Hi Guys,
I'm wondering what you think about this suggestion...
Bear in mind that I'm only doing this for personal gain, and I intend to criticise the hard work that other people have done...
What??? No, come on, this is only a suggestion, open for discussion, and the result might be that more people sail more often. I appreciate all the hard work and thought that has gone into this challenge, and I think it's great. 
The current setup for the gps team challenge is that at least two sailors have to sail on the same day for the sessions to count. This is pretty easy for some teams, but quite hard for others. Have a look at the sessions for Jan/Feb/Mar, and you'll see lots of sessions that didn't count. In Jan. there was 110, Feb. 91, and March there was around 86. In Jan. there was 246 sets of sessions that did count (feb. 142, March around 112) Each of these days would have had at least two sessions, so it looks like maybe less than say a quarter of session don't end up counting.
Well, my thought is that since the results get tabulated each month, perhaps all sessions in a month could count towards the final monthly average. This way any session that a sailor sails has a chance to count. I think there would still need to be some averages taken, and only the top speed of any individual sailor would be able to be counted, i.e. if an individual sailor had the two highest scores that month, only his highest would count, and that would be averaged with the next best sailor's time, similar to what happens currently.
Maybe the guys have already thought about this and decided against it, which is fine, the current set-up is still fair and it encourages sailors to get out on the same day, which is all part of the team philosophy. It's only since I counted all the missed days that I thought it might be an issue for teams other than the one I'm in.
Oh well, just a suggestion, any thoughts? Would it encourage more teams to join? Would it change the results?
Hi Craiggoo,
When we first set out the rules for the challenge, the main focus on what we wanted to achieve was to get people to talk to each other a bit more. Windsurfing is such a solitary sport, that unless you make a conscious effort at the end of a session you don't really get to know the other guys (and girls!) who share your passion.
Requiring at least two people to sail in a day for the session to count forces people to start looking outside themselves, connect with other people, and bring the social aspect back into windsurfing
From my own experience, the challenge has given me many new friends, and I probably wouldn't have met them without the website. Again, the social aspect comes to the fore.
That said, if you sail on a day where no-one else in your team sails, your results still count in the individual rankings. Also, there is another website (www.gps-speedsurfing.com) which is more focussed on individual performances. You're quite welcome to join that one as well if you like.
Hardie (Evil genius that he is) can probably explain this a lot better than I can, but this is how I see it anyway.
Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it 
While we're at it, is there any thought that it is time to move away from the MEGA-TEAM aspect of the challenge?
If the only teams on the leaderboard are the huge teams, aren't you losing that social aspect? How likely is it that a very big team will never get to know each other? Never get to socialize as a team?
Most of the guys I've talked to about this seem to think that next year you ought to consider capping team sizes. Otherwise it seems we'll just end up with one big team for each state (plus a few die-hard mini-teams of enthusiasts.)
In my opinion there's no one formula that will meet everyone's needs, when you push the gpsteamchallenge in direction A which will please some, it moves further from direction B, which aggravates others!!!
Keep the ideas coming because a little tweak here and there might always help?
Quite a few teams have members that have not posted sessions in over 12 months or ever. It's pretty clear these people are not interested.
They need to be contacted and asked do they want to continue to be members. Any competion/club i have been involved in requires a little bit of committment. In our case as least posting a session for your team in a 12 month period
I think a spring clean needs to happen. This could be done by the team captain.
Couldnt agree more with Bender!!
I dont even know some of the members of the Roaches and I doubt some will EVER post so a good clean out is a great idea.
Although at the moment I think our captain has much more important things on his mind
I suggested at one point that sailors that didn't post since 2007 (or whatever "year before last" happens to be) should appear "greyed out" in the lists.
If they still don't post this year, prune them off.
May Be a way to get people sailing more, would be to have your accumulated Kilometres count towards individual rankings.for the month & year.This I think would incourage people to sail more and stay out on the water more.
I reckon you should leave it the way it is - it's brilliant!
That's just a suggestion of course.
Think I've been April fooled, Ben & Hardy are inviting kiters to join the GTC, check out the home page.
I thought the idear was to encourage members, not prune them off. So what if some people dont post very often, chances are they will still buy a GPSTC Tee shirt.
I think that the Site definetly needs a cleanout. As there are 2-3 people on our team that i know will never post as they have moved country or state or have given up the sport all together.
Are you guys mainly talking about the sessions page?
So when you look at a session, it lists the team members down the side, and shows people who haven't been around for a while?
What if this list only contained people who have posted in the last year? Would this solve the problem?
Yes, don't "clean out" or expel non posting members, just make them dormant, as soon as they post they're back in it for another year. Seems like the best idea, people for several reasons may be forced to take a long break from the sport. Forcing them out of the challenge because of it seems a bit harsh.
As we have an end of season presentation, so we have a season defined.
How about the idea that only people who have posted this "season" are shown.
I like Hardpole's idea above...sort of like a "re-registration", but done automatically when you post for the first time in a new season. Should keep everyone happy.....if that be possible!
Perhaps even posting a comment could be enough, so if someone is still interested but cant sail for some reason they can still be shown as in the team.
