Crikey! don't hold back now. To be honest I agree with the majority of what Tom has to say and just wanted to add my 2-pennies worth!
I did want to point out that midlands Student outdoor regionals also took place at the same time as Indoor nationals, which meant that we lost half our squad and denied Mustard their 1st apperance at Nationals of any type! Fully support the discussions around changing the tour structure, there are far too which we 'have' to enter to get a good overall finish and which involve a lot of travelling to get to (specially for us narwich folk!). A Sectional/Regional/structure sounds about right to me and would give more smaller local team a chance to compete (at the sectional level at bear minimum!). As for the top-tier teams getting more competative games, is the ladder league a potential solution to this? just a thought! Thanks again Treble Mustard #99 ----- Original Message ---- From: shocker dvd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 12:59:54 PM Subject: Re: [BD] Rants on Ultimate this year. Yo! I ain't a rocket scientist, but I'm fairly sure you can run open/womens on the same weekend. You do the math. Oh - I forgot the fiasco (sorry oscar to bring this up again!) of indoor nationals. add that to the list. Same wekeend as GB trainings - great. Teams breaking the rules and buggering off before the end of the tournament, playing with ineligable players etc - what fun. If you're gonna have strict roster rules, then submitting rosters might be a good way to enforce them. While I'm thinking about rule enforcement this popped into my head: last year "blue" on the womens tour were docked points each tournament they played cos of lack of matching kit. Way to go. Really encouraging people to put a team together and play. I've heard lots of "get more women" type talk - clearly this ain't the case. If I was on the team (you do the math) I'd feel discouraged from getting a team together to play - is that obvious? Maybe not. Just cos something's been in the rules for year doesn't mean its right. Check out the "dig for water rule at paga" - you really think thats the best way to decide a draw? Something else good about taking tournaments away from the UKU would be better value for money. Right now if you run a UKU event you get carte blanche to charge a lot of money, for the most basic provisions. This is partly due to reasons like needing a massive venue, and these can be costly, and partly due to the fact that teams are "forced" to attend if they want to do well in UK ultimate. If a "fun" tournament doesn't give value, then you just don't go back - so there is an incentive to run it well. I don't grudge batchelor for charging lots for bristol - he's totally entitled to do it, by the rules. But if the UKU only needed to run 2 very large tournaments a year (i.e. open/womens and mixed natties) then they might have the chance to pick and choose a little for better value. Think of this: A tournament doesn't have to be a UKU one to be big and good and competitive - this is just what happens if you have too many "tour" events. There are very competitive tournaments if you're willing to travel overseas (wonderful/dive hard/brugge etc) that aren't part of national tours. The Brit Open was one that used to happen here. Just supporting the tour structure because of wanting more weekends to play doesn't add up - the tour suppresses independent tournies. When mixed tour 2 was cancelled it left a gap that was nicely filled by a fun/competitive one dayer in clapham common (thanks dan) - this was great fun and easier to get to for all the teams that went. The more local tournaments we have the better. They take up less travel time (better carbon footprint y'all), allow more new players / newbs to check it out with less commitment, can be hard if you wanna play hard, and are easier to organise, cos they're generally smaller. On the money side of things, we've got quite a few players (here in brighton) that will have to pay 30 quid this year for 1 or two tournaments. Why? Because the outdoor season is dominated by UKU weekends. (only 8? thats not many? you tell that to the person that decides where to squeeze them in to the calendar - a horrible job) If you can only make one or two, and you played last year - thats 15 quid extra a tournament, enough to put some of our members off coming. But they are the grand events of the year, only attended by serious and committed players - bull. Would you run an independent tourny the weekend before/after a UKU event? You can, but you gotta expect UKU to take precedence, which means you might not get the teams you need for a good event. Finding a time in the calendar for the brighton tournament was damn hard - a single weekend in the whole summer. I'm sure there's a point here somewhere - find it. We can take pressure off the UKU by easing their workload. I think the rules they've come up with are good (if enforced) and make sense for a smaller number of competitions. I welcome the creation of a scheduling committee to keep formats fair. I'm happy to pay to affiliate if it gives me the chance to play at nationals. I think the way they run the national teams is great. But I'm annoyed with other aspects (see above). Anyways - argue back please - let me know I'm unreasonable too. Don't bother to point out that there might be an argument somewhere but its hidden in a "rant" - that is clear from the subject. Laters Tom ps - I also like the callahan rule. pps - see y'all in birmingham. ppps - I was annoyed with the closed format of MT1 when I first saw the schedule. It seemed like the lack of quarters for 1st would be a bad thing. Wierd how open teams change enough each year to justify an open-schedule seeding tournament, but mixed teams stay the same. But at the end of the weekend it had worked ok - strange huh? pppps - anyone hear the way they ran the womens' div (or perhaps both, I only heard about womens) at wonderful? Sounds wierd - points plus points difference, I wonder if it worked good. ppppps - props to the squaws for becoming student champs!! __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed ____________________________________________________________________________________Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
