We recently held a vote to determine whether competitors had a desire to merge Hoopers and Barrelers into one class.
There are multiple positives to a move like this, along with some negatives. We’re going to go through a few of those, and then we’ll share the voting results and what happens next.
Negatives:
- There are a LOT of classes in NADAC. Currently there are 9 classes. That makes things very hard on clubs when it comes to scheduling events for trials. Something usually gets left out. And having 8 runs a day is a LOT of runs. Especially if done over multiple days.
- Class participation for Hoopers and Barrelers is trending downwards. They are considered by most to be ‘extra’ classes, and therefore have the least amount of entries. Please keep in mind this is looking at overall numbers across the world. We understand that some areas absolutely love these classes, and as such have much higher participation in them. But as with all things, we can’t make decisions based on a few areas, we have to look at the class as a whole, across every trial and country.
- The classes tend to be a bit repetitive on their own. There is only so much that you can do with a barrelers courses, same can be said with Hoopers.
Positives:
- Ground classes are a nice thing to have
- Hoopers is very beginner friendly
Our goal with combining the two classes is to reduce the number of classes being offered, making things easier for trials to have everything available. As well as make the class a bit more interesting for the long term.
With these classes combined that would bring us down to 8 classes, which is a bit more manageable. It would also allow for the All Around NATCH to be more equitable in regards to Gamblers. As you would only need 130 points in one class or the other.
This would leave us with 4 ground based classes, and 4 jumping classes. Which is also a nice bonus, to have a nice even amount each type of class. NADAC has no intention of getting rid of jumping classes, so it makes more sense to keep them equal.
The voting came in heavily favored towards merging the two classes, with 870 votes to merge them, and 300 votes to keep them separated. Which comes out to 74% in favor of merging the two classes.
So we will be moving forward with merging these classes.
The new class will debut on January 1st of 2022, a name has yet to be determined.
Some info that will be important to know in regards to how this affect titling and awards moving forward
- Any points currently earned at the Intro, Novice and Open level for Barrelers and Hoopers will be combined. For example if you have 50 Novice Hoopers points and 30 Novice Barrelers points, you will have a combined value of 80 points in the novice level of the new class.
- Elite is a bit different since most of the awards are based off the Elite level Q’s. For this reason we will be taking a more creative approach to the combining of points. We will be combining any points earned since your LAST NATCH designation. For example if you have 150 Elite Hoopers, and 150 Elite Barrelers, we would be leaving the first 130 points in each class in order to keep your first All around intact, and the extra 20 points from each class would be what is combined for the new class, in this example it would be a combined value of 40 points. Another example would be if you haven’t earned your 130 points yet, then all of those points would be transferred. There is a table below showing some of the many possibilities. The reason we’re doing it this way is because we do not want to take away any All Around NATCH’s that have been earned, we don’t want anyone having to ‘start fresh’, and we also don’t want to do a straight combination as that would be a large number of All Around NATCH’s being given out, without the work being put in for them.
We will be releasing more info over the next 10 months in regards to course design and other important info.
We look forward to moving forward with everyone and continuing to play with our dogs!
Chris Nelson