AWSA Regional Divisions?

[ToddL]

So the whole age vs. ability thread got me to thinking... If I was starting AWSA from scratch, how would I structure it?

 

With regard to divisions, I would want to try to more equitably distribute the active participants across regions which still had geographic sense.

 

Here is how the current regions look:

Region Prcnt of Skiers

 Mid  28.65%

 West  27.26%

 South  19.79%

 East 12.78%

 SCentral 11.52%

 

Here is a different proposal:

New Region Prcnt of Skiers

West Coast 18.16%

North Central 15.74%

South 15.50%

North East 14.31%

East Coast 14.28%

Mid 12.92%

Mtn 9.10%

 

OK, so the Mountain region gets kind of lost in the different proposal. But the rest of the regions are quite equal in number of skiers.

 

Here's how it lays out by state:

New St Old Skier Distro

West Coast

 CA   W  12.05%

 WA   W  4.52%

 OR   W  1.59%

North Central

 MI   M  4.85%

 OH   M  4.81%

 MN   M  3.55%

 WI   M  2.52%

South

 TX   C  7.77%

 AL   S  2.03%

 TN   S  1.96%

 OK   C  1.20%

 LA   C  1.00%

 AR   C  0.83%

 MS   C  0.73%

North East

 NY   E  2.59%

 VA   E  2.39%

 MA   E  1.99%

 PA   E  1.63%

 KY   S  1.53%

 CT   E  1.20%

 NJ   E  0.80%

 NH   E  0.76%

 MD   E  0.43%

 VT   E  0.43%

 DE   E  0.33%

 RI   E  0.13%

 DC   E  0.07%

 ME   E  0.03%

East Coast

 FL   S  7.77%

 NC   S  2.95%

 GA   S  2.09%

 SC   S  1.46%

Mid

 IN   M  3.45%

 IL   M  2.82%

 MO   M  2.19%

 KS   M  2.06%

 NE   M  1.26%

 IA   M  0.90%

 SD   M  0.23%

Mtn

 CO   W  3.72%

 UT   W  2.06%

 ID   W  1.49%

 AZ   W  0.80%

 MT   W  0.46%

 AK   W  0.23%

 NV   W  0.20%

 WY   W  0.10%

 NM   W  0.03%

 

Basically, the West got split into Coast vs. Mountain. Mid got split into North (great lakes) and rest of mid. SCentral and South and East got restructured into South (SC +S) and East Coast (south part of the coast) and North East.

 

 

If you were to group the states differently, how would you do it and why?

[klindy]

To accomplish what?

[RazorRoss3]

IF: placement at regionals was the sole way to qualify for nationals,

THEN: it would make sense to have relatively equal skier counts in each region because it would prevent a region from being so small that there would be "auto qualifying" skiers or close to. since that isn't the case I'm not sure skier distribution is a big problem.

 

As a step beyond the practicality or need, I would have fewer regions, combine them all to hit 4 of 25% each or close to.

[unksskis]

I would go opposite. With the current silly requirement that a skier must attend Regionals (except Open division), there needs to be more Regions/Regionals. If the point of Nationals is to have as many people as possible, this should help get people past the requirement, and allow for more Regionals placement qualifications for Nationals.

[RazorRoss3]

More regions would make regionals easier to attend which would be a bonus.

[BraceMaker]

I can't imagine the folks from the great frozen north driving across Illinois and Indiana to attend events with the buckeyes. Darned great lakes getting in the middle of things - MN probably belongs more with Iowa and IL/IN with Ohio/MI

[RichardDoane]

state championships make more sense than regionals

[Edbrazil]

@toddl 's accounting adds up to 48, not 51 (w/ DC). No WV, HI, ND. And, KY in the

NorthEast?! Of course, more regions, more complication with more directors, etc.

[lpskier]

@Edbrazil "First thing we do, let's kill all the regional directors." William Shakespeare, Henry VI.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@toddl I'm with klindy. Why? What are you trying to accomplish?

 

Until you can clearly articulate that, your exercise is pointless.

[klindy]

Attend one AWSA board meeting and you'll rethink the idea totally anyway. The LAST thing needed is more regions and more regional directors!!

 

If the goal is to help make it easier to attend and ski at a Regionals by somehow making the regions smaller then a far, far better approach is to allow more than one regional tournament in a region. Have them geographically located so it helps the travel/time issues and figure out how to score them (combined, separate, whatever).

[Beastmode]

@ToddL - Dude you have way too much idle time!!! lol

[LeonL]

@toddl how much time did it take for you to do that?

[ntx]

As a business owner, it always concerns me when I see the number of posts during working hours. It makes me wonder how much time is wasted on web sites. I can control my network but much more difficult with the tablet and smart phones.

[Drago]

@ntx Some people I know only look at blogs when sitting on the john

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@ntx so I guess as the owner that makes you exempt from wasting time on web sites? Or is it that this site is a waste of time B)

[Horton]

@ntx that is pretty far off topic but please let your employees visit BallOfSpray twice a day

[ntx]

@Horton you don't want any of my employees on your site. None of them know the difference between a front flip done inside or outside the line.

[ntx]

@Drago some might need to see a doctor for that. I fixed that problem by putting the little locks on my bathroom stalls like you used to see many years ago in public places. It only unlocks when you put the quarter in. I wonder how many remember those.

[ToddL]

At the risk of being banned by @Horton, I am responding to the questions above.

 

@klindy / @Bruce_Butterfield Why? I was thinking if I was building "AWSA" from scratch, "how would I group the states?" Once I had the rankings list data, I noticed the skier distribution by region. It seemed lop sided. I would attempt to group them with regards to # of skiers and still have some geographic coordination. That's all. Not much more. But I also wanted to post so that it would spark creative thinking and discussion.

 

Regional Directors? yep. Don't need or want more regional directors. But that criticism assumes that each new region needs all the current directors. It assumes that the current regional leadership is needed in general. Why do the regions need so many leadership roles? State Championships get done without State directors. State tournament scheduled get coordinated.

 

@ZipZapPaddyWhack - interesting comment about states over regions. What if there were no regions?!?! What if there were state champs then straight to nats? Crazy... Hmm...

 

@Beastmode / @LeonL - I had insomnia the other night and pulled the data. Using keyboard shortcuts I could jump between the browser and excel and quickly harvest each division's ranking list into one large excel file. Probably 10 minutes to harvest. The analytics and just playing with the data was like 1.5 hours. Then, thought about it all for another 30 mins trying to fall asleep. Next day, posted about it all.

 

@ntx - some work tasks are sequential and include wait times. Pretty easy to pop over to BOS and see what's cookin' or respond to comments about posts I've made. I type relatively fast...