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Opinion on the Master National

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Joby

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Discussion starter · #1 ·

I went to the MN in 2011. Had a great time.Great people and awesome organization. The whole operation was well organized and ran fluidly.I was impressed with that. I qualified 2 dogs this year but had to back out due to personal reasons. Frank promptly refunded my money and scratched my dogs. Communication was excellent. If anyone asked what could be improved, which I feel every business, event or organization should evaluate on any occasion, I would add the following:

1. Partial Callbacks - If my dog's OUT, let me know. At the line or at the end of the day. Some dogs should have been "roped" after the first retrieve. I watched many a dog MAJORLY hack some blinds and the judges never said a word. I saw a few of them get called back. But they didn't make it to the end, nor should they. I saw dogs that weren't even in the "area code" of the bird they were sent for. The handler walked away and anxiously asked everyone in the gallery "Do ya think Ill be called back?" Waiting for the entire flight to finish 3 days later is frustrating if someones dog IS out. They could have checked out of the hotel and saved a couple hundred bucks. If Im OUT, Im hitting the highway. I made it to the 3rd Series last year. I felt I should have been dropped in the 1st. My Blind looked like the shape of a question mark on paper. If I would have made it to the 5th, I dont think I would have made the cut. Being thats the case, just drop me and send me on my way. Id rather do that than go to the end without a snowballs chance in hell. Someone told me they dont do partials because they need the volunteers/workers and dont want to see a "Mass Exodus". I hope thats not true.

2. Videos - I made a few last year to give everyone a glimpse of the test. This should be a priority on the Committees part. If you havent been, videos give a "Newbee" an idea of what they do. The pictures are great, but dont do it justice. I volunteer my services next year to help with that. If I cant make it down, they can email it to me in raw form and Ill edit it..and post it...For Free.

3. Callbacks - Everybody's whining about this...Its a SIMPLE solution! Take a pic, text it to someone at home, and have them update it. Send it to me..Ill do it. Even if Im there. I could teach a monkey to do it! Its not a big deal nor should anyone at the event need to worry about Internet service, etc.

4. Smaller Flights - This one speaks for itself.

I missed going this year. Its a good time and would have been a blast, Im sure. Congrats to all that made it to the end!!!

My 2.5 cents..........

 
#2 ·
sorry you had scratch this year, but glad you had good communication on that issue. I have sent two emails to the secretary dropping out, the first well before the start of the test, but haven't gotten an acknowledgement and am shown on the call back list as having failed. Obviously getting a refund would be nice, but what I'm particularly irritated about is being listed as failing a test that I haven't been within 800 miles of.
 
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#3 ·
Great post Joby. Sounds constructive and logical, but I've never been there and don't know how it operates.

One thing is for sure, if my dog was dropped and I didn't find out until three days later plus expenses and lost work, I would be livid. At minimum, it seems dog work could be judged as kept or dropped the same day the dog ran - hopefully, that is what's happening. But again, never been there. I am working on the goal of participating in the 2014, however, which is why I'm commenting.

Jennifer
 
#4 ·
Maybe this has already been said, but here is a possible way to keep entry numbers reasonable without compromising opportunity for anyone: hold a regional national in each of the 4 regions every year where only owners with addresses in that region can enter. Then send the qualifiers of those regional tests to the "super national".
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
I feel that limiting the number of entries would be frustrating for a person who spent their entire summer qualifying their dog to find out at the last minute they could not enter the master national. Finding a happy medium of the maximum amount of dogs per flight would be a better solution. This of course would add to the amount of judges needed for a master national and since I don't know the financial aspects of the organization I can't really comment on this. Someone else mentioned to me that one of the tests took close to 15 minutes per dog. You can do the math and figure out where you going to be at with that. I'm no expert on this and the people running the master national have been doing this for many many years. They are a great bunch of people and I'm sure they will look back on the positives and negatives of 2012 and make changes from there.
 
#6 ·
Flight B just finished up 4th series and is waiting for callbacks. Next series takes 6-8 minutes a dog and probably will have 60 something to run.Hope no one was planning on going to work Monday
 
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#8 ·
Never been, so i can't give an exact reason, just an opinion

Videos. You're not talking about live videos of this year's test, huh? But rather a video for folks to see of past tests so they can use them to make a decision about entering future tests...right?

Post your videos to youtube and link to it on RTF. Might even see if the MN folks would put it on their website? Folks around here have pretty good memories, so they will probably refer to your videos for years to come.

I gotta believe the idea of going with smaller flights would require more resources (judges, volunteers, land, equipment, etc.). Land might be the biggest challenge, but i don't know (i'm just trying to put some friendly feedback out there in hopes others might chime in and keep the thread going).
 
#9 ·
Thanks Joby. Unfortunately a bad blind first series was just too much. Kona didn't get called back to 5th. I am proud of him. This past September marked just three years in this game and he just got his MH in June. We have a lot of fun ahead of us. Mitch White didan amazing job with him
 
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#10 ·
I think all they need to do is split up the MN in to time zones. West ,Central, East. Each zone could have it's own MN. This would bring the #'s way down and be less traveling for everyone. Noone is competing against each other so it's not like they have to run all at the same place. Heck, this would make me more likely to want to go. Just a random thought..Don't beet me up..:)
 
#11 ·
Jhenion said:
Maybe this has already been said, but here is a possible way to keep entry numbers reasonable without compromising opportunity for anyone: hold a regional national in each of the 4 regions every year where only owners with addresses in that region can enter. Then send the qualifiers of those regional tests to the "super national".
Click to expand...
Looks like you are thinking like me !! We could be on to something here !!
 
#13 ·
Joby,

I hoe all is well and things are working out for you. I agree totally with your initial post. I also would add a judges analysis of the test. A mission statement of each test so to speak.
 
#14 ·
Jhenion said:
Maybe this has already been said, but here is a possible way to keep entry numbers reasonable without compromising opportunity for anyone: hold a regional national in each of the 4 regions every year where only owners with addresses in that region can enter. Then send the qualifiers of those regional tests to the "super national".
Click to expand...
I am pretty sure this has been discussed. Here's what I think is the major roadblock to this idea. I went to the MN in 2010, trained llke crazy leading up to it, and took two weeks off to get there ahead of time and do some more training. Then ran the event (made it to the fourth series, had a really good time). If that was just the qualifier, and we passed, I don't know that I would have had the money or other resources to do the same thing again a month later for the "super national"

I think this idea would make it that much harder for the average amateur to run this event, and make the MN game even that much more of a Pro's game.
 
#16 ·
kona's mom said:
Flight B just finished up 4th series and is waiting for callbacks. Next series takes 6-8 minutes a dog and probably will have 60 something to run.Hope no one was planning on going to work Monday
Click to expand...
Sorry your pup went out. I lost one of mine in the 3rd at double trouble. They will start with dog 96 at 8:00 tomorrow. Closing ceremonies are planned for 2:00. Those with reasonable drives should make work Monday morning.:D
 
#17 ·
Having smaller fight would make it really hard on the Clubs. It is hard enough to have 4 flights going at the same time, imagine 6 or 7 and you would need that many to address the issue you are talking about. The land, bird boys, birds,....ect.... Plus the regional idea like said above would make it impossible for amateurs. Partial callbacks are hard because you haven't seen the whole field work. This is just the reality I think. Don't worry once it leaves the south and mid-Atlantic the entries will go back down by 100-150 dogs.
 
#18 ·
Ron in Portland said:
I am pretty sure this has been discussed. Here's what I think is the major roadblock to this idea. I went to the MN in 2010, trained llke crazy leading up to it, and took two weeks off to get there ahead of time and do some more training. Then ran the event (made it to the fourth series, had a really good time). If that was just the qualifier, and we passed, I don't know that I would have had the money or other resources to do the same thing again a month later for the "super national"

I think this idea would make it that much harder for the average amateur to run this event, and make the MN game even that much more of a Pro's game.
Click to expand...
That is a point, but...you wouldn't spend as much travel time if it's in your region, and you wouldn't spend as much time period at the test, because there would be fewer entries, due to it being regional - I would think. The "super national" would also be less time consuming because of fewer entries. I can see though, that it may be a hardship for someone to spend two 3-5 day trips to do both a regional and super. Maybe they could space them a couple months apart.
 
#20 ·
Debbie may have a point, but as far as the argument that the common man would have more trouble attending both a regional AND a super, I say it would be easier on me as a business person to attend two smaller events, one of which would be closer to me (the regional national) than to have to spend two or three weeks at one big event far away. Plus the fact that if there's a regional national and I don't pass, then I won't be spending the money and time to travel to the super national. Whereas if I don't pass the current national, I've invested a lot of travel, time and money for naught.

My husband disagrees with me! He says, it's like the Kentucky Derby - feel lucky you are there, you're in your glory if you're there, and just enjoy all the time you get to be there. "No whiners allowed"

Jennifer
 
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