Raising the Qualifying Score to Ride a Freestyle to 63...what say you?

[poltroon]

I look forward to Janet Foy retiring from these committees, because she’s among the most aggressively amateur-unfriendly people I’ve come across. I don’t know if she’d be surprised to hear that or not, but the passive-aggressive remarks she’s made every time I’ve been in her presence or read something she’s written are like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I am sure she is sincere in wanting what is best for the sport, but her point of view is so blinded that for whatever reason she can’t seem to understand how and why we see the issues differently from her. I really don’t understand why this has to be adversarial.

[alibi_18]

@poltroon

I look forward to Janet Foy retiring from these committees, because she’s among the most aggressively amateur-unfriendly people I’ve come across. I don’t know if she’d be surprised to hear that or not, but the passive-aggressive remarks she’s made every time I’ve been in her presence or read something she’s written are like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I am sure she is sincere in wanting what is best for the sport, but her point of view is so blinded that for whatever reason she can’t seem to understand how and why we see the issues differently from her. I really don’t understand why this has to be adversarial.

I’ve had the complete opposite interraction with her.
She’d happily answer my questions and she never been condescending or mean to me.
I agree she could be a little abrupt/impatient, but only if the rider is not commited to learn and/or listen; aka just showing off. In those rare occasions have I heard the « nice outfit » comment while the rider was arguing with her. [Rider in question was a Pro]

Do you mind sharing, in private if you prefer, what kind of comments led you to believe she is that anti-amateur?

[poltroon]

They were not about individual interactions; I’ve never seen her be anything but polite to individuals when speaking to them.

[pluvinel]

@Cowgirl

… etc etc and their membership numbers will decline. If that is what they are going for, they they are doing it the right way.

Well…they (the USDF) may be succeeding…in driving down its membership.

To get the message across about the rule change, I suggest that people, especially PM members, boycott paying their dues for a year … or two…or more. If you can’t ride in the freestyle, why pay the fee?

I just got my 2019 Member Guide (since I am a GMO member). Buried there on p. 2 in “About USDF” is the statement, “The USDF is a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation composed of nearly 30,000 members….”

Ok…the operative word here is “nearly”…so that means “not quite” 30k members.

I recall seeing published numbers that the USDF had 37k members, maybe in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s. That is a 7,000 (or ~20%) drop in membership in about 20 years, or a membership drop of about 1% per year.

If anyone has old USDF paperwork, it might be interesting to look to see if they report membership numbers.

If you find any, please post here and perhaps we could develop a trend line. A trend line would allow us to draw a regression equation which would give a rate of decline and could be extrapolated to when the membership would cross zero.

As Deep Throad said…“Follow the Money”…it might be interesting to follow the money trend of membership fees. I recall when DVCTA had +500 members back in the 1980’s. It is now about 150.

[alibi_18]

@poltroon

They were not about individual interactions; I’ve never seen her be anything but polite to individuals when speaking to them.

Ok. Then what has she done to make you believe she was anti-amateur, like more than the other ones on these comitees? Is it just this?

[alibi_18]

@pluvinel

I recall seeing published numbers that the USDF had 37k members, maybe in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s. That is a 7,000 (or ~20%) drop in membership in about 20 years, or a membership drop of about 1% per year.

If anyone has old USDF paperwork, it might be interesting to look to see if they report membership numbers.
(…)
As Deep Throad said…“Follow the Money”…it might be interesting to follow the money trend of membership fees. I recall when DVCTA had +500 members back in the 1980’s. It is now about 150.

Please don’t forget to take both the 2001 and 2007/2009 recessions into account… and let’s not fool ourselves, there’s another one coming.

[pluvinel]

@alibi_18

Please don’t forget to take both the 2001 and 2007/2009 recessions into account… and let’s not fool ourselves, there’s another one coming.

Recessions don’t matter in this discussion. If someone dropped their membership because of affordability during the recessions, then if their interest was still there, the membership figures should have rebounded post-recession.

People make trade-offs of cost vs value received. If the value they are getting from the USDF is not worth the cost, then the membership figures should reflect that.

This is why trend lines are very important and single numbers in a vacuum without context are not very good indicators of much of anything other than that snapshot in time.

If your “theory” that membership dropped off at recessions, then one should see a dip in those years…and if people valued the USDF, then the trend line would show a rebound back to where the line would have been without the recessionary dip.

Corporate earnings…blood pressure/cholesterol/blood sugar…all are reported single numbers that indicate the current state at the time the number was produced.

However, if one plots a trend of corporate earning, one can discern a business that is potentially in or headed into trouble.

If you track you blood work over time, you can see potential health issues before the indicator variable crosses the magic line that says you are outside limits.

[ladyj79]

Ok, recession, but we’re also talking about what? A 25% decrease in membership during the time when the US population has added 50+ million people. USDF is working hard to drive membership down.

[poltroon]

The danger of recessions in our sport is that people aren’t coming back after. There are lots of reasons for this; when you’re older and the money dries up it’s easy to drift away, and dressage especially is a sport with a high startup cost for the horseless. Rules like this are increasing that cost to play in a personally satisfying way.

[pluvinel]

In searching for USDF membership numbers, I found the USDF BOG Summary Report
https://www.usdf.org/docs/about/about-usdf/governance/COMPLETE%20BOG%20Reports.pdf

Interestingly, see p. 16 the Freestyle Committee Report. Scroll down to p. 18 and please note the last line of the committee report…

Motions to come before the Board of Governors: None

So…where is the motion to rescind the 63% rule supposed to come from?

[yaya]

That’s a summary of the committee meetings held before the BOG, not the results of actions during the BOG.

The motion must have come from the BOG floor?

[pluvinel]

@yaya

That’s a summary of the committee meetings held before the BOG, not the results of actions during the BOG.

The motion must have come from the BOG floor?

Well…that’s what I thought…

But if you read the report, then I get confused…see below…

The statements below would indicate that this is a synopsis of what transpired at the Convention…but, I hope to be corrected.

“The Freestyle Committee discussed their committee agenda items during a joint open forum with the Judges and L Program Committees.”

“Number in attendance at open meeting: 167”

"Items discussed at open meeting: [INDENT] ….[/INDENT]
[INDENT] Explanation of DR 129.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]o Answered questions and listened to concerns and expressions of support for the new score requirement."[/INDENT]

2019 Objectives: [INDENT]1. Educate freestyle riders and competition management on the changes to the 2019 scoresheets.
2. Continue to educate membership and competition management on freestyle rules.
3. Continue to promote the importance of freestyle education to USEF-licensed dressage judges.
4. Request feedback on the new freestyle scoresheets and changes to the freestyle tests.[/INDENT]

“Motions to come before the Board of Governors: None”

[TwoRoads]

@pluvinel

Well…that’s what I thought…

But if you read the report, then I get confused…see below…

The statements below would indicate that this is a synopsis of what transpired at the Convention…but, I hope to be corrected.

“The Freestyle Committee discussed their committee agenda items during a joint open forum with the Judges and L Program Committees.”

“Number in attendance at open meeting: 167”

"Items discussed at open meeting: [INDENT] ….[/INDENT]
[INDENT] Explanation of DR 129.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]o Answered questions and listened to concerns and expressions of support for the new score requirement."[/INDENT]

2019 Objectives: [INDENT]1. Educate freestyle riders and competition management on the changes to the 2019 scoresheets.
2. Continue to educate membership and competition management on freestyle rules.
3. Continue to promote the importance of freestyle education to USEF-licensed dressage judges.
4. Request feedback on the new freestyle scoresheets and changes to the freestyle tests.[/INDENT]

“Motions to come before the Board of Governors: None”

As Yaya said these are summaries of meeting that happen before the BOG. Granted they also happen at convention, just a day or so before the BOG meeting. So that is a summary for that meeting only, not for the BOG meeting. If you look at the other reports you’ll see they each have a “Number in attendance at open meeting” that vary. It’s because they are referring to different meetings. Each committee has an open meeting at convention, but before BOG.

[pluvinel]

Ok…I stand corrected.

Considering the amount of attendees, I had assumed (…my bad…) that the recommendation about the qualifying score to the BOG would have come from these pre-meeting committee deliberations to be then presented and approved by the BOG.

[lorilu]

The recommendation to raise scores to ride FS NEVER came to the BOG LAST year (2017) - that is the issue we all have. THIS year, in the Open Committee meeting referenced above, the reasoning behind the rule change was discussed… The roomwas packed to overflowing. The gist of it was that a MFS is harder to ride than a well designed test, and too many riders are getting to Regionals with poor technical skills. (of course, who gave them the qual scores? Seems like a judging issue to me…)

The Motion to ask USEF to Rescind the rule came from the floor of the BOG. The discussion of the rule started on Day 1 with a motion (I forget the exact wording) and was continued Day 2. Many of us were in line waiting to speak when someone put forward the “rescind” motion, it was seconded, and everything we were going to say about the rule became immaterial. We voted by machine, not a voice vote. THe motion passed somethng like 900+ yay to 450 (ish) nay. (that tells you that 1/3 of the voting members of the BoG - both PMs and those carrying GMO delegate votes or proxies) thought the rule should stand. That is something to think about…)

[atlatl]

@lorilu

… THe motion passed somethng like 900+ yay to 450 (ish) nay. (that tells you that 1/3 of the voting members of the BoG - both PMs and those carrying GMO delegate votes or proxies) thought the rule should stand. That is something to think about…)

Actually, a vote of ~450 to ~900 tells you that ~1/2 of the voters thought the rule should stand.

See corrections below…

[pluvinel]

@atlatl

Actually, a vote of ~450 to ~900 tells you that ~1/2 of the voters thought the rule should stand.

Um…no.

The way the computation is done is as follows:

Total Votes: 450 + 900 = 1350

Percent Yay: 900 ÷ 1350 = 66.67%

Percent Nay: 450 ÷ 1350 = 33.33%

Sorry…the engineer in me can’t help this.

[netg]

@atlatl

Actually, a vote of ~450 to ~900 tells you that ~1/2 of the voters thought the rule should stand.

No, no it doesn’t.

[atlatl]

I stand corrected! So much for those math degrees on a Monday!

[atlatl]

@pluvinel

Um…no.

The way the computation is done is as follows:

Total Votes: 450 + 900 = 1350

Percent Yay: 900 ÷ 1350 = 66.67%

Percent Nay: 450 ÷ 1350 = 33.33%

Sorry…the engineer in me can’t help this.

No need to apologize, I welcome the truth