OCTOBER 2009 USAG Florida UPDATE

from Toni Rand

Just a reminder that State Meet Entry fees will be due during the month of November—please check the Florida web site for  entry information.  It is important to enter by deadline dates to avoid late fees. 

Level 2/3 Deadline date—November 1, 2008

Level 5/6 Deadline date—November 17, 2008

Level 4 Deadline date—November 21, 2008

State Meet Bids:  We  will be accepting State meet bids for all 2009-10 State meets by March of 2009. Anyone interested in bidding for one of the meets should send in bid form with all information required to me no later than March 15th, 2009.  The bid form will be available at the Florida web site by the end of this month.   Dates for the State meets for next season are listed on the Florida calendar.   Visit www.usagfl.org

Qualifiers for State Meets:  This season we have had a few competitions cancel their meets. (6 so far)  Some of the competitions cancelled early before entries were taken however we had a few cancel within a few weeks of the competition.  The Florida committee understands that this is not something that  a meet host wants to do & we realize that this may have been influenced by the current economic  concerns, however we are concerned about how these cancellations affect the athletes, coaches and parents that have entered the meets and now must find another competition to get into.  In addition, we need to consider the judges that have saved the weekend and now are cancelled  as well as the fact that we saved the spot on the calendar for the competition, possibly turning another request down only to have the meet cancelled.  The committee will discuss this at our annual summer meeting.  In the meantime, the following rule will go into effect for All USAG qualifiers for next season— All USAG Qualifiers must have their deadline for entries at least 4 weeks prior to the event date and a schedule must be posted within 3 weeks of the event. Deadlines to enter may not be extended.  This may help clubs if a meet is cancelled to give them time to find another meet. Florida USAG will begin accepting requests to host a USAG qualifier for  Optional meets 0n January 1,  2009 for 2010 season and on April 1, 2009 for the Compulsory 2009 season.  Please watch for forms and policies on the Florida usag web site.  Www.usagfl.org

Prep Optional Program—Florida USAG offers Florida clubs the PO program.  This is a great program to use to offer “optional” competition to any of your athletes 6 years or older that are members of USAG. There is no mobility from this program and will not affect level of any of your athletes.  Last year we had over 150 PO  athletes compete at the Florida PO State Meet.  Florida competitions must use the Florida PO rules and  to qualify to the Florida PO State meet in April,  athletes must compete in a USAG Florida qualifier.  The Florida State qualifying score is 32.00AA —Scores from meets outside of Florida may not be used to qualify. Florida rules are listed at the Florida web site.  We offer one set of rules for all athletes and the rules are fairly simple.  I hope if you have not done so already that you will look over the Florida PO program and start looking at how it can fit into your program!

Important to Note about PO Program: Remember that every State sets their own rules for this program so if you take your PO athletes out of state, be sure to check with Meet Hosts for the rules that will be used.   In the State of Florida Meet Hosts are required to offer the Florida PO rules if they are a State qualifier—Meet hosts in Florida may also use the Florida rules for any out of state athletes that attend their invite . Meet hosts should send clubs from out of state the Florida rules so that the clubs are prepared before they attend. NOTE: There is a set of rules listed as Regional PO rules that are used at the PO Invite in May after the State Meets.  These rules are different from the Florida PO Rules.  To enter the PO Invite in May, please send in your entries to the Meet Host by the deadline date.  This meet is open to any PO athlete in our region that competes at their state meet that wishes to attend.  There is a link to this meet on the Florida calendar at the Florida web site—Please contact  Pam Kitchen, Meet Director of this meet for entry and rule information—thank you

New JO Information:  There is new information concerning the 2009-10 JO season at the National USAG web site.  Please take the time to read this information in full—I emailed this to all clubs in Florida—You can get a copy of this by visiting the National USAG web site—there is a link for USAG on the Florida Web site.

New for  this season.  The Level 10 National Invite that will be held along with JO Nationals in May will include Specialists as well as the 8, 9 & 10th place AA athletes from Regionals.  To qualify to this competition as a Specialist, an athlete would need to enter and compete at Regionals as a specialist and WIN the event.  There will be no other way for a specialist to qualify.  This competition has been set up by the USAG JO committee to give athletes that just missed making the JO National meet an opportunity to compete in front of college coaches! 

To make sure that you keep getting email updates from USAG Florida please keep your email address current. If you have any questions or concerns please email me at AmTwist@aol.com 

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