More importantly though: If the 'UKU Tournament Director' lived in London (for instance), how are they supposed to have the required local knowledge for selecting suitable venues in Leeds, Manchester, Plymouth etc etc.
Again, this is my opinion, but if a TD had to decide between a local venue that would guarentee a quality tournament, or somewhere 250 miles away that they had never visited - then it would be the duty pf the TD to choose to local venue, rather than risk a shite tournament.
But that's very much the point - a dedicated TD would have all the time in the world to visit venues throughout the country, and to choose the best. The current system favours those venues close to someone prepared to put on a tournament - some are excellent, and some aren't so good.
A UKU TD could still be expected to submit 2 or more proposals for each tour, to be decided on by the UKU board. It's hardly as if they could get away with four tournaments a year in their home town.
Jaimie LLL said:
It's already been stated that the Tour will split for next year so that's an extra 4 tournaments. Add the mixed Tour and Nationals, the Brit Open, and regional qualifiers for indoors and you've got 20+ tournaments including some weekends with two UKU events happening simultaneously.
I didn't include regionals, for the obvious reason you point out - they get held at the same time, in different places. I'm not sure who runs the Brit Open; I'm not sure it's run from within UKU anyway, and there's no reason why it would have to be. No-one wants every tournament to be run by one chap, but there might be a case for Tours and so on to have a more consistent feel, since they are part of one summer-long competition.
As for the mixed tours, they could well be included, and the same arguments apply that I tried to make earlier. And more UKU tournaments would mean less profit would be needed per tournament to finance a UKU TD.
As James Travers said, this can only make things cheaper in the long run.
There probably is a role for a UKU Director who works with TDs throughout the year covering the event organisation aspects, but a salaried UKU TD, I think not.
Such a person to co-ordinate with TD's would be the least we need to do to ensure standards remain high, but it's my opinion that someone paid could devote more time to it and have more incentive to IMPROVE things.
Still, it's just my opinion, and I'm wrong more often than not.
Benji
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