mate? not so sure by the tone. I'm suggesting that at the moment things aren't ideal. Your "solution" is to leave it. Mine is to think about what could be done to make it better.
Its quite possible that venues will be found to run massive tournaments properly at the right times in the calendar - but is that happening effectively now? The point about "regional" tournaments is not just distance but size and value for money / ease of organising. So perhaps we would not gain much in travelling, but would gain in quality of event. I can see how its possible that the tour is good for teams in the middle of nowhere / sparsely populated (ultimate-wise) areas. But would it not be as good if there were good smaller non UKU events they could attend (if those events attracted a good range of ability teams)? I would also agree that the tours are clearly the best (as far as level of play is concerned) tournies at the moment - so some kind of transition would be needed. Perhaps I'm wrong and there aren't enough good small venues in the country to accomodate more smaller tournaments, in which case lets get back to mansfield. When you say "most people would expect more" - I think you are right. More for their money. Winter league costs very little, and you get what you pay for. Suggesting clapham common for a regional event seems irrelevant - its not gonna be used. You've been to foriegn tournaments - then you know what we're missing. On the point of bids for UKU events, these are hard to come by as they need to accomodate a very large number of teams. Smaller events can attract more bids in theory. And - chill. Ain't nothing gonna change this afternoon. I'm not gonna take away the tour, I'm just annoyed about things at the moment, and enjoy a good BD discussion - not argument. (well, that's not true - argue away). LAters Tom On 5/14/07, Simon Statham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Don't cover up your rambling nonsense with insults mate - think through your arguement... It's fine in my brain and I think pretty clear to the rest of the world (in that we already play the version that I'm advocating) - but I haven't got a clue what you're suggesting. You haven't set out in anyway what you would suggest as a replacement for the Tour except for 'local' tournaments. Errrm, don't we have these already? Winter League, Summer Leagues, Ladder League. A minute ago you were advocating "less travelling" and now you're suggesting that 200 miles is an acceptable distance for a local tournament!! Comedy! How many teams who are travelling to Birmingham are coming from MORE than 200 miles away?! Not many. 200 miles is almost half the country! i.e. in your eyes making regional tournaments effectively national. So what's the point? Why can't you see that anyone living outside the sphere of London would suffer if the Tour was scrapped? Is that because you live nicely within your 200 mile criteria, so that you'll be ok? Phew, that's alright then... As for the venues arguement... Please show me a 2-day event for open teams (i.e. not students) for less than 16 teams which has been held at a good quality venue... Quality venues are big and expensive and therefore need large numbers of teams to make them viable. If you're happy with games on Clapham Common then good for you, I think most people would expect more. How can the sport ever be taken seriously if we're effectively chucking about in a park for most of the time? No need to patronise, I have played in Europe thanks... *shocker dvd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>* wrote: hmmm, It seems your/my idea about "local" ain't the same. No worries. You're still wrong. Winter league venues aren't what I had in mind - they are just for one dayers I think. They clearly wouldn't do for a weekend tournie. You do the math. You don't need to travel to europe. Only if you do you'll find out what "value for money" means. Try it one day. Dead close can be 200 miles. Have you ever lived in Norfolk? Shame. Its all going perfect in your brain? hmmmm.. Tom On 5/14/07, Simon Statham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Local tournaments just won't work (see Benji's mail). We have local > Winter Leagues at the moment and I think most people will agree that the > quality outside of London just isn't there - which is why we had the > situation of EMO travelling to London to get a decent game, until they > weren't allowed any more. Plus, look at the locations you play Winter > League at... Predominantly (from my experience of playing in the Midlands > and London), you're in a park with little or no shelter, sometimes no > changing rooms, certainly no-where to camp if necessary etc etc - this would > be the future of regional tournaments. Crappy. > > Less travelling??!! Yours and other people's arguement would have more > teams travelling to Europe to play!!! How's that reducing our carbon > footprint? > > As for poor old Mustard having to travel out of Norfolk to get to > tournaments! That made me laugh! What's the solution? Either we all come > to you (i.e. organise a Tour) or you play against all those hundreds of > teams which are dead close to you in a regional format. So who would those > teams be... Great Yarmouth? Ipswich? Bury St Edmunds? Lowestoft? King's > Bloody Lyn? Oh yeah, there aren't any! Even if you played regionally you'd > still have to travel miles!! > > *shocker dvd <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >* wrote: > > Yo! > > difference is "sectionals" or whatever are local. Less travelling see? > > There are loadsa smaller rugby club-type venues that can take around 16 > team on good quality turf / home/away changing rooms. I think that the > larger you get the harder it is to find venues, but does the quality really > go up? (bristol/mansfield). I'm fairly sure that food quality goes down the > more people have to be catered for (thats not right is it?). > > You'd be surprised how much easier it is to do catering/set > up/water/schedule changes etc for smaller tournaments. > > I'm fairly sure that the rest of europe would eye 8 very competitive > tournaments in a single country with envy. Its not the tour its the fact > there's loads of us who wanna play. > > I'm sure I had something else to say... > > Tom > > ps - the email mentioning chev/fus/leed/clap was a slip of the mouse - > so feel free to rip it to pieces. No offence meant to any of the teams in > question - sorry. > > On 5/14/07, Simon Statham < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Errr, your 'sectionals' (whatever that's supposed to mean) seem to be > > exactly the same as the Tour. Tour 1 is "competitive events for the smaller > > teams and a necessary step for > > the big teams" - i.e. all teams play on a level playing field. Then > > Tour 2/3 are peer seeded so it's tough for those that want it and 'fun' down > > the bottom end where teams take it less seriously. > > > > The main reason I see for keeping the Tour is simply the quality of > > organisation. If you start going regional you are suddenly requiring many > > more people to step forward to organise events - we know the there aren't > > enough bids every year to fill the 8 UKU events, so how likely are we to get > > many more people suddenly coming forward to host events? Low! Secondly, if > > you have fewer teams then the quality of venues you are likely to get will > > be much, much lower. How are you going to persuede a good quality venue to > > set aside a weekend and host an event when you can only supply them with > > 100/150 people to make money off (selling food, buying drinks etc)? We'll > > end up playing on pitches which are essentially fields with some changing > > rooms (if you're lucky). > > > > The Tours we have now are quite large 'events' and as such are able > > to command good quality venues where we can expect to find food laid on, > > camping on-site (for some), quality changing facilities, a bar open in the > > evenings etc etc. > > > > Moving to smaller regional tournaments would be a serious step back > > in the quality of event that eveyone has become used to. Only in the South > > East would there be enough teams available to hold a big enough event. > > > > Finally, at the end of the day all teams like to know where they > > stand in relation to others. Having ranking events like the Tour is the > > only way for teams to know how good they are and how they have improved from > > one event to another and one year to another. All of the other events you > > have mentioned are one-offs. How can you possibly know how good you are > > nationally if you come 10th at Copa or 3rd in the Midlands ladder league? > > > > I don't know for sure but I reckon that if you looked at the rest of > > Europe, they all eye our Tour with envy. It's not perfect and there are a > > few things within it that I don't agree with but the fundamental ideal of > > getting all the teams together to battle it out to determine who's the best > > in the country is spot on. Splitting it into A and B Tours has also been a > > massive step forward. > > > > John Armitage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Is the tour creaking at its joints? > > > > Yep, it is time to give it up. We can afford to move to warm up > > tournaments, go along to European tournaments, and have our own > > sectionals, regionals, nationals/EUCF regionals and the European > > finals. Why not? Give me a good reason why not? > > > > Here is why it works: > > > > I spent time playing ultimate in Texas, where distances to travel are > > huge but I still went to many tournaments local and far away, and I > > went to Sectionals and lost every game. But the ultimate was more fun > > and there was no pressure to 'have' to go to tournaments. Sectionals > > are competitive events for the smaller teams and a necessary step for > > the big Texas teams like Doublewide. Then regionals is a tough > > tourney for say Doublewide as there are only a very few qualifying > > spots. And nationals is well just tough. > > > > >From my experience in America playing with a bunch of students out > > of College Station, playing at the bottom end of a sectionals, > > regionals, etc structure is fine because of the quantity of other > > tournaments that fill the other weekends. > > > > So in the UK we could have a sectionals, which may be an necessary > > step for a big team like Leeds, but not so competitive. Student teams > > could go as a warm up for the student season, fun teams could go to > > play for fun (cos thats what it is all about). Then regionals would > > be the next step, probably the end of a tough season for my club in > > Southampton (there could be only 4 regions, or just 2). Then a > > nationals to select the top teams to go towards EUCF, or nationals > > would be the new EUCF west region and our regionals would feed into > > the EUCF region, whatever, is it so hard to imagine. > > > > There are plenty of open tournaments through the year, and mixed ones > > too. I could go to Paganello, Dive Hard, Windmill Windup, Brugges, > > Copa Cobana, Brighton Beyond and I think I would be quite happy > > (might have miss spelt one of those, but you get my point). If I then > > also went to a mixed and open sectionals plus qualified through to > > regionals that would be 10 tournaments, or almost one a month. Is > > that not a good ultimate calendar or have you all got nothing else to > > do with your weekends? > > > > It is time to move on. > > > > Scot > > > > > > > > > > -- > > ********************************************************** > > John Armitage > > PhD Student > > Geology and Geophysics, NOC > > http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/people/armitage/ > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > > BritDisc mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > > Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, > > sign up for your freeaccount today. > > __________________________________________________ > > BritDisc mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > > Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed > > > > > ------------------------------ > Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign > up for your free account today<http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.html> > . > ------------------------------ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now<http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTEzaDRkZGdlBF9TAzIxMTQ3MTcxOTAEc2VjA01haWwEc2xrA3RhZ2xpbmVz> .
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