ODP?

[furriner]

Mark Godwin, our new highly esteemed state DOC, was talking yesterday at the ODP tryouts of trying to host a mini ODP tournament sometime. This could be a great opportunity get a bunch of young / newly promoted refs some serious coaching from older more established refs. Has anybody heard of LSA doing such a coaching event for refs such as these?

Yes this has been discussed. There has been discussion about having an in-state referee session at the La ODP camp modeled after the region ODP camp. The problem is the session is held during the work week. So finding people to take off to conduct the training and provide the instruction is a real issue. We have not abandoned the idea but logistics are a problem. Funding this (hotels, food, travel) is also a problem. The funding hurdle may be a very small one but getting people to take off during the week is difficult. The same people we look to for this event would be the same taking time off for regionals. In the same vein, it is difficult to find people to take off to be trained. Finding people to go to ODP camps in the summer is the most difficult thing we have to do. We just can't seem to find the people willing to take time off and go.

What the State Referee Committee did initiate last year was Referee Acadamies where senior assessors/instructors along with one of our up and coming "young guns" spend a weekend at a tournament training a group of 6-10 referees. We have done this in a few areas and hope to expand the program.

We have also expanded our Field training program. In this program, we select tournaments around the state over the fall and spring and a senior assessor/instructor spneds one day doing "mini-assessments". In this program, we hope to hit every club that hosts a tournament. If a club hosts more than one tourney a year, we only hit one tournament over a year's season.

If you have suggestions, IM me or got to the referee website and email the committee. We would actually love to get new ideas for training.