Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Double the Posting Power!

Rueben in his wisdom has invited me to also post here at the Brisbane Ultimate Disc Blog.

So lets start with some questions that have been plaguing me.

1. What is the origin of the name "Dojo Mojo"?
2. How quickly should I do something about the Brisbane Indoor Air-Con Ultimate Hat?
3. What percentage of the copies of Australian Ultimate that I mail out end up in the bin a week later?
4. Can Whippet Good continue their undefeated run in the coming BPL season?
5. Is it going to stop being hot any time soon?

If you have answers to any of these questions, let me know.

Yahoogroups

So Jason de Rooy made a comment on the first post about Yahoogroups that I thought deserved it's own post:

"Could we do everyone a favour a cull the number of yahoogroups covering Brisbane Ultimate? As most of the existing yahoogroups are quite well behaved and generally have only the LDs posting info, I can't see why we can't just use the one big one.

It took me ages as a newcomer to town (and one who probably had a reasonable idea anyway) to find out all the places I had to go for information.

I think we just need:
1. Qld-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for those major national/ statewide announcements)
2. Brisbane-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for all players in Brisbane - to replace the various League lists)
3. Brisbane-Elite-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for players interested in training and regular tournament play in one form or another)

Various clubs and teams continue to have their own lists."

To which Pottsy added:

"I'm with JdR here. As a newcomer with probably the highest likelihood of being able to find my way around in Brisbane (having grown up here, played here for my first 4 years, played again for a year in 2000, know pretty much all the important people), I found it extremely difficult to find out what is going on.

The calendar on the quda website is good, but it is difficult to find out anything more specific about those events - like who's in charge and how to contact them. At least I found it hard. And how is one supposed to know about all of the stupid email lists one is supposed to join? I've joined a handful now, but I suspect that there are more out there.

Would be great if the email lists were simply hierarchical:
Australia
State
Local

I think Brisbane can manage with one list at the moment and all of the league-specific info can just go out on that. Agree with Jason's naming, although I would make them all lower case as they are email addresses."

What do I (Rueben) think?

I can understand that there are a lot of groups and that it can be confusing to understand which ones to be apart of and what they are for. But I think that is best solved by having a clear description somewhere (on the QUDA webpage?) about what all the groups are and how to join them etc...

I know that when the YUFL Beginner League was running earlier last year John was sending out information to the BUDA list. For those people who weren't playing in that league that got really annoying really quickly and since then John set up a group just for that league which I think works much better.

Looking at the lists I am currently on (that are purely QLD based) I have:
BUDA-Ultimate@yahoogroups.com
Nationals2006_QLD@yahoogroups.com
mixed_booty@yahoogroups.com
dog-cup@yahoogroups.com
qld-ultimate@yahoogroups.com
qld-worlds@yahoogroups.com
YUFL_intermediate@yahoogroups.com.au

while that is a lot, I can see there being an advantage in each League (ie. BPL (dogcup) YUFL etc) having it's own list - so that only people who were playing that league get that league information. The worlds and nationals list could be combined but then you have to consider that the worlds list was for guys and girls and the nationals list was set up just for guys, so again, people would be getting things they didn't need. But possibly a more broad elite "mens" list could be established that is long term to enable people to communicate with those players who are interested in Interstate competition, which also has its own female counterpart (in think they are actually a few 'women only' list going around at the moment anyway).

I think the best thing to do would be to make sure that all the lists are on display somewhere and are clear about what they are for - AND ALSO that all people who are on any list are also on the BUDA list - that way we can stop all this cross posting - if you want to contact everyone in Brisbane, you only have to use the BUDA list. But that may be more difficult then it would seem.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Top 10 Brisbane Men

Who are the Top 10 Brisbane Men ever to have played the great game we call Ultimate Disc? ("Brisbane Men" refers to players who learnt how to play the game here in sunny Brisbane. )

I have only been around in Brisbane for a few years so don't claim to be able to make an authoritive list, but I have put together my own version of the top 10 based on players I have seen play (in no particular order).

Roger Bralow (I'm not sure if he is actually a Brisbanite though)
Chris "Buzz" Burwell
Giles Deshon
aL Don
Sean Flanagan
Mike Nield
Jonathon "Pottsy" Potts
Jason Ray
Mat Ryan
Anthony "Sol" Solomon

Who have I missed? Who is in your Top 10?

Note: I have not worried about positions exactly, just who was the best - so if you think Brisbane has had 10 great handlers and no good longs - then that would be your top 10.

Brisbane Premier League - Preview

Another year, another Brisbane Premier League (or MAL or DogCup - whatever takes your fancy).

Thanks to the hard work of Dandy Andy Lankowski the BPL kicks of on February 2nd (Groundhog Day for those who didn't know).

This year there are four teams again:

Reigning Premiers "Whippet Good", captained by Sean Flanagan

Runners up "Dojo Mojo", captained by Steve Cameron

UQ's "Ultimate Lovers", captained by Matthew Boevink

New team "Moreton Bay Buggers", captained by myself, Rueben Berg

This year sees a bit of a shake up of the teams. Big City, champions earlier in 2005 are no more and have been replaced by the "Moreton Bay Buggers". The Buggers team have a long history of Ultimate in Brisbane - the Bugs have been the premier QLD team at Nationals for the last 6 years and will this year also be competing in the National Ultimate Frisbee League (NUFL). Although the make-up of the team is not the same as the team which will compete at NUFL and Nationals, they will still be a force to be reckoned with. The line up includes: Mike Nield, Jonathon Potts, Mat Ryan and Jason Ray. In my unbiased opinion, I think they will romp it in :-)

Ultimate Lovers have been bolstered this year with the star signing of Al Don, who has left Dojo Mojo, and the continuation of John McNaughton's contract (some might say the loss of Rueben Berg has also bolstered them, but those people are cruel!). Along with the batch of up and coming players and international ring-ins, the Lovers will always push any team to their limit.

Dojo Mojo should have a fairly similar line up to last year but the loss of Al Don will hurt them. They may be inspired though by their desire to take part in Nationals this year.

Whippet Good will be picking up some players from Big City and also those players keen on playing for the QLD Masters team at the World Ultimate Club Championships to be held in Perth later this year. Never underestimate those wily old blokes!

That's all for now, hope to have some scores and game summaries up after the season kicks off.

Brisbane Ultimate Disc Blog

Hello All,

I have decided to start a Blog for Brisbane Ultimate Disc.

This blog is to enable the people of Brisbane to discuss all things to do with Ultimate Disc, such as:

- Results from the Brisbane Premier League

- Rule discussions

- Playing Tips and Strategies

- The top 10 Brisbane Players of all time

Unlike the yahoogroup which is more about disseminating information, this Blog is for conversation and debate - to help the Brisbane Ultimate Disc community grow and prosper.

Please feel free to post your comments, and if you would like to make a contribution, email me and let me know!