Phil and BD Thanks for your email - its a really good point. Some action:
1. You spurred me into writing down the outcome of some work that was done last year about UKU priorities. I put it on an area of the UKU website that is laughably called my blog. I knew that idea would get me into trouble. Anyway... My blog is here: http://www.ukultimate.com/blogs/si_hill I've also copy & pasted the text of this latest article into this email - see below. 2. Benji will be publishing a document later today that outlines how the changes we've planned for the National Championships will work - at least specifically talking about how Regionals will be handled. 3. This seems like a good moment to say that a team led by Andy Kayley in Southampton will be running Nationals 2010 in Southampton (at the venue used for EUC 2007 amongst other things) - but that we have been discussing an arrangement where that team will also run Nationals at the same venue on a similar date in 2011 and 2012. HOWEVER - Beach Worlds 2011 has kind of scuppered those plans for 2011, and so disappointingly we don't quite have 2011 and 2012 Nationals nailed down yet - but we are actively working on it at the moment. 4. To anyone: would you consider helping to re-instate a monthly member update email? If so please let me know. Thanks Si "UKU Priorities 2009-2012" Apologies for the grand-sounding title. Some time ago, the Board went through a process of reviewing what *UKU* should be about, and what our goals should be. In the interests of responding to Phil Richardson's very good point about "there's not enough information about what *UK Ultimate* is doing" (sent to Britdisc 7th June 2010) here is a quick summary of those goals. There have been a couple of aborted attempts to produce something more polished... In a nutshell, the process we went through was to consider all the different people that come into contact with Ultimate in the UK: mostly players of course; but also coaches, would-be spectators, *UKU *staff & volunteers, school teachers, and so on. We also split the players group into "social", "competitive" and "elite" without worrying a great deal about exactly where to draw the line between those groups. We then attempted to look at Ultimate through the eyes of those groups, and list out and prioritise their "requirements". Finally we took those lists and did some work to consolidate them - in particular picking out the areas that seemed important to multiple groups. I think its fair to say we also put more weight behind the requirements of the player-groups. The outcome was that *UK Ultimate* would (broadly) try to work to the following priorities until reviewing the situation again towards the end of 2012. Its worth noting that we've been trying to follow these priorities since 2009 actually. - Player growth - Localized/regional competitions - Coaching - Cross-train teachers and community coaches - L1/L2 -> all existing clubs - Stretching the top level -> better support for international competitors - Lead player debate around SOTG - Participant, coach, organiser safety - Sustainable staff and volunteer organisation One thing we recognised was that we really really needed to agree that some areas would receive less attention even though that would cause tension and problems. Its also obvious to say that some of the things that are not in the list still have to happen anyway - and this tends to be my biggest challenge when trying to live to those priorities. So - things that are evidently not there but still need and get attention: - Existing domestic competition structure (in particular The *UKU* Tour) - There is nothing about Indoor or Beach Ultimate - No emphasis on pro-active promotion unless it obviously helps player or growth or perhaps sponsorship for GB - Nothing about overhauling the website, or improving member-communications! Although I'm not doing a great job of communicating broadly, I do spend a lot of time in discussions (by email and phone) with all sorts of players and *UKU* members that contact "the office". So how are we doing against the priorities? Hmm. I'd say mostly OK, could do better. And I'll commit to talking about each of those priorities in this blog over the next few weeks... On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Phil Richardson <[email protected]>wrote: > Benji, > > May I congratulate you and every one working hard on all players behalf to > keep the Tour at the forefront of the development of competitive Ultimate > in > the UK. > > Could I ask that you and the committee working on this to offer some > enlightenment on where this might lead to next year. Perhaps you could > have > a statement of the intended changes or a draft of ideas ready for all the > members of the UKU by the end of this season? > > I respect that there are a lot of volunteer hours going in here (and admit > that I do not wish to step up to the plate on Tour scheduling) but I do > think we have reach a point where our national organisation needs to start > thinking 2 - 3 years ahead to be fair to the members. We are beginning to > reach a point where by the networks disseminating the information from the > UKU are extending quickly but the flow of information is not increasing. I > say this because I find an increasing number of players with Tour > experience > that are not on BD and do not read the UKU Updates. > > I would like to note I do appreciate the current changes going to to draw > the European teams over to the UK and I see UKU making great gains in its > organisation and structure. So please carry on but plan and communicate a > little further ahead. > > > > Scraggy > > > On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:10 AM, UKU Director of Competitions < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Just a reminder that the Birmingham venue will host the top 32 teams for > > Tour 2, meaning all those who played T1 in London (except the 5 > > non-returning European teams) and the top 13 teams from Bishop's Cleeve. > > Other teams, and Women's, will be in Burton. > > > > I don't imagine there will be drop-outs at that top level, but if any > team > > amongst that top 32 is not intending to attend T2, please get in touch > very > > very soon so that we can bump someone up. > > > > Cheers, > > Benji > > > > > > UKU Director of Competitions wrote: > > > >> BD, > >> > >> A note about tournament formats for this season, and an explanation. > >> Long-winded no doubt, but you should see the amount of discussion that's > >> gone into this. > >> > >> The competitions committee are very much behind the idea of keeping a > >> separate identity for the A,B and C tour - it seems to us that most > people's > >> imaginations have been caught by the divisional structure and that most > >> people refer to themselves as 'an A tour team' or 'a B tour team' and so > on. > >> The divisions also allow simple schedules to be written for at least the > top > >> 32. > >> > >> However, for this year, there are some difficulties - of our own making, > I > >> suppose, but we didn't see them coming. For Tour 1, we expected 8 > European > >> teams, and took the obvious decision to extend T1 A to 24 teams. This > will > >> enable us to run perhaps the best Tour event the UK has seen, but it has > >> some knock-on effects. > >> > >> We actually have 7 non-UK teams, but in fact 2 of them are intending to > >> play the whole tour, and thus are not really foreign teams at all under > the > >> rules. In particular, they'd expect to hold their seed for T2. So > instead of > >> the planned 16 UK and 8 Euro teams, we actually have 19 fully-fledged > tour > >> teams at T1 A. Thus, in order to have 3 promoted from the B-tour for T2, > >> we'd have to relegate 6 teams. That's clearly too many. > >> > >> Reducing the number promoted is also not appealing, since T1 is not > >> guaranteed to be well-seeded. And in order to have just our normal 3 > >> relegated, we'd have to promote no-one at all. > >> > >> The possibility of making A-tour 2 larger is unfair on the TD for the > >> C-tour 2 and Women's who would lose 4 teams' cash - significant money. > >> > >> So we've taken the decision that Tour 2 (with A&B co-located) will be a > >> 32-team format with some crossing over possible around what would > normally > >> be the A-tour and B-tour boundary. This will give all the teams the > chance > >> to find their level. The top 8 will of course remain peer-pooled - this > is > >> an issue around the 16/17 barrier, and we don't want or need to change > >> things for the top teams. > >> > >> There is also a similar problem with B&C tour 1 - only 13 teams can get > >> into that top 32 for T2, and the same things apply to promotion and > >> relegation as above. To get 3 C-tour teams promoted, we have to relegate > 6. > >> And that means those 6 miss out on playing with the top 32 at T2 and go > to a > >> different venue, which is a big thing. > >> > >> So again, we have taken the decision to remove some boundaries from Tour > 1 > >> B&C. There will be a top 8 (peer-pooled), a middle 16 in 4 pools of 4 > >> (across the important 9-24 bracket that determines getting into the top > 32 > >> for T2) and a bottom 12, followed by the chance to crossover between > these > >> brackets. > >> > >> Hopefully that all makes sense. And hopefully the big tournament with > all > >> those non-UK teams will be so excellent that it's all worth it. > >> > >> Cheers, > >> Benji > >> > >> __________________________________________________ > >> BritDisc mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > >> Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed > >> > >> > > > > __________________________________________________ > > BritDisc mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > > Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed > > > __________________________________________________ > BritDisc mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc > Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed > __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
