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The Intramural Open is now a staple for hundreds of gyms worldwide. It all started at Catalyst, and the idea has been tweaked or improved many times over. In 2017, the largest change is the timing: we’ll hold the draft much earlier. This will allow gym owners to plan at least one six-week specialty “Open Prep” group in their gym. Just in case this is your first time, the Intramural Open is a fantastic way to bring a “fraternity” feel to the CrossFit Games Open. Our focus is on inclusion instead of competition; points are awarded based on participation instead of finishing time. Captains are chosen from among the most FUN clients (not coaches), and they encourage others to play for their team. There’s no “last one picked”. It’s easy to run, and many affiliates say it’s the best thing they do all year. I’ll divide the Intramural Open season into four stages: Draft, Pre-Open, Open and Post-Open.  Choose four Captains. These shouldn’t be the top athletes in your gym, but the members who you’d describe as “most fun.”  Each Captain chooses a team name. Create five Facebook groups: one for each team, with you (the gym owner) and each captain as an ‘admin.’ Create the fifth for you and the Captains only, so you can get messages to Captains and teams quickly. Note: these aren’t your official Affiliate teams. I could still be on the official Catalyst team attempting to make Regionals AND the “Kipping It Real” squat (my Intramural team.) There’s no need to build all four teams on the Games site. Divide your “serious” competitors between the four teams with a Draft. In our draft, we presented the Captains with a list of athletes already registered for the Open on draft day. Each were allowed to “protect” two athletes–mostly spouses or best friends–for their team. The rest were thrown into a hat.Draft order was determined each round by randomization (e.g. 1-2-3-4, 4-2-1-3, ...

By Amber Cooper, MHRM Every manager has been there.  One of their team isn’t meeting expectations, or has done something that requires them to have the “difficult” conversation with them. There are many reasons a manager/owner may hesitate giving constructive feedback – they may be “friends” with their team members, they may be fearful of the reaction, or they may not have the time (to name a few).  Whatever the reason, the implications of not providing feedback far outweigh that moment or two of discomfort delivering the feedback.  Specifically, your team member may impact your customers with their continuing performance issue, the resentment might grow in you  and lead to a less calm discussion and, perhaps most importantly, you are not providing your team member with valuable information that will support their development. When applying the principle of “help first”, think of what that means to your own team.  We all want solid performers working for us.  Often that requires you, as an owner or manager, to support your team in getting to that performance level. To help you in delivering that message, think about providing factual feedback, not judgmental feedback.  A simple model for delivering constructive feedback is as follows:         Describe the current behavior         Describe the impact of the behavior         Identify alternative behaviors         Listen (what are their concerns, ask them to summarize back next steps to ensure understanding and offer ongoing support/ confidence in them) An example, rather than: Your coaching of that class was crappy today (Judgement, not specific, what does crappy mean, what do you want them to do) Try instead: Sally, today I noticed you lacked enthusiasm and energy in your class.  When you lack enthusiasm, and don’t engage, customers can see that and they were losing interest because they see your lack of interest.  If you aren’t feeling energized at the beginning of class what are some things you can do to get focused?  What ...