Youth Season Progress Update
The first few competitions of Youth season 24-25 are behind us!
It’s been great to see you all and have our community back together. And we’re excited about what is to come with lots of events on the calendar (and a bit more to finalize, so keep an eye out).
Already there have been some great performances, fun/interesting setting, new faces and lots of people competing across all the youth age categories.
And on our side, with a new team, some learnings as well.
One of those learnings has been around registration. To put it simply, we want everyone who wants to climb to be able to climb. That is what we at the OCF volunteer for and what motivates the volunteers who help with the comps as well.
But in the lead up to or B/A/Jr Difficulty comp at Aspire Milton, we were too accommodating/flexible with late registrations (even far beyond the deadline) and it meant we couldn’t prepare everything we needed to to ensure the actual day started on time. We caught up by the afternoon session, but it created undue stress for the athletes, coaches and volunteers.
With this past weekend’s comp we were less flexible (though still, a bit flexible especially immediately after the deadline) and it meant we could run things much better. It’s simply about having time for the event logistics.
Moving forward we are going to try something that feels like a middle point (following the lead of other provinces) that we hope will become the permanent system.
Competition entry deadlines will close on the Tuesday before the comp at 9pm. We will introduce a late registration window of 24 hrs ending Wednesday 9pm with an additional $56.50 fee. ($50+hst)
After that period, no more registrations will be accepted.
We are hoping this approach will offer some flexibility to those who forget (it happens, life happens) while hopefully incentivizing not forgetting. This will also allow us to properly prepare and deliver the best event experience we can for all competitors, the vast majority of whom register early.
Thanks for your understanding.
PS: The next comp Youth E/D/C Difficulty at Boulders is open for registration now.