office will
distribute prize money. [Note: After this meeting, the PA office expressed
reluctance to send out this prize money. The following compromise was
reached: All team money should be sent as per this motion to the PA
office, which will hold it and distribute it all at the end of the season.
Individual races will be instructed to pay out the individual prize money
at the behest of the XC scorer, after results are posted and after the
expiration of the appeals period.]
Passed (2 opposed): For Road and Cross Country Grand Prix Events,
double dipping is allowed at the discretion of the race director. If
the race director does not specify, double dipping is not allowed.
Athletes will receive the highest amount of prize money offered.
Options presented from Road Grand Prix Scoring Task Force; will put
some prototypes on web site using 2002 results to show how these kind
of scoring systems will work):
1) Score everyone
2) Score 50 to 100 in open, later extend to masters and older
3) Use different formulas for point scoring
Passed unanimously: Beginning with the 2002 XC Grand Prix series, the
scoring system for individuals in the Cross Country Grand Prix races
will be the same as the Road Grand Prix system.
APPEALS
Appeal denied (11 denied, 2 approved): that WVTC should be able to
score a team that did not have a majority of PA residents.
Tabled: discussion about abolishing the "team having a majority of PA
residents" rule. It was recommended to include in these minutes
points in favor of abolishing this rule and points in favor of
keeping the rule:
Abolish rule because:
1) May violate USATF rules
2) Potentially denies the right of PA clubs to compete
3) Bad for PA competition; the more talented runners the PA has
competing (even out of area runners) the better is the competition.
Keep rule because:
1) Limited number of PA competitions
2) Can snowball - more and more non-resident athletes will compete
3) Bad for the PA
4) Puts clubs who do not recruit at a disadvantage
Passed (unanimously): to allow Silver State's "Jane" to be included
on her Silver State team at Houlihan's even though' her 2002
registration did not have her team affiliation. She has a long
history as a Silver State team member and competed in club attire.
Meeting Adjourned: 1:15 p.m.
__________________
APPENDIX A: Approved OOAA motion, as amended (Humboldt 2001)
(Contains motion postponed to Humboldt meeting.)
In all PA/USATF LDR Grand Prix events, no scoring team may consist of a
majority of non-resident members (members who live outside the PA
boundaries). Displacers are not included in this definition of scoring
team. The LDR chairs shall determine the actual language to be used.
In addition, the LDR Committee shall vote at the May 2002 LDR meeting on
whether to adopt the following policies and recommendations regarding
non-resident membership. [Note: this vote was postponed to the Humboldt
2002 meeting.
(a) Recommend to the Membership Committee that non-resident membership
be granted only to athletes who:
(i) were once residents and members of the PA and who have
continued to
be members of the PA during their entire period of non-residency; OR
(ii) petition to and receive permission from the Membership
Committee to allow them to become members. The petition process should
incorporate the following guidelines:
(1) Petitions should be considered in a timely
fashion.
(2) A subcommittee or panel (Panel) should be
appointed by the Membership Committee to adjudicate these petitions. For
adjudicating the petitions of LDR athletes, the Panel should consist of a
majority of representatives from LDR. As an alternative, the Membership
Committee may delegate adjudication of petitions of LDR athletes to the
LDR Committee, which may in turn delegate this to a subcommittee or panel.
(3) The Panel should grant membership when it decides
that it would be in the best interests of the sport and of the athlete.
(Note: This is the criteria that an appeals board would use in the case of
the appeal of an athlete who has been denied membership.) It should create
its own standards for evaluating this criteria and for balancing the
potentially competing interests of the sport and of the athlete, and in
close cases should value the interests of the sport above the interests of
the athlete. When considering the best interest of the athlete, the Panel
should consider, among other factors, other competitive opportunities
available to the athlete. It should also consider the athlete's potential
to develop into an international-class athlete and, where that potential
exists, the role of the PA grand prixs in that development. When
considering the best interest of the sport, the Panel should consider,
among other factors, the effect of the athlete on grand prix individual
competition and especially team competition. It should also consider the
best interest of the sport in the context of the grand prix mission
statement. It is anticipated that most petitions will be approved. The
Panel should create a checklist of questions regarding the athlete's
circumstances against which the petition will be evaluated. Questions on
this list might include:
(a) Why do you want to join the PA?
(b) What competitive opportunities do you
currently have?
(c) Do you consider membership in the PA a key
part of your development into an athlete able to compete internationally?
(d) If you are planning to compete for a team,
how do you know the other members of this team?
(e) What are your PRs in the following
distances? (Question would list distances at which AADP has created
standards.)
There might also be questions about recruitment and financial incentives.
(b) Each year these policies are in place, evaluate whether to
continue this petition process at the LDR Committee's official annual
meeting (usually held at Humboldt in October).
