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Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Thanks to eveyone at our conference call yesterday. It was good to get some feedback on the work to date, and to have a time line for finishing the level 1 and 2 courses.

We've set up Don McIntyre, Pat Lymburner and perhaps Judy Barnes from NS as a detailed review team. Our hope is that the team will look at the material in detail, watching for errors and missing themes, and that we can publish the final course material by late March. Others on the RM committee are invited to participate in this work—please run through a copy of the slides and the Notes and tell us what you think.

Friday, February 25, 2005
We are scheduled for a conference call on Tuesday March 01 at 1600 PST/1900 EST. We'll get an agenda posted here shortly—basically we're hoping to work out next steps so that we can take this program public. It would be a good idea if members of the RM committee could look through the ARO and Club RO session 2 material (any session is okay, but session 1 has quite a bit of duplication with the ARO material, so session 2 might be more informative.) We've been talking about asking two or three of you all to serve on a review committee, to do a detailed look-through and bring questions or comments to the rest of the committee. Naturally it would be great if everyone would look through everything, but that's probably unreasonable, given that many of us have jobs, etc.

Pretty much all the material is posted on the home page. Note that if you know how to run MS Powerpoint on your computer, you don't need to download the course notes and slide copies. You can just download the presentation and print what you need directly. One of the subjects of our call will be what expectations we should have of our course conductors. I'm hoping we can agree that they should be fluent in our software. There are a number of other handouts which we use in the course, so the Powerpoint alone isn't all you need.

Paul is off to Comox BC to do a level 1 and 2 weekend with a collection of Hobie sailors and high school students who can get graduation credit for attending officiating courses. No doubt he'll have his hands full. This will be the first outing for the Asst RO material, and the second for the Club RO course slides.

Monday, February 20, 2005
The site is coming together now. The Club RO slides will be finished today, and Paul is going to send a note around to the RM committee to schedule a conference call. Next steps will include setting up a review committee to go through the course material in detail (all comments are welcome, of course) and then we'll put the program into production. Still have to get some of the handout material posted, but that will come in the next day or so.

Saturday, February 13, 2005
We're making progress now, mainly because I've been giving a Club RO course at West Vancouver YC and this means the slides and teaching notes have to get done, no matter what.

Paul and I are trying to find a time to get together next week to take a look at the material and to figure out what to do next. Ideally each person on the RM committee will download the slides and review the content and the handouts, etc. Then maybe a conference call to go through everything, and to agree on changes. It's a lot of work. The slides cover 12 hours of teaching time, for example, and while they will have been used at least once, it's still quite a lot. On the other hand, once we've got it agreed, we're done.

More shortly . . . .

Saturday, January 8, 2005
Welcome to 2005, and a Happy New Year to everyone. If you found your way here, you'll know that I've moved the web site. No big deal—it just makes management a little easier.

Here's a progress report: The first draft of the Asst RO course material is complete. I'm about halfway through the Provincial RO material, and hoping to have that finished in a couple of weeks. I'm sure there are already inquiries about courses for the winter and spring, so we'll try to get this happening as soon as possible.

I've circulated a sample selection of slides to the RM committee, and to Erika Vines at head office, so we can all see the general outline and get a sense of the look and feel. I'm not sure what the graphic standards issues are going to be. Rick Janes, the CYA ED, has passed responsibility along to Erika, so we'll be working together to see what this thing is going to look like. As well, there are a number of questions about content that the RM committee needs to deal with, and I'll try to get a first draft of those out in a few days. The material is built in Powerpoint (surprise!), but for those who want to work in overhead slides, we'll eventually produce a PDF file that can be printed. Powerpoint is helpful because of the Notes pages, where much of the "key ideas" and teaching tips information will be stored.

Finally, we're told that Pat Lymburner is in continuing discussion with US Sailing, to see what elements of the US program we can use. If we get a green light on their very nice entry level booklet, we'll try to get that published as soon as possible. More news on that score shortly.

Thursday, November 26
After two days of learning and spirited discusssion, it looks like we've made some progress. Tom Farquhar, chair of the US Sailing race management committee, presented USSA course content and structure Thursday and Friday morning, finishing off with a special edition of the USSA standard test.

Tom's program is well developed and comprehensive, and we're agreed that if would be very helpful if we could acquire rights to the USSA content. Apparently there are discussions underway with CYA and USSA that might make this possible. The other important piece of the puzzle is the USSA SOARS system, their on-line record keeping system. Members of USSA can report their training and experience directly into the system and the information then becomes available for race officer recertification. It would be great if we could tap into this network.

On Thursday afternoon we talked about some structural issues, to try to pin down some of the needs of the PSAs, while recognizing that our program belongs to the CYA and will be developed and maintained at the national level. I've added the slides below (click here). One of the things we agreed was that the program will comprise three elements, and we took a quick look at the proposed content for the level 2 course. The slides are available below (click here)

Next steps are to create the teaching notes for the first two programs, while waiting for the negotiations to complete between the CYA and USSA. More details when we have them.

Monday, November 22
Made a rookie mistake when I originally posted the BC Sailing slides. Colour isn't much use, if anyone wants to print them out, as I did a few minutes ago. They are there in B/W now, which fits most printers better. Apologies to all.

Sunday, November 21
I've posted some additional CYA material below (click here). It would be helpful if you could make yourself copies of the material marked with the symbol. These form the background of some of our scheduled discussions on Thursday, so if you could look at them in advance and bring a copy to the meeting it would be helpful.

See you Wednesday morning at Port Credit YC.

Thursday, November 18
Had a conference call with Pat Lymburner and Paul Ulibarri about our schedule for next week. Present plan is to ask our guest from US Sailing, Tom Farquhar, to run over the US Sailing material on Wednesday and perhaps into a bit of Thursday morning. Then we'd like to gather the CYA race manangement sub-committee and the PSA reps together to review some of the core assumptions and decisions that were taken last year, to make sure we all know what we're talking about. We'd also like to do some work on the agreed 'body of knowledge' that should be included in the level 1 and 2 programs, and make sure the PSAs are ready to take that part on. I'll try to get some detailed agenda items here shortly.

When I wrote the initial proposal to Paul, I sent a copy along to Pat Lymburner, who has had much to do with the revitalization of the program in recent years. Pat replied immediately, but my PDF system couldn't open the file. I got his comments today, and they are included in the revised document (click here). It would be very helpful if you all could bring a copy of this paper to Toronto, and to think about some of the implications so that on Thursday you'll be eloquent on the issues that matter most to you.

Thursday, November 4
Met with Guy Walters, member of the race management committee and author of the CYA race management manual. We talked about some of the history of the Canadian race management program, and discussed how we might settle on the 'body of knowledge' needed by an applicant who presents for CRO status. Guy would add experience at a multi-class regatta under a senior RO as mentor, and completion of some course material.

Irene McNeill is going to see what other material Ontario has developed, and we'll see about posting it here. Pay Lymburner sent along a copy of the "Cheek Report" (actually Bill Cheek, Pat and Frank Pellerin). It's undated, but I'm guessing 2001 or so. Some concerns were identified that are still with us, particularly the relationship between PSA and CYA processes. It's posted below (click here).

Monday, November 1
It appears that representatives of most provinces will attend the RM seminar in Toronto. I spoke by phone with AB, MB, ON, PQ, NB, NS, and they all have identified someone that can speak for them. (I'll represent BC.) Next steps are to accumulate teaching materials, slides, etc. beyond those from Ontario and BC.

Introduction — Tuesday, October 26
In October 2004, Paul Uibarri, chair of the Canadian Yachting Association's Race Management committee, asked me for some thoughts on how the CYA race management program might be re-energized. Our conversation was informed by stories from the Athens Olympic Regatta, where Paul was serving as ISAF advisor on the Tornado course, and by my experience as a race officer and as a director of BC Sailing responsible for race management over the past ten years. Paul asked me to write a short proposal to the RM committee, which is included below.

The proposal imagines getting answers to some fundamental questions from Provincial Sailing Authorities and the Race Management committee, followed by the preparation of draft teaching notes for approval in the spring of 2005.

Next steps are to get together at the November 2004 CYA meeting, where we will have a presentation from Tom Farquhar from US Sailing on that country's program, and where we might have a chance to talk about some of the policy questions that will set the basis for future work.

John Culter
October 2004

 

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