From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Thu Mar 26 16:31:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) id QAA27037 for britdisc-outgoing; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:12:25 GMT Received: from amsta.leeds.ac.uk (amsta.leeds.ac.uk [129.11.36.1]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA27022 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:12:21 GMT Received: from newton.leeds.amsta (newton.leeds.ac.uk [129.11.36.64]) by amsta.leeds.ac.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA29429 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:12:53 GMT Received: by newton.leeds.amsta (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA02278; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:14:20 GMT Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:14:20 GMT From: amtsjh@amsta.leeds.ac.uk (S J Hill) Message-Id: <199803261614.QAA02278@newton.leeds.amsta> To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: Women's Rule - accuracy and comment X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Great to see some other views. I hope you don't mind Andy if I just correct something... and probably make a couple of other comments... > > While Sue is entering GB women as one team and Bliss > > enter another, all the others are playing co-ed, which they will continue > > to do until there are enough women's teams to make this division > > competitive. Sue isn't on email to answer this so I'm going to. GB Women haven't entered the tour this year. The squad discussed it, and (I think after a vote - altho' I could be wrong about that) came to the decision that GB Women would not play in the tour. Thus all women players are free to play for whoever they like. Sue has entered Twin Peaks, and the core of that team is pretty much the same as the core of Twin Peaks has been for a couple of years as far as I can tell, plus they have quite a few other players too I think. Indeed if the Twin Peaks team really were the GB team then they would call themselves GB - becaus the rules already allow greater roster flexibility to the GB Women and Junior teams. (NB - these are not extended to Masters - who must play like a normal club if they enter. GB Open is of course not permitted to enter.) So some women are playing for Twin Peaks, some for Bliss, and some are staying in their Open teams. As I understand it this is because those players want to play for Open teams. Those women that are playing for open teams are perfectly able to enter a women's team into the tour instead. Furthermore, since the women's team are UNROSTERED and we now have the "Guest" rule, many women could actually do a mixture anyway. For example, if Bliss are a little short of players this w/e they could get their players who might later play for a rostered team to not roster yet. So then they could play with Bliss this w/e perfectly happily. If they later decide to play with their Open team THEN they could either a) roster with that team - which would prevent them going back to Bliss later or b) play with the open team as a GUEST - which would mean they could go back to Bliss. > > Vicious circle? This problem will continue to escalate until > > the core people who want to see women's ultimate develop on its own lose > > heart and pack it in. I hope they don't. At some point, women players will decide to play in a separate division at some major tournaments. My guess is that at first this will be a difficult decision for many players who prefer mixed ultimate. But that after a short time such a division will work successfully, and some women will continue to play in the open division. Of course, once there is a SEPARATE division it will make much more sense for women to play sometimes in their women's team, and sometimes for their open team - because they won't be switching between two teams in the same competition. > > One way to allow women to play co-ed too at the same tour is to encourage > > women's teams register as "A Women's Team", whereby their players can > > essentially play for two teams, one Women's and one Open. I accept that > > this is backpedalling from the initial idea of the Tour, but which is the > > lesser of the two evils: the demise of the women's game as a whole or an > > exception made to encourage the growth of this underdeveloped area? I don't think there is any doubt that if women players (after a full 'meeting' - which they can have this w/e) feel that making this alteration would be beneficial then it will be made. > > We can't allow competitive women's ultimate to suffer purely to get > > Ultimate more serious recognition. Those of us who went to Vancouver can > > testify that the women's match was by far the best game of the finals, and > > it would be a great tragedy for us to lose the potential for women players > > in this country to compete at that level. The top Open teams always have > > international goals as well as domestic, and we often use the domestic > > season as a foothold for a summer international. If women's teams aren't > > supported more fully at the domestic level and encouraged to play for a > > women's team against other women's teams, how else can we achieve these > > goals? The point is here. "Encourage women's teams to play women's teams". You'll get no argument from me there. But this rule change is NOT about that. Its about making it possible for women players who basically prefer open ultimate to sometimes play women's - and I remain unconvinced that this will actually help women's ultimate beyond what is already allowed by the tour rules. Finally: "supported more fully at the domestic level"... In the past couple of years there have been for the first time (in a long time or ever in UK?) women's tourneys: indoors and outdoors. There were at least 2 indoor last season, and 1 this season. There was a Women's Nationals in October... altho' unfortunately it didn't happen at the same time as Open Nationals. (I say unfortunately - others I know disagree.) Who has had an outdoor tournament this year? Only WOMEN have had what you might call a normal tournament as yet this season. (Granted students in scotland have played through the winter, and many of us continue to arrange other things like Gun Savage 7, or Catch v UTI...) And really finally: Are you sure the Women's game is being harmed at all? There are more women players than ever before, over 100 have 'registered' on a women's contact list arranged by Sue told me yesterday. (So there are bound to be more than that.) The GB squad trained all winter - incl. the w/e in Feb when the Open Managers thought it might be a bit cold. I believe that several of these winter sessions were open to all women. There have been tournaments, and indeed there'll be another one in June. (A hat this time I think.) > > Food for thought, Absolutely. Si