From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Tue Feb 27 18:17:53 2001 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) id f1RI0kG13146 for britdisc-outgoing; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 18:00:46 GMT Received: from snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (root@snowdrop [137.205.192.31]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id f1RI0hh13125 for <britdisc-real@pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 18:00:43 GMT Received: from netmail.co.uk (netmail.netmail.co.uk [194.205.11.2]) by snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) with SMTP id f1RHxXY01632 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 18:00:31 GMT Received: from PROXY2 (PROXY2 [194.205.11.21]) by netmail.co.uk (NTMail 3.03.0017/4c.afxy) with ESMTP id za606475 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:58:07 +0000 Received: from ben [218.99.151.24] by vac.uk.com [127.0.0.1] with SMTP (MDaemon.v2.84.R) for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:56:34 +0000 From: "Ben Rolfe" <ben.rolfe@vac.uk.com> To: <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> Subject: tour(naments) and money... Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:55:27 -0000 Message-ID: <003001c0a0e6$79303aa0$189763da@ben> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook CWS, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk X-Return-Path: ben.rolfe@vac.uk.com Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk "Make the tour smaller. I believe I've mentioned this about four or five times. Ultimate is not a high enough profile sport in the UK to demand access to decent facilities" Paul Meaney (Fri by Britdisc daily) Hoping to counter Paul's position - I'd like more cash, bigger tournaments and a bigger profile for our sport, I can mention this many times if it helps. Cash gets goods and services, and profile follows from how much you have, how well you use it and how widely you publicise/advertise what you do. I think a good mission statement for the BU Association would be "raise as much cash as possible and spend it wisely to take Ultimate to as many players and spectators as possible ". I'd like to hear more along the lines of Kev Lowe's positive attitude AND action. TD's, Organisers and even BUF workers deserve to make money out of Ultimate, even if they don't do a perfect job all the time. And for TDs and Organisers who know where and how to get decent facilities and customer satisfaction time after time, they deserve to make a decent amount of profit. One day maybe tournaments will be run to zero profit and the TD's paid a fixed rate from central funds, with bonuses for good behaviour. So bring on the BUA and paid employees who CAN be held accountable - our sport needs time AND money to grow. For example 45 GBP per player per year and 30 GBP for students - you get a few weeks off school to work don't you? Failing that there's always your parents. One could take this a stage further and divide into hi and lo earners, unemployed and free for juniors. Whatever - our sport needs investment from somewhere - someone's got to bite the bullet, then with a better system maybe we get more players, more publicity, some external funding and before you know it the cost is coming down. Web database every player and use this info. For example for payment at tournaments, mailings, rostering, perhaps sell the database to people who might be interested in advertising to us (ok - not worth much now but in 5-10 yrs time?), and also use it for our own stats. Registration could run out at the end of outdoors and extended at cost for those who play indoors. With an association fee behind us we could move to pay-per-player-per-tournament (drop the team fee) to be fair to small/hardcore/poorer teams who are as valuable to Ultimate as any other team. This way the "serious" teams contribute more than just great players in that they also generate more money for Ultimate by necessitating a seriously sized squad and possibly a second team. Teams would have to submit all their player fees (~15GBP per player?) in advance to the TD with a list of their players, these are entered on the tournament website which could highlight any players not subscribed to the BUA or any players down to play for 2 different teams. Alterations and pick-ups could be sorted before Saturday lunchtimes. Stuff like Wayne was saying about players only playing one game or day is interesting - I'd say make them pay the full fee - if your team really need them and they refuse or are unable to pay - subsidise them, all of 1GBP from each of the other players - whatever they would have to be registered (by proxy if necessary) at the tournament by Saturday lunch. TD's could offer tournament fee discounts for students and juniors when possible and/or to get the numbers right for the tournament - nothing new in sales through discount or prohibition through price. Regarding travel and overall costs - think about how Ultimate compares to other leisure activities on a pounds/hour basis, and also how lucky we are to play the sport we love all over the beautiful UK without having to be a county level sportsperson. Personally I'm thankful to all Bdisc - without the full range of hecklers and hot heads, the skint and the "savers", I don't think any kind of debate would spark, let alone evolve. Cheers, mb ps sorry for dragging this out - been a bit busy what with ultimate, work AND studies now where'd those 8 pitches get to?