BD, Let's skip to the end...
The winners of Copa Cabana 2007 (Pirates of the Copa Cabana, The Curse of the Bad Pull) were the Cowboys! They were victorious over Copa regulars and spirit winners Addicted to Love. Winning spirit at the Copa is a tough task as spirit is the order of the tournament and most teams go out of their way to enjoy themselves and each other. The Highlights. ----- - Sunday for the first time being "The Night". In the past Saturday has been the one to be at but the party atmosphere induced by the combined Karaoke and Airband event led to a massive night that lasted well into Monday's games. - To address Dan's concerns about 'tent death', although incredidog wasn't present this year, the presence of 600 of the sea's most hearty souls was enough to strike the fear of neptune's ghost into the gun wielding landlubbers of the area. - There was of course the part man, part monkey that tried to set fire to the giant jenga in the wee hours of Monday morning. Speaking with Mike from Nice legs it was more entertaining than threatening. - the moat of vomit left outside one girls tent (presumably out of fear of marauders/tent death) - the tolerance of the power outages on the Friday night thanks to a giant coil of wire used to provide power creating a rather frightening heat source/electromagnet and also providing our ground with 240V. I recall Rob from Bigger/Leeds rushing up to me to tell me that there was electricity on the ground to which I replied, 'touch this', pointing to the metal rails on my mixer. What's more shocking than the result was the fact that he did it. I fixed the electrical issues on Saturday and we had consistent and safe power for the rest of the weekend. - Getting the pirate flag up on the Copa Tent after it was erected using a standing human pyramid. - DJ Kenee's killer set on the Saturday night which left our following Copa DJ's Biscuit and Dogg feeling like 'man with tiny penis'. - Team Deutschland's ability to get all the difficult stuff on the Treasure Hunt (eg. a glass eye). - A kidnapping of a player from the pitch during the final as a submission for the Treasure Hunt. - Hot showers all weekend (thanks to actually remembering to turn on the boiler this year) - Our Karaoke man throwing his back out Sunday day and having to quickly learn how to use the hired Karaoke system over the phone. - The Stowaways finishing with a tie. - The farthest travelled person to come to Copa, travelled over 5500 miles (San Diego to Nottingham). and much more. The Lowlights ----- Yes there were some lowlights of the Copa that must be mentioned this year. Generally everybody was fantastic however, we provided recycling bins for glass, and plastic and cans. An ok job was done to use these but too many people just threw anything into any bin. We sorted this on a daily basis to avoid a nightmare at the end but generally the effort made by people to help out here and by team captains to get the word out to there teams was poor. We also has a requirement for players to bring their own dishes. This wasn't conveyed well enough by captains or adhered to by players as very few had brought a simple plastic cup with them. Also...rubbish after the event. I know we provide what seems like a festival atmosphere at the Copa and we wouldn't have it any other way. However, festivals have lots of paid staff to collect rubbish after the event. We do not. We have a few volunteers who had to clear up more than 50 bags of rubbish including things like a broken tent left behind, mattresses, a TV(?) and other items that illustrate a degree of disrespect for us who run the event that it's a real shame. While most people are home from the Copa by around 8pm we didn't leave the venue until almost 9pm because of all of the garbage that was left in the camping area. One person put it like this saying "you wouldn't just dump a broken tent at the side of the road, why leave it behind without even trying to find out where would be best to put it". Some people commented that there's been a growing apathy towards cleaning up after ourselves at tournaments in general and respecting our environment. We're open to suggestions as to how we can change this. Let's apply our Spirit of the Game philosophy of respect for other players to our surroundings and our tournament organisers as well. Why not start by leaving Nationals as clean as it will be when we arrive. Spirit ----- Spirit was huge this year. Once again though the teams at the bottom of the spirit scores list will be warned of their finish and the fact that when put to a choice they make get bumped from the list for next year. Lessons Learned ----- More toilets. I think with 36 teams we needed more toilets. Better communication about water supply. The pub at the meadows pitches was meant to be supplying water. Not enough people knew this. Lost Property ----- We went through every piece of lost property during the final presentation so if you weren't there to collect something then it's likely already gone to charity. We call it, 'left behind because I couldn't be bothered to put any effort into finding it' property. If it was valuable...car key, phone etc we kept it. Those items have all found their homes now though. The Summary ----- Overall in my opinion this was the best Copa we've ever had. The 8m x 12m new marquee was a huge success as well and the people's attitude and committment to having a good time was massive! I spoke to so many people at 3pm on Sunday who told me they were just too tired to make it to the Copa tent that night only to bump into them again dancing up a storm at 3am. If you missed it, we'll try again next year to let all teams in. We do have a ridiculous plan to have a massive version of Copa and didn't happen this year but perhaps next. PLUG TIME: Flyght Club now own a modern large 8mx12m marquee we would like to hire out to other tournaments needing large scale shelter or a party tent. It goes up quickly and easily and it extremely wind proof. Thanks ----- Dene Sheppard, Flyght Club, Duracell, Fling, Moderns Staff, Fancy a Nibble, Ben Allen, Chef, Russ Bousfield, Vince, Andy Dobb, Maddie, Mike, Drew, Vito, Ben, Chris, Hotel, Grant, The DJs Kenee, Biscuit, Dogg, Harp, Phil, Ange, Sally Cannon, The Stowaways and of course Allison. Sorry for not such an entertaining email this time. I've managed to get a bit of a cold somehow. Funny how 6 hours of sleep over a long weekend can do that. Steve Copa TD __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
