On this the eve of our first event for the 2012 year it is important to outline a few of the changes for our point score to be introduced for this year. Basically the point score for the major events of Motorkhanas and Khanacrosses will be substantially unchanged. The changes will be in areas like the Officials point score, this has been changed to encourage more people to take on these very important roles. Some feel that by taking on officiating duties they may be doing themselves out of valuable points but not so. Officiating will earn you points in the officials point score which can also count toward the Club Championship. It is this championship which is the clubs premier point score because it is composed of all aspects of the club and all activities of the club combined. Officiating is now allied to finishing positions so a Director of an event will earn the same points as a competitor who achieves the fastest time of the day; Assistant Director will be equal to first in class and a Secretary will earn the equivalent of a second in class and so on down the order of officials.

Because it is possible for some people to do both officiating duties and compete it has been decided that for the purposes of the officials point score and the competition point score and to prevent 'double dipping' only people who officiate for the entire day will qualify for the Officials point score. It was decided that people have the opportunity to earn more points from competition than they would by dividing points between 2 championships and that counting both sets of points would skew the Club Championship. This doesn't mean we don't want people to front up and officiate then go on to compete, we certainly do need everybody to get in and help. It's only that we don't want double dipping in the championships, that would be unfair. There are other trophies or opportunities for people who put in a greater effort throughout the year to gain the recognition they deserve.

The Ladies Championship trophy is to be retired and replaced with a Ladies Competition trophy. This change of focus will mean that the Ladies trophy will return to its original intent which was to encourage involvement in competition. Many of the points awarded in the past in this category have been for awarded for involvement in officiating and these points were doubling up with the Officials point score. Now it will be much more of a self contained and unique point scoring opportunity for some of the membership.

Other changes are in the area of non-competition points where social event points, 4 Wheel Drive attendance, club meeting points have been standardised instead of a seemingly random arrangement of points. These points have now been standardised at 20 points awarded for social events, club meetings and other activities. The points which in the past were awarded for spectating have in fact been dropped from the point score because so few people knew that they had to apply for these points and never did that it would have been unfair to retain them. With regard to the 4 wheel drive social events these activities have in fact always been awarded attendance points but the main problem has been obtaining lists of who actually attended the activity and who was eligible. It is hoped that those who attend 4 wheel drive days will help in ensuring that the information of who attended is passed on so that the point score can be maintained in as accurate a format and is as up to date as possible. Also in recognition of the efforts and time that the organisers of Social events put in, it has been decided to award them 25 points toward the Club Championship.

Tomorrow the point score for the year kicks off and we will monitor how it proceeds across the year and see if this new setup requires any fine tuning but it will substantially stay as this summary sets out. Good luck to all those who compete throughout 2012 and we will see the fruits of your efforts in December.

Yours in Christ
Glenn Bastin
President