Facilitated Brainstorming on the Future of Solo Nationals Greg Vincent & Howard Duncan

Why are we here? The continued growth of solo is having a cascading effect on our national event Initial sellout in less than a week Nearly 1400 competitors combined with weather issues resulted in running out of daylight

What we plan to do today Use some facilitation tools to gather ideas Affinity diagram. Typically done as follows: Pose an open ended question Collect input from participants on sticky notes Participants group similar ideas Facilitator writes a summary statement for each group Due to time constraints we will only do the first 2 steps today I will complete 3 and 4 later and provide results to SCCA for consideration and distribution. After collecting sticky notes we will move to a discussion format

Open Ended Question The Solo Nationals appear to have reached the limit of participation given the time and space available. What changes should be considered to ensure the Solo Nationals remains the premiere Solo event where the best Soloists come to compete? Please take 10 minutes to legibly write your suggestions on sticky notes.

Some ideas we are already aware of (in no particular order) Run under lights 6 day Nationals Hold event earlier in season with longer daylight hours Qualification requirements (Match Tour, National Tour, Divisional?)

Open discussion Ground rules Be positive Be respectful Be constructive Use the microphone