This week's question is of vital importance to organizers in planning your future competition dates.

Question: Why do my dates move a week forward in 2007?

Answer: In 2003, the USEF Board of Directors adopted a rule regarding comparable dates which went into effect January 1, 2005. The rule states as follows:

GR110 Comparable Dates.
1. For competitions with a start date of January 1, 2005 and later comparable dates are
based on a system of numbering the weeks of the year.
a. The first week of the competition year shall start on the first Sunday of the year in
January, the second week of the year shall start on the second Sunday, and so on.
b. The comparable date for the competition will be based on the week of the year the
start date falls in and will start on the same day of the week, i.e., a competition starting
on Wednesday in Week 25 in 2004, will start on Wednesday in Week 25 in 2005.

This system causes the dates to ‘rotate’ forward by 5 or 6 days from 2006 to 2007. As a result an 'open week' is created (Dec. 31, 2006 – January 6, 2007) and competitions may be approved 'for one year only' for that week as other competitions will end up with comparable dates for that week the following year at the end of the rotation cycle. Please note: Competitions have always experienced a date rotation in the past. Information regarding the change to the date rotation system was sent to all competition contacts in April 2003.

Question: What is the intent of this rule?

Answer: The new comparable dates rule was initiated because of the problems encountered every 5 years or so when we had to jump a week. Because AQHA with 2400 shows didn’t do their jump for a couple later years many competition managers encountered facility conflicts with our rotation and again when AQHA did their adjustment year. What the USEF agreed to do in 2003 was move to the same formula for rotation that AQHA used with numbered weeks beginning with Sunday and the first full week of the year as Week 1. The Competition Management Committee voted in favor of this system realizing that competitions would have one problem year to get through--2007. By having numbered weeks, shows can now anticipate in advance when their show would be, thus be able to hire officials and contract with facilities far in advance.~~~