Proposal: More delegates more competitions

[BboyArchon]

We need a delegate in Madrid. There are lots of organisers but the 3 spanish delegates come from the furthest places (outside vs the center). Should we recommend some experienced candidates to the board?

 

[MTGjumper]

In regards to Scotland, both myself and Daniel can get there with relative ease, the problem is the lack of organisers in that location.

Woah, let's not say something we might regret. I might organise another comp one day.

 

[Mollerz]

Woah, let's not say something we might regret. I might organise another comp one day.

Hey now, I said lack of not absence of

 

[Chree]

@Chree you say the demand is big, because lots of people show up to competitions, but what I mean is the demand of people attempting to host competitions. There could be 100+ cubers sitting around in the same area without ever getting to a competition, but if none of them attempts to host one, there isn't actually any demand. On the other hand, if you have people trying to host competitions on a monthly basis, but those plans keep getting rejected because there isn't a delegate available, then there is a demand that the supply isn't meeting. If this is the case, then you can complain there aren't enough delegates in your area. But then... is anyone stepping up to prove themselves to take on the trusted position of delegate...?

Perhaps not on a monthly basis, but Rose City 2015 was supposed to be 2014. It was delayed nearly half a year while trying to work around our delegate's travel schedule. It was never outright rejected, mind you... just postponed.

Still, before then, the whole state of Oregon had only ever had 1 competition. Ever.

And no, no one seems interested in being a delegate out here, as far as I'm aware. But I'm not speaking strictly for our sake. I only want to illustrate that there is very likely a demand not being met, no matter how you define the word. But I agree with you that the solution will be more complicated than simply, "more delegates, more competitions". The right people have to want the job. Then they must prove qualified. Hell... I love organizing, but even I'm not sure about taking on that kind of responsibility.

Edit:

My point is, there may be loads of cubers, but is there anyone genuinely trying to do something about it?

Because... This ^^^.

The OP may seem to like the idea of "more delegates, more competitions", but there is already a framework to work with to get that done. In order to get that done, more people will have to identify themselves as the types of people who want to take on that responsibility and work with existing delegates and the WCA to make it happen. Unfortunately, that will be more difficult for people in areas that are too far away from their nearest delegate. So the question they need answered is "what's the best way to fix that?" Newer cubers seeking WCA representation probably have no idea how to get started with that. Or it might seem difficult enough that they don't even try.

 

[Ranzha]

To the people saying they don't have enough competitions in the US: Have you tried organising a competition? Have you tried contacting delegates from the areas around you to see who is available? The US has 24 delegates alone, and plenty more people that could step up if necessary.

It has happened on multiple occasions that delegates are simply unavailable or unresponsive to emails asking about availability to host competitions. While being unavailable is understandable, being unresponsive is highly discouraging. Additionally, there is some concern that Delegates in this area will become increasingly unavailable as their personal pursuits naturally take precedence.

This said, I'm lucky to live where there are three Delegates within a couple hours' drive and two more Delegates within a six hours' drive, i.e. an area with perhaps the highest Delegate concentration, and three independent organisation teams (Berkeley, BASC, Stanford). Our competitor turnouts have exceeded 100 competitors rather consistently, accounting for at least a couple hundred competitors. And after next week, we will have churned out five competitions in the first half of 2015.

 

[Blabber333]

not a bad idea!

 

[Luis]

We need a delegate in Madrid. There are lots of organisers but the 3 spanish delegates come from the furthest places (outside vs the center). Should we recommend some experienced candidates to the board?

Disagreed! It's unreal that we are in need of an additional delegate for Madrid. I can't remember a single occasion when a competition in Madrid hasn't been held because of lacking delegate. We three current delegates, Javier, Álex and me, can easily travel to Madrid. And indeed, we use to! Traveling to Madrid is easy and cheap for we all:

2015 Apr 11-12 - Getafe Open 2015 - Spain, Getafe, Madrid
2015 Feb 21-22 - MAD Cube Weekend 2015 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Dec 13 - Camarma Open 2014 - Spain, Camarma de Esteruelas, Madrid
2014 Sep 26-28 - Spanish Championship 2014 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Mar 21-22 - Madrid Spring Open 2014 - Spain, Madrid

So, five competitions in one year. Not bad!

 

[Dene]

It has happened on multiple occasions that delegates are simply unavailable or unresponsive to emails asking about availability to host competitions. While being unavailable is understandable, being unresponsive is highly discouraging. Additionally, there is some concern that Delegates in this area will become increasingly unavailable as their personal pursuits naturally take precedence.

This is where good management comes into the picture. Hopefully any delegates that are becoming less active are preparing a succession plan where possible.

 

[BboyArchon]

Disagreed! It's unreal that we are in need of an additional delegate for Madrid. I can't remember a single occasion when a competition in Madrid hasn't been held because of lacking delegate. We three current delegates, Javier, Álex and me, can easily travel to Madrid. And indeed, we use to! Traveling to Madrid is easy and cheap for we all:

2015 Apr 11-12 - Getafe Open 2015 - Spain, Getafe, Madrid
2015 Feb 21-22 - MAD Cube Weekend 2015 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Dec 13 - Camarma Open 2014 - Spain, Camarma de Esteruelas, Madrid
2014 Sep 26-28 - Spanish Championship 2014 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Mar 21-22 - Madrid Spring Open 2014 - Spain, Madrid

So, five competitions in one year. Not bad!

But it'll be cheaper and easier having a delegate here. As it can be seen, the cubing community in Madrid is growing incredibly fast this last months with many new competitors and people interested in speedcubing. It would be a good idea to have (even more) resources here and maybe rise the number of competitions.

In 2015 we had 2 in 5 months and the projection is having 1 or 2 more in the rest of the year so it isn't very high compared with the proportion of cubers asking for more competitions here. As the WCA says, "The goal of the World Cube Association is to have more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions." and this would be a nice way to do so.

 

[Dene]

In 2015 we had 2 in 5 months and the projection is having 1 or 2 more in the rest of the year so it isn't very high compared with the proportion of cubers asking for more competitions here.

You show that you haven't paid attention to the thread at all. Being a delegate has nothing to do with hosting a competition. If people in Madrid want more competitions, people in Madrid should host more competitions.

By the sounds of it, Italy has plenty of willing delegates to show up when someone else bothers to host.

 

[moralsh]

Disagreed! It's unreal that we are in need of an additional delegate for Madrid. I can't remember a single occasion when a competition in Madrid hasn't been held because of lacking delegate. We three current delegates, Javier, Álex and me, can easily travel to Madrid. And indeed, we use to! Traveling to Madrid is easy and cheap for we all:

2015 Apr 11-12 - Getafe Open 2015 - Spain, Getafe, Madrid
2015 Feb 21-22 - MAD Cube Weekend 2015 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Dec 13 - Camarma Open 2014 - Spain, Camarma de Esteruelas, Madrid
2014 Sep 26-28 - Spanish Championship 2014 - Spain, Madrid
2014 Mar 21-22 - Madrid Spring Open 2014 - Spain, Madrid

So, five competitions in one year. Not bad!

In fact of these 5 competition, 3 had 2 delegates attending, 1 had all 3 and only one had just 1 delegate, so we had a 2 delegates per comp average!

I agree it could be a good idea for the future, but right now, as Luis points out, we're being covered more than fine.

Where is the "We need more organizers" thread ?

 

[megaminxwin]

To the people saying they don't have enough competitions in the US: Have you tried organising a competition? Have you tried contacting delegates from the areas around you to see who is available? The US has 24 delegates alone, and plenty more people that could step up if necessary.

I want to give you an illustration of the problem. In Sydney, the most populated city in Australia, there are loads of cubers, and for years they've either had to travel, or miss out. Why? Because no one was prepared to go to the effort to organise a competition. Tim and myself were stuck, needing to find someone to do something, and someone to prove themselves to be suitable delegate material. After years without a competition we finally got things up and running last year when a couple of people stepped up, and they're now hosting competitions with 80+ people.

My point is, there may be loads of cubers, but is there anyone genuinely trying to do something about it?

@Chree you say the demand is big, because lots of people show up to competitions, but what I mean is the demand of people attempting to host competitions. There could be 100+ cubers sitting around in the same area without ever getting to a competition, but if none of them attempts to host one, there isn't actually any demand. On the other hand, if you have people trying to host competitions on a monthly basis, but those plans keep getting rejected because there isn't a delegate available, then there is a demand that the supply isn't meeting. If this is the case, then you can complain there aren't enough delegates in your area. But then... is anyone stepping up to prove themselves to take on the trusted position of delegate...?

I do think it's mainly a problem of people not wanting to organise competitions, which is why there were hardly any comps up here for a looong time. I don't, but I know I'd screw it up, being a very unorganised person anyway. Thankfully there are now actual organisers up here who know what they're doing so I don't have to travel a lot to get to a comp.

Also Ray just got confirmed as a full delegate but that's really just a bonus.

 

[JustinTimeCuber]

In the US:[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td]Year[/td]
[td]# of comps[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2004[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2005[/td]
[td]10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2006[/td]
[td]12[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2007[/td]
[td]17[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2008[/td]
[td]35[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2009[/td]
[td]45[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2010[/td]
[td]48[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2011[/td]
[td]52[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2012[/td]
[td]53[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2013[/td]
[td]54[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2014[/td]
[td]62[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

More competitions. Every time.

In the world:[table="width: 500", class: grid"]
[tr]
[td]1982[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2003[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2004[/td]
[td]12[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2005[/td]
[td]24[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2006[/td]
[td]33[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2007[/td]
[td]53[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2008[/td]
[td]109[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2009[/td]
[td]169[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2010[/td]
[td]226[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2011[/td]
[td]305[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2012[/td]
[td]303[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2013[/td]
[td]358[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2014[/td]
[td]481[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
^table irregularities are real.

 

[AlexMaass]

While being unavailable is understandable, being unresponsive is highly discouraging.

Agreed, not mentioning names, but this has happened to me. : P

More organizers are needed in the US tbh.

 

[Phinagin]

Agreed, not mentioning names, but this has happened to me. : P

More organizers are needed in the US tbh.

The US already has an incredible amount of competitions compared to the rest of the world. There have been roughly 1/6 of all competitions in US in 2014. 62 competitions which is more than 1 competition per week, I could imagine some places get 1 competitions every few months. I hardly think that the US needs more organizers.

 

[biscuit]

The US already has an incredible amount of competitions compared to the rest of the world. There have been roughly 1/6 of all competitions in US in 2014. 62 competitions which is more than 1 competition per week, I could imagine some places get 1 competitions every few months. I hardly think that the US needs more organizers.

Well the demand for competitions in the US vs anywhere else is very large. Europe has high demand but there is a metric butt ton of people who want to go to comps in the US. The other thing to consider is that the US is huge. WE are talking about a country that could be a small continent (it's bigger than Australia)

 

[AlexMaass]

The US already has an incredible amount of competitions compared to the rest of the world. There have been roughly 1/6 of all competitions in US in 2014. 62 competitions which is more than 1 competition per week, I could imagine some places get 1 competitions every few months. I hardly think that the US needs more organizers.

The US is a big place, there's places like Colorado which have a lack of competitions, but it seems to be improving.

 

[Phinagin]

Well the demand for competitions in the US vs anywhere else is very large. Europe has high demand but there is a metric butt ton of people who want to go to comps in the US. The other thing to consider is that the US is huge. WE are talking about a country that could be a small continent (it's bigger than Australia)

Ya and because of the big population of cubers and size of the country the high number of competitions is somewhat needed, but more is unnecessary. It would also be interesting to see a stat somewhere showing the number of comps compared to population density of the whole world. With that we would be able to see where competitions are needed due to the little number of existing competitions compared to population density.

Also Canada and Russia are huge in size, and have much less competitions than US, 13 in Canada(2014), idk about Russia, and 62 in United States(2014). Canada does not have a very large population to support the same number of comps, but most of Canada is not inhabited so the density is considerable.

The US is a big place, there's places like Colorado which have a lack of competitions, but it seems to be improving.

Yes, there are areas in the US where competitions are less frequent, but you had said US not Colorado.