Sorry about the delay - here are the dates. You can bid now. Some bids are already in. We're switching to a new system where once a bid has been received we publish that fact and then set a deadline for rival bids (usually one month). There is no "earliest deadline" for bids for 2009 as we are so late getting the dates out.
For all the gory details read the whole email below (although I bet something funny happens to the formatting) or click on the link: http://www.ukultimate.com/story/calendar_2009_announcement If you didn't know there was a UKU Competitions Committee (and if you care) there is more information here: http://www.ukultimate.com/about_uk_ultimate/uku_committees/uku_competitions_ committee Announcement on UKU Events Calendar 2009 from UKU Competitions Committee: Mixed Tour 1: 4th & 5th April Open Tour 0: 25th & 26th April Mixed Tour 2: 9th & 10th May Mixed Nationals (Tour 3): 23rd & 24th May Open and Women's Tour 1: 6th & 7th June [Split venues] Open and Women's Tour 2: 4th & 5th July [Split venues] Open and Women's Nationals (Tour 3): 1st & 2nd August To bid for these tournaments email the Event Bids Committee using admin[at]ukultimate[dot]com. Firstly: an apology for the delay in announcing these dates. The Competitions Committee started the process of confirming the 2009 season in September, but due to unforeseen issues with regards to the European competitions to be held next year, we were forced to delay this announcement. The European situation still hasn't been finalised, but we have made the decision to fix the dates for the UK Tournaments. In future years we hope to have the dates announced a lot earlier to assist potential TD's. The order of the season in 2009 will be Mixed Tour followed by Open & Women's Tour. We hope that this will now become the standard season format, and we do not foresee this changing in the next few years. Also, Open & Women's Tour 1 and 2 will be split across two venues on the same weekend, with two divisions being located at each venue. *Mixed Tour 2009* Mixed Tour 1: 4th & 5th April Mixed Tour 2: 9th & 10th May Mixed Nationals (Tour 3): 23rd & 24th May *Open & Womens Tour 2009* Open Tour 0: 25th & 26th April - 1 LARGE VENUE Open and Women's Tour 1: 6th & 7th June - 2 VENUES REQUIRED Open and Women's Tour 2: 4th & 5th July - 2 VENUES REQUIRED Open and Women's Nationals (Tour 3): 1st & 2nd August - 1 LARGE VENUE In all cases the bids committee is able to consider bids on adjactent weekends, but note that in many cases this will create an undesirable clash which will be seen as negative point on the bid. *European Tournaments 2009* These are to be decided at a later date and tournaments will be announced once the finalised version has been agreed by EUCS and EFDF. Our current understanding is that there will be an "extended" (i.e. bigger) version of EUCF held at the end of September. This event will include Mixed and Masters divisions but will be approx 4 days long (rather than one week). We are also expecting to host an EUCR-W event in the UK in late August/early September. The announcement of the 2009 dates will no doubt raise a number of questions. We will be communicating the changes to the tournaments in more detail at a later date however let us take this opportunity to answer the most obvious questions: Why have you decided to use split venues for the O&W Tour? This was decided because The Tour has become even bigger in the last two years. In the current format we do not always get as many bids as we would like because running an event is an increasingly daunting idea - if you can even find a set a venue with enough space. In previous years we also managed without splitting due to great bids from TD's however we have now reached a critical mass where the number of teams attending has the potential to negatively affect the quality of the tournament. We believe that using two venues for some events will mitigate this risk. Furthermore, there was general support from the ultimate community to do this when it was announced and tried the first time. We accept the previous attempt at this did not go as well as we all hoped and through the Event Bids Committee we hope to ensure both tournaments will be of equal standard. We have also placed an entire month between tournaments to ensure no one is hindered with regards to travel and accommodation. Why has Nationals been combined with Tour 3? Fundamentally, because combining Nationals with EUCR-W limits our options with regard to scheduling and also rostering. This had to change, and the decision was taken that rather than add an extra tournament into the calendar, we would instead move Nationals inside the Tour. We are aware that many players would like to see more change in The Tour itself. For example, the identity of The Tour has tended to swallow the identity of the individual tournaments. Our aim is to re-dress this balance by supporting the idea that the Tour will visit established events that have their own identity, rather than tournaments being created to be "Tour x". This will not be easy, but with Nationals we have an event that already has some identity of its own - so we decided to start there. There will also be more variation in the tournament formats across the Tour in 2009. We also want to encourage more "non UKU" tournaments such as Copa Cabana - or Ross-on-Wye for those who remember that long ago - being created to supplement the calendar. Hopefully a small reduction in the number of UKU events will help stimulate this. At some point in the not-too-distant future it will not be possible for teams of all standards to attend Tour as they can now, and we wish to foster more variation and more options so that when this step change occurs it doesn't leave a large population of players and teams feeling they've been left with nothing. We have applied the same approach to Mixed although there were long discussions about two alternative solutions: - Dropping Mixed Nationals completely (due to general low attendance over recent years), or - Adding a Mixed Division alongside Open and Women and having a single Nationals event. What are these European Tournaments 2009 about? We can only give you limited information at this time due to the lack of a calendar but we have seen the growth and strength of the EUCS as a great opportunity for UK Ultimate. This allows us another viable alternative to the Tour for teams and therefore gives you more choice. In the future we hope to introduce regional qualifiers as the first round of EUCS and allow it (EUCS) to become a distinct and seperate competition series to The Tour. So there you have it: the 2009 Ultimate season - if you want to be a TD then it all starts now. The UKU can offer support and advice to budding new TD's so please contact us with any queries you have. If you do have any queries - or constructive feedback - with regards to the announcements made please contact Si Hill at [EMAIL PROTECTED] who will pass it on to the Competitions Committee. Further announcements will be made when the European dates are available. The UKU Competitions Committee __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
