New category for derbies
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I believe there is a board meeting coming up this week and I wanted to present an idea for consideration and hopefully approval. I believe one of the primary goals of the club should be to encourage youth to fish the lake and remain active in the club. Currently I believe we do an excellent job with the younger kids through the two youth divisions in our derbies. Where I believe we fall short is for the kids who have aged out of the youth divisions but are not really adults yet.
What I would like to propose is the creation of a new entry category for the club’s spring and fall derby. The new category would be limited to young adults 12-18. They would, like adults, pay an entry fee but at a reduced level. The fee could be $20 and the funds generated from the new category would be used exclusively for cash prizes for the three or possibly four largest fish weighed during the derby. As there would probably not be a significant number of entries until it became well established I would propose that their not be a separate category for mackinaw or rainbow, simply the largest fish.
The kids currenlty competing in the adult division are in school during both our main derbies. This severley limits the number of days they can fish. Though many are really exceptional fishermen and fisherwomen I don’t think a 15 or 16 year old has quite the skills as an older adult. We all know how much competition there is in our current youth divisions. Why not try to encourage a continuance of it as the teens move into adulthood. Just my general observation but I notice we lose quite a few of the kids who participated while in the current youth divisions once they age out. Might be time to try a new idea to keep them around.
Some might argue that a move in this direction would negatively impact the prize pools under our current structure. True, the funds from tickets currently being purchased by teens would no longer fund the adult division. I am quite confident though that most members would not mind if teens were no longer funding adult prize pools.
We have a Junior membership category. Seems like a perfect time to start a Junior derby category for the youth that either age out of our current stucture or who may still qualify in the youth A but would prefer to try their skills for cash prizes rather than trophies. With the spring derby still several months away I believe there is ample time to implement this for the current year if the board agrees.
Thoughts from other members?
Ryan Roslak
Ryan,
This idea makes sense to me for generating more interest for the targeted age group. Our youth have so many distractions many of which are not considered healthy and this may this help create some competitive excitement to fishing for them.
Unfortunately I have prior commitments for Wednesdays General Meeting, but I would vote in favor of your proposal!
Cory LaRue
Kamalot
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