April News:

Dear Club Members:

 I would like to congratulate those of you who have participated in recent multi-sport events and thank you for the hard earned points you have gleaned for the team.  I also wanted to speak on the club’s behalf in wishing Clint Bolton well at Ironman Arizona, his first Ironman, this coming Sunday! 

 I would like to apologize in advance because this note is more as a novel.  I do have quite a bit of information to relay to you so please take the time to read the entire e-mail.  I suppose this would be more along the lines of a “newsletter” this time (grin). 

 Club Competition

 Our club really did well at the Athens Triathlon earning a record breaking 60.5 points, 50 of them for members who placed in the top 5 of their age group.  We are no longer a category 5 club but have moved up into category 4 because we have more than 29 members.  If we intend to win a place in our division’s club competition (we won 3^rd place this past year in category 5) we need more of you to enter the same events.  The rules for earning points have changed (I have added the point rules at the end of this e-mail) and a club has to earn a minimum of 5 points before any points will be counted.  As an example, those of us who participated in the Lonestar Triathlon a few weeks ago, even though we had five competitors and worked hard to finish the races, we only earned 4.5 points, not meeting the minimum 5 points needed in order to count in the club’s point accumulation.  With one more competitor finishing, we would have gotten the 5 points.  I realize that triathletes by nature are solitary creatures and like to pick and select their own events for participation based on their training, family and work obligations, and finances.  Those of you who participate in triathlons or duathlons where you are the only club member attending will not count toward the club’s points unless you actually place 1^st or 2^nd in your age group.  I have chatted with various members of the club and, based on the conversations, have selected several triathlons of which there seems to be a consensus that these are great ones to participate in as a “team.”  Please do your best to work on your schedule(s) and try to compete in these events.  Do it for the team!

May 18, 2008—Saturday     Four States Triathlon, Texarkana, Texas

July 13, 2008—Saturday     Jefferson Triathlon, Lake o' The Pines, Jefferson, Texas

August 3, 2008—Sunday    River Cities Triathlon, Bosier City, Louisiana

September 13, 2008—Saturday  Rose City Triathlon, Tyler, Texas  (This is “our” triathlon so I would hope you would either compete or be there as a volunteer—more on this at the May  
meeting)

September 20, 2008—Saturday  Denison Dash Triathlon, Denison, Texas 

September 28, 2008—Sunday    Stonebridge Ranch Triathlon, McKinney, Texas

I realize that you cannot do all of them (I plan to) but the more of us who participate in these events, the more points our club can earn.  If by chance you are a participant who usually does not place in the top 2 of your age group (uh, and that would include me), I have a suggestion.  We have a few college students in our club who consistently place 1st or 2nd in their age group and/or in the entire race.  The entry fees are difficult for them--many of you may remember those “fundless” days as a student.  Consider sponsoring them by paying their entry fee (I’m sure they would be extremely grateful by your act of kindness).  This is a “win, win” for all of us—they get to participate, you feel great because you helped someone, and the club earns points. 

Membership Dues

I have to do something this week that I have been dreading—I will have to drop about 15 members from our roster because they have not paid their dues.  I feel that they have been given ample opportunity to do so (I extended the March 15 deadline by nearly 3 weeks) and strongly feel that the minimum $10 dues that we voted on in February is reasonable.  In the future, I will not add new members until I receive their dues.  Also, if any member dropped pays their dues, then I will immediately reinstate them. 

USA Triathlon Grant

At the club’s request, I did complete the grant application and sent this in to USAT.  I requested the grant in order to pay for the chip timing ($2,025) at our triathlon.  We have not been notified as to whether we would receive one (this was supposed to be done on April 1) but I received an e-mail from USAT Club Chairman, Jodie Ritchey, which said, “In determining the amount of grant money to be awarded, we would like to know if you will use the USAT logo on the race advertisements and signage.”  My response was, “Absolutely! We are proud to be an official USAT club.”  So this looks promising.  I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from them.

Triathlon Vendors / Sponsors

We are seeking vendors and sponsors for our triathlon.  Our triathlon committee has sent letters to Crown Motor Company, Trinity Mother Francis Hospital, Coca Cola Bottling, Brookshire Grocery Company, and to the Whitehouse Volunteer Fire Department.  If you have any influence with these companies or if you have suggestions for other sponsors please let us know as soon as possible.  We can offer them advertising on the race website and on the backs of the race T shirts.

Club T Shirts

I wanted to thank Tammy Rooney for getting our T shirts ordered—they really turned out well.  I still have 3 large sizes and 4 Extra Large sizes available.  The price is $11 each.  Also, those of you who paid $18 for the shirts, I have not forgotten that we owe you a $7 refund.  I will bring the club checkbook to the May meeting and pay the refund to you there.  We have no plans at this time to order more shirts but if there is enough interest, this can be done.  A few club members have expressed a desire for a cycling jersey, perhaps with a more elaborate East Texas Triathlete design.  I suggest that those of you with an “artistic bent” work on a design and find out the information on the jerseys and I will gladly give you the opportunity to present this at the May meeting.  Just let me know and I will add this to the agenda.

May Meeting Date

At the meeting in February, the membership left it up to me to select the date and time for the next meeting.  After looking at the calendar it was a pretty obvious choice.  4-States is on the 18^th, Mother’s day is on the 11^th, Gina and Clint’s wedding is on the 31^st, so that leaves open May 3 and May 24^th.  Clifford has a race on the 4^th.  Tammy, Clifford, and Rick Rogers have events on the 25^th so I chose May 3^rd as the date with the least number of conflicts.  We will keep the same time of 5-7:30 for the meeting.  I also mentioned that I would try to pick a location more central to all of us.  We could do a “Potluck” dinner at Tyler State Park ($50 fee to rent the pavillion).  William has suggested Cracker Barrel in Lindale as a location.  I also do not have a problem with driving to Longview but the Longview members need to make some suggestions because I’m not familiar with restaurants there.  We need to do this quickly so a room can be reserved.  If I do not get any suggestions, then I’ll just pick Cracker Barrel as the location.  If you have questions or suggestions for items to add to the agenda, please send them along.

Forum

The Forum on the website is working out quite well.  Members are posting their races, messages, trainings, suggestions, and well wishes.  If you have not joined, (you have to register with a screen name and a password) I encourage you to do so.  Even if you have not registered, you can still read posts of other members.  Brad has offered via the forum to put together a Red Cross First Aid class—please let him know if you can do this as soon as possible.  Several members have requested to use an “avatar” on the forum which is just simply a small photo which shows up each time you post.  If you want one, send me a photo and I’ll edit it for you to the correct file and image size and will send it back to you to add to your profile. 

Happy Training!!

Sincerely,

Duke Gill

CLUB SCORING
Each clubs president/contact is responsible for sending their clubs total points from each USAT SMW REGION race to the SMW Region Clubs Chairman. The club president/contact must at the same time submit a web site where the results for each race can be found. In the event results can not be verified by the Regional Clubs Chairman that race will not be counted. A SMW Regions “CLUB SCORE SHEET” must be turned in for each race. All club points along with results verification info must be received by the clubs chairman no later than 10 days after each race or that race may not be counted. An inaccurate score sheet may be thrown out. Please pay attention to the below Overall winners section.

Per Race Total Point Caps (maximums):

Cat 1: 250 pts

Cat 2: 200 pts

Cat 3, 4 & 5: 100 pts

OVERALL WINNERS (IMPORTANT PLEASE READ!!)
No points for overall/Masters/Grand Masters. BEFORE CALCULATING POINTS all Over all/Masters/Grand Masters winners must be plugged into their correct age group and the top 5 of that group pushed down to make room for overall winners. An age group 1st place could turn into a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on after over all winners are plugged in to their correct age groups.

NON CLUB MEMBERS
If a competitor other than a club member is in the top 5 that position is lost and no competitor points will be awarded for that place.

RELAY TEAMS
Relay teams are only eligible for participation points and ONLY if all 3 members of the relay team are members of the club. 1 participation point will be awarded per relay team that meets the membership criteria.

CLYDESDALE/ATHENA & AQUABIKE

When offered, Clydesdales and Athenas will be counted as distinctive “age groups” for our purposes. In addition, the new AquaBike category will be counted in long course triathlons (longer than Olympic/international distance) where that category is officially recognized.

PARTICIPATION POINTS
Each participant from your club whether they placed or not, receives ½ participation point, but they must finish the race to qualify. Example: Your club has 11 finishers, you get 5.5 points. Minimum total points for a single race must be met for a club to be eligible to submit results: 10 pt minimum for Cat 1, 2, & 3; 5 pt minimum for Cat 4 and 2.5 pt minimum for Cat 5.

EXCLUDED RACES
Any races that exclude or discriminate based on sex, age, experience or any other criteria will not be included. Therefore, Women-Only, Beginners-Only and Kids-Only Triathlons will not be counted. Furthermore, only races of a minimal size will count: minimum of 75 finishers for a triathlon and 50 finishers for a duathlon.

SCORE SHEETS ARE ON THE HONOR SYSTEM
Any score sheet that’s found to be inaccurate may cause that clubs score for that race to be thrown out. Multiple inaccuracies may be cause for a club to be disqualified for the year.

RACE POINT VALUES
The USAT National Club Championship, the (3) SMW regional championships and the 8 State Championship races (duathlons & triathlons) picked by the SMW Region championship committee will carry higher point values than other races. For a list of championship races, go to the SMW Events Calendar. In each age group, the following points will be awarded:

All Sanctioned Races
1st gets 6 pts
2nd gets 5 pts
3rd gets 4 pts
4th gets 3 pts
5th gets 2 pts

8 State Championship Races + 3 SMW Regional Championships + National Club Championship
All performance points count double the scores for normal sanctioned races.

 

TIES
The club with the most participation points wins in the event of a tie at year end. If still tied, then the club with the most 1st place points wins.

CLUB CATEGORIES
Cat. 1 200+ members
Cat. 2 100-199 members
Cat. 3 60-99 members
Cat. 4 30-59 members
Cat. 5 2-29 members

Clubs must count ALL members whether they compete in multisport or just single sport events. A club’s category will be set by the largest roster submitted by that club during the year. If a club starts in Cat. 5 but adds members and moves to Cat. 4 during the season (Jan. to Dec.) then they will be scored against Cat. 4 clubs even if they lose members and go back down to Cat. 5.

AWARDS
(Example for the below list: If there are only 3 clubs in a cat. money will be awarded 1 club deep etc.)
Cat 1, 2, 3 Awards (MAX $1800)
5+ Clubs awards go 3 deep. 1st $300, 2nd $200, 3rd $100
4 Clubs awards go 2 deep. 1st $300, 2nd $200
3 Clubs awards go 1 deep. 1st $200
2 Clubs awards go 1 deep. 1st $150

Cat 4 & 5 Awards MAX ($1000)
5+ Clubs awards go 3 deep. 1st $250, 2nd $150, 3rd $100
4 Clubs awards go 2 deep. 1st $200, 2nd $150
3 Clubs awards go 1 deep. 1st $150
2 Clubs awards go 1 deep. 1st $100