Hi Britdisc, Well, it's been over 2 weeks since I requested some official word from the Board about why the Geo rules have been scrapped and so far we've heard nothing official. Why did we hear about schedule changes for Mixed Tour 1 and a big long email about kit requirements, but nothing about a fundamental change to the Tour rules? The most concerning thing is that we didn't hear about these changes before teams picked their squads for the season. The mind boggles at both the manner and timing of these changes.
Anyway, I've been thinking about all of this quite a bit lately and I would like to share my thoughts. I'm not going to reply to Dave (who I think is writing from an individual PoV rather than a 'sport' PoV) nor Brummie (who I think is right in his intentions but hasn't worked out a great solution). Basically, these are the good things about the Geo rules: - it was a written down policy in the UKUA rules that specifically stated that the UKUA wanted to encourage people to play locally to encourage the growth and competitiveness of the sport THAT, BY THE BY, WORKED. - it gave a few good rewards for playing Geo i.e. freedom of movement between A and B teams, tie-breaker wins. - people had a choice of who to play for. And these are the problems with the Geo rules: - they are so loosely worded that they can't be enforced and some teams took advantage. - it is a two-tier system (different rules for Geo and non-Geo teams) and leads to bad feeling from the teams who are working their butts off to put a strong Geo team out (Brummie) and engages automatic defence-mode from players who want to 'play with their [non-Geo] mates' (Dave). - the 75 mile radius is hard for some areas of the country but piss easy for other areas. - often players who wanted to play Geo only had one team to choose from. And these are the things I think have been overlooked: - how the sport is going to be structured in 10 years' time and what we need to do between now and then to make it happen. - what other countries who do better than us internationally, do at the national level - how to specifically encourage development of ultimate now that there is no policy about it. This is my solution. Happy for feedback, but please keep it civil. Ultimate is growing in the UK and the Open Tour is fast becoming bulky and unworkable (and the Mixed division, nearly so). In every country where this has happened before (USA, Canada, Australia) and in every team sport that I can think of, the country gets divided into Regions and Regional qualifications are held for qualification to the National events to make things more manageable. This is surely the way that ultimate will have to go at some point in the UK and it's my opinion that we should start instigating these regional boundaries now so that people get used to them. Under a Regional rostering structure, we would have maybe 5-6 Regions and Tour teams would have a roster consisting of only players from their region (which would obviously be much larger than a 75 mile radius). That way we would eliminate all the problems from the Geo rules (two-tier system, unenforcibility, 75-mile radius). Also, there will quickly be a hierarchy of teams established in a region, which individual players can climb if they want exposure to top competition (Dave's concern). Plus, if a player didn't want to play with the team based in their city, they could play with a team based in another city of their Region and be totally legitimate (Dave's other concern). The only thing that isn't really addressed is people 'who want to play with their mates who live in other regions'. Well, to that I say, if you want to play with mates who live far away, the National Tour maybe isn't for you as it's clearly not club ultimate that you want to play. Go play BritOpen, Copenhagen, Brugges, Copa Cabana, Kaimana, Potlach, etc. Some of the most competitive tournaments in the world don't have rostering rules and will let you play champagne ultimate to your heart's content. And of course, if you want to play ultimate with your mates but be eligible for the Tour that badly, just move to their region. Simple. Aura __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
