Hi Ben (et al),
Thanks for taking the time to raise your concerns. Similar concerns were raised when the Board were debating this decision and here are my personal thoughts on the issue: - The Mixed Tour has seldom had more than 24 teams so far, plus it is not necessarily limited to 24 teams next year (if you are worried then make sure you let the mixed coords know your team is interested in playing that's the only way they can gauge demand) - The Tours (in all 3 divisions) will continue to be as successful as ever - in fact hopefully the new structure will mean even higher quality of events (not just level of competition) - which is good for everyone (especially new players and teams). Keeping the standard of these events high will help make them more accessible to new teams. - Having said that, the Tour (Open, Mixed and Women's) are not the only tournaments we have. In fact (I hope) that reducing the Tours to 3 events will encourage more events like Glastonbury and Nottingham AND more local events and leagues for teams and players of all standards. - I believe that the Mixed Tour will continue to be an excellent way to introduce new players and teams to the sport. Even if (in fact partly because) the standard of the top bracket of teams could start to increase. One of the points raised most often in these debates is that people want to watch top level Ultimate as well as play themselves. Cheers, Barry > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Booth > Sent: 18 November 2005 14:37 > To: britdisc@near.me.uk > Subject: [BD] mixed tour next year > > I wont be able to make the AGM this weekend so I'm posting > this to britdisc in the hope that it stimulates some debate. > > I am a little concerned about the proposed mixed tour / open > tour structure next year. The decision appears to have > been made to split the tour season into a mixed tour and open > tour. I am concerned about the impact of introducing new > players especially into the game. > > In the past the mixed tour has always been a good environment > to bring new players into, especially new women. > With the new split structure this will push most of the open > player specialists into the mixed tour. What worked well in > the past was that although the top 8-10 teams were > competative there was a long tail of of less experienced > teams in the mixed tour which made it a good environment to > bring in new players. I doubt whether this will be true this > year, with a large influx of open players and the hard cap on > only 24 teams. > > This is the question that I have to answer. We've been > getting together players in Exeter over the past year. We > now have a player base of around 24 (of which maybe 40% are > women). Apart from a couple of us none of them had played > before but they are getting to the stage where we can start > to think about entering them into a tournament or two. > What do we aim for? If the mixed tour becomes smaller and > more competive, it will be quite a step up (too great?). > Alternatively do we go for the open tour (wider number of > teams) but find we loose most of our women after a tour or two? > > I guess the point I want to make is we need to think about > how we make our sport accessable. I think the mixed tour has > done this well in the past. > There are good pathways to bring students through from > beginners to a competitive standard but the success of > ultimate in the future will depend on how well we develop > ultimate elsewhere (schools, city leagues, corporate teams, > non-student teams). I fear that unless you live in an area > which has a local league or an already well established team > it will become more difficult to bring new players/teams into > the sport. > > Ben > __________________________________________________ > BritDisc mailing list > BritDisc@near.me.uk > http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp > __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list BritDisc@near.me.uk http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
