Poker Run

WE HAVE A WINNER!

"Poker boats bring three to five million bucks to the city in three days."

-- Bob Ackley, muscle boat owner.

There's your stereotype, right there.

Read the whole thing.

THE POKER RUN is on the FOCUS Kingston Steering Committee Agenda for their July 15th meeting.

It's amazing that a KEDCO report that KEDCO itself says is inaccurate and statistically insignificant is nonetheless touted, again, by City Staff apparently desperate to supinate for the BIA, greenwash the event, and give all this a positive cultural and historical spin.

Still no word on requiring Poker Runs America to purchase obnoxious-offset-credits.

REMINDER that April 30th is the deadline to fill-out the City of Kingston's truly asinine Poker Run Feedback form.

DIRECT LINK to the City of Kingston's multiple-choice Poker Run Feedback survey.

It's a shame that the environmental aspect of the Poker Run seems to have singularly hijacked the conversation. "The environment" has always been a side-issue, and everybody knows it.

The survey offers no selection akin to "the Poker Run is OBNOXIOUS" which would be close to the median viewpoint on the matter.

POKER RUN PUBLIC MEETING to...

...gauge community views regarding the cultural and social impacts of the Poker Run at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, in Memorial Hall, City Hall, 216 Ontario St.

A funny coincidence: April 22nd is Earth Day.

Given past Downtown Kingston shenanigans, it will be interesting to see who chairs the meeting.

Certainly the meeting location, and meeting start-time, are ideal for our self-serving report-publishing Downtown Kingston friends.

ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT of the 2009 Thousand Islands Poker Run is on Council's next agenda.

The KEDCO report is based on a survey (conducted by the Downtown BIA) and phone interviews (with spokespersons for Poker Runs America and Power Boating Canada).

All strong proponents of the Poker Run.

Despite the claim of attracting 14,500 spectators, KEDCO and the BIA could gather only 91 survey responses. These are noted as follows:

It should be noted that conclusions based on 91 results is “statistically insignificant” and does not adequately reflect the overall economic impact of the event. In this case, the economic impact report is inaccurate and would not be considered as part of a post-analysis report.

So the survey results are not reliable and are of no value. However, this doesn't prevent KEDCO from extrapolating conclusions and tabling them with six- and seven-digit precision.

Does the report contain some reliable information?

Apparently not. The report doesn't tell us how many boats were in in the 2009 Poker Run.

The number of boats according to The Whig last August, was "more than 60" which is far less than the hundred or hundreds usually touted by organizers.

Wouldn't you expect KEDCO to provide, at a minimum, data that could be used, for future comparisons?. By omitting the number of boats from this economic impact report -- one of the only available objective measures of event quality and scale -- KEDCO effectively delivers a report with little future-reference value.

The report claims that the 2009 event had 304 participants, or 360 participants depending on whether you read paragraph 3, or paragraph 4, on page 7 (page 11 of the council PDF). How "more than 60-boats" turns into KEDCO's "304 participants" or "360 participants", including spouses and children, we do not know..

In view of the non-disclosure of the number of boats, the lumping of driver's spouses and children to inflate the number of "event participants", this all appears very suspicious.

Furthermore there's no mention of any negative survey responses. Several survey questions have "good" at the low-end of multiple-choice responses but a possible response of "poor" was only related to the questions related to "music quality" and "the variety of events".

In many respects this KEDCO report, as tabled, tells us a lot about KEDCO and the BIA in the Rosen-era.

In effect, the report says "we have no reliable data" and "we don't tell you even the easiest objective metrics" but, nonetheless, "the poker-run generates MILLIONS".

Related to that, the report's cover-page is notable because of its Disclaimer and the Release of Liability Statement, which we haven't seen before from KEDCO.

Do you think this might be, partly, because of fallout from KEDCO's Economic Benefits of the LVEC report from 2005?

THE POKER RUN is Bill Hutchins' subject in last week's issue of Kingston EMC. (Does anyone cover the Council beat better than Bill Hutchins?)

IT'S THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY ALREADY.

Here is the status of online marketing efforts by several prominent waterfront-related organizations for the summer of 2010.

• Poker Runs America: 2010 details online (Aug 6-7-8).
• CORK: 2010 details online, plus tentative dates for 2011 through 2014.
• City Marinas: 2010 rates and dates online.
• Kingston Yacht Club: nothing posted.
• Collins Bay Yacht Club: nothing posted.
• Kingston Dragon Boat Festival: nothing posted.
• K-Town Triathlon: nothing posted.
• Kingston Rowing Club: not online anymore.
  

That's pathetic, no?

For the most part, 2010 dates should be posted within two weeks of the end of the 2009 boating season.

It's long-past the point of anybody caring about your Summer 2009 calendar.

K.E.A.F. SPEAKS OUT about the Poker Run on the Council agenda for next Tuesday.

That's another report that's not available online for the public.

POKER RUN PARTICIPANTS DEFEND EVENT in today's Whig.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR POKER RUNS AMERICA BOATS makes for interesting reading.

You have to call it for what this truly is: a gig monopolized into four downtown hotels -- Radisson, Holiday Inn, Confederation Place Hotel and Four Points Sheraton -- all of these are owned by the usual suspects.

Most meals and the entertainment package appear to be monopolized into those four hotels as well.

Read the whole thing.

DOWNTOWN POKER RUN PLUG-UP planned between Friday Aug 7th at noon to Sunday Aug 9 at 6 PM.

Expect our spineless, gutless council to approve this.

Here's a summary of Poker Run-related news items here on K7 going back to 2006.

TWO EXCELLENT LETTERS this week in The Whig:

• Get serious about going green and cancel the Poker Run from Norm Macintosh, and
• City should withdraw support for 'sordid' Poker Run from Guy Oram of SPLASH Kingston.

Here's a summary of Poker Run-related news items here on K7 going back to 2006.

See also the articles in this Whig-Standard search on 'Poker Run'.

INFORMATION KIT from SPLASH, or "Sustainable Practices Leave A Sustainable Heritage", the group that seeks to reset Kingston about, among other things, the annual Poker Run.

More background on this here and there's a Facebook group you can and should join in support.

GROUP LOBBIES COUNCIL TO CANCEL POKER RUN from last Thursday's edition of Kingston EMC.

The Poker Run is obnoxious, and its promoter is full-of-himself. Read the whole thing. Yeah, we know, it's all about money. Now please take your freakshow elsewhere.

A NEW FORMAT FOR CORK is announced today.

According to the press release, CORK 2009 will play-out ike this:

• August 19 - 22: CORK International Event for Youth and Development dinghy classes.
• August 23 - 27: CORK Olympic Classes Event for high-performance competition in Olympic and invited "development" dinghy classes.
• August 28 - 30: Offshore and One Design Keelboat and Dinghy Classes for Offshore (PHRF) classes, one design Keelboats, Able Sail, and international dinghy classes.

This is great news on a number of levels.

For example, for the first time in many years, there is no overlap between CORK events and the obnoxious 1000 Islands Kingston Poker Run, currently scheduled for August 7-8 2009.

Another plus: better segmenting the events means better cohesion amongst participants. Youth and young sailors together; high-performance sailors together; and keelboat with international-class dinghies all together. This makes planning the all-important social packages more straightforward.

Another plus: dates for the Keelboats and international-class dinghies -- generally older adult sailors -- dovetail with the 2009 Kingston Blues Festival.

Another plus: CORK 2009 spans just 12-days of competition, compared to 18-days for CORK 2008. This will be much easier on the volunteer-base, so better regattas for all-concerned are likely to result.

Any downsides? It's hard to quibble with any of this.

Also booked for 2009 so far: cats!

• July 17-19 - Hobie 16 Women and Youth North American Championship
• July 20-24 - Hobie 16 Open North American Championship

EXCELLENT OP-ED BY JAMIE SWIFT in today's Whig Standard about the obnoxious Poker Run, which is this weekend.

A group of concerned citizens has been distributing postcards around town protesting the poker run. Here you can download the front and the back of that postcard, which is addressed to Mayor Harvey Rosen.

THE 1000 ISLANDS POKER RUN is currently scheduled for Friday and Saturday August 8-9.

That's just two days, compared to last year's 3-days.

As usual, it overlaps with the CORK PHRF and One-Design Keelboat Regatta, which makes no sense whatsoever.

It is also immediately prior to the CORK Optimist Dinghy Championship, when lots of youth sailors are on the water practicing. For many young sailors and their parents, it's an obnoxious introduction to Kingston's waterfront.

THE FINAL OF THE WFN 2008 BASS TOUR, THE CANADIAN OPEN, IS COMING TO KINGSTON, September 19-21 2008. There is $1,000,000 in prize money up for grabs.

Here's a press release with the fishing tournament's prize structure.

The lead-up events are in Georgina (Jul 4-6), Sarnia (Jul 25-27), Port Colborne (Aug 22-24), and Gravenhurst in the Muskokas (Sep 5-7), before the final in Kingston September 19-21.

Unlike the Poker Run, which occurs on an August weekend that would be sold-out in any event, this event is in mid-fall, when our waterfront facilities and accommodations in town have lots of excess capacity. Smart!

WFN.TV is a slick operation, and entering the event is not cheap. A professional angler, competing only in Kingston, must pay a $3,500 entry fee, while amateur anglers are in for $850 apiece.

If you're in, register here.

FIVE PEOPLE DIE at a poker run on Lake Texoma near Willis, Oklahoma.

POKER RUN: Today's Whig Standard lead story, complete with colour photo, proclaims: "Big boats lead to new business".

The Thousand Islands Poker Run proved (sic) it is good for more than electrifying crowds and breaking speed limits over the weekend.

For the first time in its 19-year history, the motorsport spectacle was parlayed into a showcasing weekend for companies looking to expand.

A company in town for the event, which Kingston Economic Development Corp. general manager Jeff Garrah would not name ahead of an official announcement, committed to building a 15,000-square-foot facility that will create about 16 new jobs.

To put this into perspective, your average freestanding fast-food franchise represents as many full-time equivalent jobs as this. This is evidently front-page KEDCO-lauding news in this town.

Lower down:

"We had spectator boats lining both sides of the river from Kingston all the way to Prescott," Taylor said. "That's the magnitude of this event."

Yeah, like a sunny Saturday in August wouldn't otherwise be busy with boat traffic throughout the Thousand Islands.

Our friends at KEDCO and Poker Runs America would be well advised to curb their collegial self-congratulations, and recognize the other boats standing clear for what it really was.

Here's the latest 1000 Islands CAN/AM Poker Run schedule.

The Downtown Kingston! organization has announced that August 11, 12 & 13th are dates of this year's 1000 Island’s Poker Run.

The full 2006 Poker Runs America schedule is here.