Hey all, The UK Regional Ladder Leagues are officially open for competition on 4th September.
-We've had no time to prepare! Apologies if it's taken you by surprise - a team from the ukdev group have been working around the clock for weeks to get the league up and running, and due to the way it works, there's no reason for us not to simply open the gates for results to come in immediately after Nationals. Arranging friendlies doesn't take long, and many teams already have a friendly or two scheduled for September / October. If you are one of these teams (training for Worlds, for example), then the results of your games from 4th September onwards can count towards the Ladder League if you wish. For example, Iceni tell me they have around 10 games scheduled over the next 2 months, and they're happy for them to count towards their league campaign. Ditto with Thundering Herd, Limited Release, and a bunch of other teams. -How can I arrange a friendly then? Contact a team and ask them if they'd like to come and play against you - suggest a date or two (evening or weekend), have some pitch space in mind, and see if they can get enough players together for it. -We don't know any teams. Sign up to your regional mailing list (links below) and announce that you'd like to arrange a friendly / host a ladder league event for 2 or more teams (depending on how much pitch space you have) on X or Y dates, and wait for the responses to roll in. Alternatively, just let the list know you're up for visiting a team sometime and see who replies. It's essential that all clubs get their committees/players on the regional mailing lists for these purposes! Once the website is finished, your team registers (free) online, will appear as a peg on a map of the country (Google-map style), and will be able to be located & contacted by any interested party looking for a match. -It's as simple as that? It sure is, and it works beautifully - so long as communication is kept up and the ball is kept rolling. You need pitch space and 7 players to host a LL event - cones can be brought by visiting teams, a schedule can be worked out once everyone's turned up, you can even drag random park wanderers into your team if you're short on the day. You don't even need to confirm the event with us, just email us the results. -What happens to the results afterwards? We log them, and when the website is finished you'll be able to see them on http://www.regionalultimate.co.uk/ in a searchable table or something. All results between any kind of teams from anywhere count towards the "Open" National and Regional tables. Alongside that there are 4 Divisions, so if a game is played between two teams in the same Division, the result also counts towards that Division's National and Regional tables. The Divisions for 2006/2007 are: + Club [could be called 'open', no restrictions on player status, pickups allowed, new teams can be formed] + Uni [players must be eligible to compete in UU, one non-student guest per team is allowed] + Women's [can be a combo of a city's female students and non-students, or a number of players from different clubs combining to ensure good turnout] + Juniors [players must not turn 20 in 2007 (i.e. born 1988 or later)] -I'm confused, what happens if we attend an event with a variety of uni, junior, womens and club teams? Every team has an entry on the "Open" table, so all games between, say, Junior and Club teams, will count towards this table. If the two teams are also from the same Division (J-J, W-W, C-C, U-U), then the result will also count towards the Junior/Womens/Club/Uni National and Regional tables. -What's the whole National and Regional thing? To give teams near their regional borders the option of playing outside their region, the Regional tables are essentially filtered versions of the National table to only include teams from your region. As each region has differing circumstances, I recommend you set your sights on getting to the top of your regional table. -How/what can my team win? The scoring system rewards activity as well as performance (it's mad complicated but well balanced), so you stand a good chance of doing very well if you keep active and play loads of games, even if you lose most of them. If you play much less, you have to do much better to keep ahead of the more active teams. The aim of the league is to provide more opportunities for Ultimate and to encourage activity on a local scale, the Winter Leagues are meant for sheer competition on the whole. As there are no central charges for getting involved in the league, the prizes for Regional champions, Spirit winners etc will be donated by generous teams who have been involved & clubs who have benefitted from the league. -Sounds cool, when should I arrange a game for then? Check out the calendar linked on the menu of http://www.seultimate.org/ to avoid as many conflicts as you can. A great date for anyone wishing to host a "kickoff" event outside of London which will be well attended is 16 September, or 23 Sept for those within London, and/or, to include Uni teams, 7th or 14/15 October look good (depending on which days the skills days are). The biggest LL event to date has had 8 teams playing 4 games each over 3 pitches - because of the flexibility, if you have enough space then it's not much extra effort to host a bigger, one-day event. There are some rules and guidelines on http://www.regionalultimate.co.uk/ , but decisions are largely up to the event organiser on the day. That's it folks - if you have any questions then myself & Sam can be found on Brighton & Fusion respectively this weekend, always ready to listen & open to new ideas. Why not speak to some teams from your region about a match soon too? Good luck at Nationals & get playing Ladder League! Felix http://www.regionalultimate.co.uk/ Northern: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Western: [EMAIL PROTECTED] South East: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Scotland: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Midlands: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ireland: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
