Having run many tournaments at this venue, I'm going to defend certain aspects of organisation. It's not ideal in terms of shelter, the pavillion is a joke and no where near the pitches, and water has always been a problem (although everyone of the GB U17s filled up at least 2 containers each day when they could inbetween games). Spare containers would help though, and my youth group has invested in large barrels that pull along which might be worth UKUA investing in. Food is normally covered by a local youth group but the main organiser was too busy arranging her daughter's wedding to Chris Berry so understandable could not do the food this year.
>The schedule, what happened there? It was only released on Friday, then Sunday morning we arrived and it had changed overnight, resulting in my team having to play five back-to-back games on Sunday. FIVE games with very little time to eat, apply sun-block, rest etc. -On Saturday we had a five hour gap between our two games, with some of the pitches not being used at all, why such a huge disparity? The schedule was sent by the DoC on the Friday to the TD. Now I don't want to criticise Hannah about the schedule who worked damn hard effectively preparing 3 separate tournament schedules, but I would question why the opening B tour tournament had such a harsh schedule that could only really work if teams were seeded accurately, which was an impossibility when so much was based on last year's nationals. A far more open format with more, shorter games (something you seem to have an issue with) is more usual for the first tour of the year. I suspect the longer games were a response to criticisms last year when B tour teams got less pitch time. Ironically, anyone being wiped out by Fire 15-0 in 45 minutes could argue they got even less pitch time, but that's a different issue. In defence of DoC though, has anyone else tried to schedule a 27 team tournament that then has to cope with a team pulling out at 6am on the first day? The schedule had to change for the bottom 10 teams for the second day, and every single captain of those 10 teams was consulted and presented with the options (which unfortunately was take the 45 minute games, or condemn 2 teams to a single match in the day). Junior Nationals ran the week previously where all games were 45 minutes, no cap; and most juniors were stunned by how long the games were. A cultural difference maybe, but all the lower teams in Tour B 'seemed' happier playing more, shorter games than 3 90 minute games and a single match for the bottom 2 who were just unlucky enough to have GB Junior teams seeded very low in their pools. Scoring, deciding how to sort out ties in the pool, etc. Yeah, no defence except needing better guidance. First Aid was better than when I ran it, but then I was the only one that ever got injured (bloody Chris Hughes getting in my way when I laid out through him, Kabaddi, etc.) -So what was our money spent on? Car Parking in a safe car park cost a fortune. Double Locks don't allow camping now (Council shut that down after someone lit a fire and accidentally burnt down two outbuildings), but Scout site was nice. Cheapest tour tournament in the last 5 years, room for improvement, lessons can be learnt, but still one of my favourite venues. I know I'm biased, but I love laying out on that grass. Kev. ----------------------------------------------------------- | Kevin Lowe | | His vocabulary was as bad as, whatever... -- ___________________________________________________ Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/ __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
