RCP 2022-02
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Agreed. Excellent proposal. Acknowledged is the fact that this will ad time to the Banquet. That is a plus- the social aspect of the banquet is critical.
For many years of the NAR existence, Championship awards were only for Champion and Reserve. In the last some year before NRC, the change was made to award 4. I don’t know why. I’m guessing because event places were 1 through 4. I also don’t know why 1st through 4th for events was the norm per NRC. But again, I speculate because 1 through 4 earned more points than the rest of the places. In fact, in a lot of years, you had to be in 1st through 4th to earn ANY points.
Now, point above flight points are awarded for places 1 through 10. Obviously it would make no sense to have awards for 10 places. In many other competitions (Olympic Sports, NASCAR, FAI) only the top 3 are awarded. The classic “Gold, Silver, Bronze”. To “podium” means to be on the awards ceremony podium for those events which means 1st, 2nd, 3rd. This makes sense given the new points award structure.
My view is that the NRC hit the right balance of awards versus the current point awards, number of competitors, and following other competitive activities. I would only consider adding 3rd to the National Champ awards to be consistent.
On the practical side, having served as CD for 2 NARAM, and Contest Board chair for 5 years, what is suggested ends up with the NAR or NARAM host section making a lot of awards for A and B division, and on occasion for team division, because there are not enough competitors. So we end up with medals and trophies that don’t get awarded. Also, given the smaller number of NARAM contestants these days, unless there is a large increase in the contest fees, it will be difficult to cover the cost of these additional awards.
In closing, kudos to the NRC rules authors for thinking outside the box and not just keeping the awards the same just because that is the way it has always be done. We don’t need NARAM to be an “everyone wins a trophy” event.
This proposal provides little justification for making any change. It points out that “it takes a lot of work to come in third for the year, or at NARAM” and then proposes adding an award for fourth place. A statement that “this is way it was done before” is not a justification to change something. As pointed out elsewhere, it was done differently before that.
This proposal would add a significant cost to conducting a NARAM. It increases the number of event awards by 33% (and remember two awards are made for each Team place). It doubles the number of Meet, National Champions, Section Champions, NRC Section Champions awards (which tend to be the more expensive trophies).
The proposal summary states “award places through fourth everywhere,” however, no exact wording for a rule change is listed for individual Event Specialist Awards, although the NRC Section Champions are included. Not clear if that is an omission or the intention. Currently, only the first place ESA is recognized. Adding awards for 2-4 would increase the number of awards 3-fold for that category.
The current system of event awards for 1-3 syncs up with current practice in competition in international rocketry, national and international aeronautical competition, and sports competition in general.
I, personally, support recognizing the top two places for awards where results are combined from many events and/or competitors (i.e. National, Meet, and Section Champs). I think the current system adequately recognizes achievement in our competition system.
No other competition really goes beyond 3rd. Other than horses. This was researched and taken into account at the time. Results are always readily available for anyone to determine their place. This harks to the old top 4 awarded points, below 4th, only flight points. So, if this is an issue for the current system, then I suggest we award all the way down to 10th place, as those are now awarded points, and not simply flight points. Based on the RCP submitted that is the only course of action I see. If that is what people want. Gonna be a long banquet.