BPL Spring League 2007 - Final

So for those who weren't in the crowd last night, here's Jon's report via the BPL list this morning (with a bit of bolding from me to make your life easier):

Hi guys,

BPL 2007 season 3 was won by Crusty Bugs who defeated Dojo Mojo 15-10 in a close fought final where injuries reduced Dojo to 6 players for the latter part of the game. Congratulations to Crusty Bugs who, despite halving their player base from last season, still managed to take out the title.

Most Valuable Player for the season was Dave Watson (Dojo) averaging 1.3 votes per game. Other contenders were: Al Don (Lovers) 1.1; Special G (Crusty) 0.9; Buzz (Passion), Pottsy (Passion), and Mike Neild (Crusty) all with 0.8.

Well done Watto, I’ll get the trophy engraved and in your hands once Hjelmie gets back.

Rookie of the Year went to Julian Sacre of Passion who had a truly excellent debut season in the BPL and was recognised by all but one of the team captains as the standout choice. Players nominated from the other teams were: Pete Allen (Lovers); Sam Challis (Rawhide); Luke Allen-Ankins (Dojo); Kirsten Nott (Fresh); and Mick Kanowski (Crusty) – congratulations to all of them.

Winners of Spirit for the season were Lovers with an impressive average score of 9.2 out of 10; other scores were Rawhide with 8.9, Dojo and Fresh with 7.8, Passion with 7.7, and Crusty with 7.4.

I have updated the BPL website: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/dog-cup/database

My sincere thanks to all of the team captains, JDR, Rob Lowe, Shawn Robb, Beth Rougier, Al Don, Mat Ryan, and Jay Ray for all of their help throughout the season – they make my life so much easier and without them the League wouldn’t exist.

The tentative start date for season 1 in 2008 is 14 February, although this is by no means final; I’ll keep you all posted of any changes. Enjoy the Christmas break and work hard on recruitment between now and February to try and increase your rosters and avoid the incidence of forfeits next season.

Jon

A few extra thoughts from me:

BPL continues to be extremely well run, thanks to Jon and also to the (sometimes unsung outside their own little group) Captains. Jon was a deserving winner of League Director of the Year, and I continue to feel right in trumpeting BPL as the highest quality league in the country. 2008 will be a big year, as (I guess, although there may be other ambitions out there) we further solidify the six teams, and start getting each squad up from 9-12 to 13-16 players.

The game itself was a good one. Dojo were going to be doing it tough I feel from the start in having minimal players (and eighth arrived just on starting time), while the CBs had 10 or 11 9, all there and warming up. Dojo have negotiated this at different times through the season, but its particularly hard when you're playing the very hard running Crusty Bugs. Then the injuries occured and that was it for Dojo unfortunately (although they were working well and still scoring). They had fallen a few points behind before Steve and Matt were sidelined.

The first half for the Buggers was very much the Jason and Mike show that we all know very well (and enjoy). It seemed once they gained the lead and felt comfortable, the Bugs were more willing to use the whole team and that seemed to be just as effective. Again, Mike and Jason have grabbed a group of lean athletic blokes and moulded them into a hard working TEAM.

Dojo were perhaps more spectacular in their greater desperation, and were really only a few drops out of it in the first half. The underdog-loving crowd also appreciated their valliant efforts once down to six players in the second.

Spirit looked pretty good from the sideline, although there were still a few dangerous play incidents which I don't think anyone likes.

The free booze tactic certainly worked to get a crowd along, particularly of a lot of unfamiliar and un-Ultimate faces along (Spinner and Stef both seemed to bring along their own cheer squads). Cheering and heckling seemed fairly quiet and mild except maybe for yours truly as usual.

Congrats to the Crusty Buggers. A good game, a good end to the season, and a good night out!

Remember, Remember, the End of Mo-vember

Some Mo-vember efforts from the Queensland Ultimate Community.

YUFL's own Rodney "Chopper" Weatherhead:

Townsville Ultimate's own Man "Issac Washington" Sauce:

More Ramblings on Regionals 2008

So a month or so ago I had a ramble about Regionals. Today I forwarded off to the AFDA the formal bid to host Regionals again at Griffith Nathan (same as last year), and that got me thinking more about Regionals and Nationals.

Since the advent of Regionals, in the North, we've worked out how many teams we are allowed to send to Nationals, and then formed ourselves into the right number of teams (so in 2005 we had two plus one slots and went as Buggers, Dojo and Flood; and in 2006 we had three slots but only sent Firestorm and Thor). Its not clear yet as to whether we'll get 3 or 2 slots in 2008.

John McNaughton let me know that there's thought that Firestorm will aim to get two squads to Nationals next year. This is good, and I’m glad to see people thinking about it all early for once. Presumably, Firestorm's goal will be to get the 44 or so best players in SEQ (if not all of Queensland and Northern NSW) together, training and working hard and down to Nationals.

The only problem with this though is it probably bollocks' up Regionals as an event worth having (particularly if the Region only gets two slots to Nationals). Players instead will focus on getting onto one of the Firestorm squads.

Under the rules, we have to have Regionals to ensure we get our full number of Nationals slots, but if the top 44 or so players are in two teams, I don't think the event will attract many other players, which makes it a bit of a dud (might as well just call it Firestorm Training Camp 2 and be done with it).

For growing the future though (and noting that as time goes by, the AFDA will start adjusting slot offers based on Regionals participation, so we will probably soon really need to make Regionals have more teams), I want Regionals to be a good event in itself, and I think this involves getting more teams involved.

So here's a vision for Open Regionals 2008 – six teams, based around:
1. Brisbane A (Firestorm Core A)
2. Brisbane B (Firestorm Core B)
3. Townsville
4. Byron Bay (plus Armidale?)
5. Gold Coast
6. Brisbane University Rookies / Pickup (can we use Regionals as part of UQs O-Week recruitment strategy?)

There could of course be some merging of two groups from 3-6. I'm also going to have a go an encouraging some folk from Darwin to come. We might also be able to generate another Brisbane/YUFL/Capalaba/pickup team.

To get these non-Firestorm teams to happen, particularly if the Northern Region only gets two slots to Nationals, would require some careful management by Firestorm.

This is the challenge, really.

What I'm getting at is that there are senior players in Townsville, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast and the Unis, who will want to go to Nationals and do well and will see the best way to do this is with Firestorm. But if they play for Firestorm at Regionals then teams from those areas won't happen, or will get thoroughly smashed by stacked Firestorm squads and not bother again.

Given that teams at Regionals must have minimum 10 players, but may take up to 28 to Nationals (although 18-22 are more usual), there's plenty of potential for use of the rule that players who's Regionals team do not qualify for Nationals may join other teams that do qualify for Nationals.

A way forward could be for Firestorm to select its teams (say 44 players (I assume that to develop us in long term, you'd agree North needs to start sending big teams to Nats as soon as possible)), but then release some players (10-12?) to organise and play for other teams at Regionals (with a gentlemen's agreement that if in the unlikely circumstance that one of these teams beat Firestorm A or B into 1st and 2nd place, they would not take up a Nationals slot).

There are obvious people from those locations who might do this (with enough support from Firestorm of course), but the Firestorm brains trust might also pass on some Brisbane fellas to increase the value of getting better teams happening.

All of the above is pretty much in the 'only two North slots' scenario. If the AFDA gives three slots to the North region, then I'd suggest:
- Gentlemen's agreement that Firestorm A, Firestorm B and Townsville/Byron would attend Nationals
- Firestorm release players to help generate Gold Coast and University teams for Regionals
- Byron and Townsville compete at Regionals separately, but merge into Thor for Nationals.

2007 Queensland Club of the Year

You'll have to forgive me for another long and wordy post, but here's the info backing up the 2007 Queensland Club of the Year.
*Update – now edited with further Halibut results*
The objective was to recognise the growth of ongoing clubs in Queensland and Northern NSW – both in terms of doing well at tournaments, but also in terms of just getting themselves to tournaments in the first place. So not just looking at who won, but being able to compare the clubs on a somewhat objective scale, and possibly motivate people from year to year in getting to more tournaments and invoking a club identity more often.

Before we get into the results, here were the ground rules:

Qualifying Elements
1. Clubs must play two tournaments, or have travelled over 700km for one tournament.
2. Club must be majority Qld or NNSW players.
3. Players may play for multiple clubs through the year, but only one club per event.
4. Clubs may accrue additional points via multiple teams in the same event.
5. A tournament must have at least four teams to be included, and be by open invitation/qualification (hence, NUFL not included, as only certain clubs can compete).

Determining Points
1. Points are given for placing in relation to the size of the tournament. Last place gets 100 points, each placing above that gets 100 points, but to 10 teams.
2. If there are more than 10 teams, the maximum points are 1000, and the points per placing distributed down to 100 points for last.
3. Spirit points are given as 20 points per team at the tournament - so for example, winning spirit at a 8 team tournament is 160 points.
4. There is a travel bonus to recognise that getting a team a distance takes more effort. 50km-700km is 100 points, 700-1400km is 200 points, more than 1400km is 300 points
5. Bonus points up to 100 for miscellaneous at the discretion of the award organiser.

So how'd Queensland's Clubs do in 2007? Lets go in reverse order, and hope that my math is roughly right:

10th on 735 points – GU-nit (Gold Coast Griffith Mixed)
Sprang onto the scene this year under the leadership of crazy Stef Rapazzo and got themselves to Halibut (15th of 16* for 160 points), Lovefest (equal 5th of 6 for 150 points) and AUGs (18th of 20 for 200 points). Travelling up to Brisbane twice got two lots of 100 travel points, plus an extra 25 points for the ridiculously good outfits at the Halibut party.


8th 9th on 780 points – Concrete Donkey (Townsville Mixed)
Concrete Donkey quality for getting themselves together and down from Townsville (so 200 travel points for that) to play, and play well at that (8th of 16* is 580 points). Down from Shoot To Kill's 1112 points of 2006.

7th 8th on 960 points – Thor (Townsville/Byron Bay Open)
Did a lot of travel (to Brisbane for Regionals (200 points) and then to Melbourne for Nationals (300 points), and had a great time, although results on paper (2nd of 4 at Regionals for 300 points, then 15th of 16 at Nationals for 160 points) held them steady.

9th on 750 points7th on 990 points - The Pass (Byron Bay Mixed)
Byron have really amped up their profile this year, with the Pass getting to both Halibut (13th of 16* for 280 points 9th of 16 for 520 points) and Lovefest (equal 5th of 6 for 150 points), and picking up Spirit at Lovefest (120 points). Two lots of travel bonus there too (200 points). Seeing some of the Byron players at BPL and as part of Thor's Nationals campaign was great too, as was Badman's Birthday Bash at Lennox Heads in November. For future reference, I have been informed that the Pass is a famous surf spot. There you go. Oh yeah, and it looks like the Byron region will be sending more Juniors to the World's selection camp in January than all of Queensland put together, so more to come!

6th on 1030 points – QUTies (QUT Mixed)
Up from 680 points in 2006, QUTies picked up well with a good result at AUGs (11th of 20 for 530 points) and Lovefest (3rd of 6 for 400 points). Travel to the Gold Coast gets another 100 points. QUTies being one of the dominant YUFL teams is one of the reasons we should try to work out a way to integrate points for Leagues into this Club of the Year thing.

5th on 1380 points – Firestorm (Brisbane Open)
Two teams at Regionals (Firestorm 1st of 4 for 400 points and Firefighters 3rd of 4 for 200 points), was followed by 8th at Nationals (for 580 points) and the Melbourne travel bonus of 200 points.

4th on 1480 points – Sultry (Brisbane Women's)
A second great year for Sultry and up from 1280 points in 2006. Two teams at Nationals coming in at 9th (520 points) and 10th (460 points) of 16, plus two teams times 200 travel points for getting to Melbourne, and 100 discretionary points for the one day event at Regionals, all gave a big score.

3rd on 1640 points – Lounge Lizards (Brisbane Mixed)
A big second year for the Lizards, taking two teams to Halibut (6th of 16* for 700 points, and 14th for 220 points), one to Lovefest (4th of 6 for 300 points) and 21st at Mixed Nats for 220 points, plus the travel bonus to Sydney (200 points).

2nd on 1700 points – Bootius Maximus (Brisbane Mixed)
Probably Queensland's best known club thanks to a fantastic 2006 campaign (where it would've been club of the year with a huge 2991 points), Bootius scored again with a maximum 1000 points for winning Mixed Nationals (in Sydney so a further 200 travel points), plus 500 points for coming 2nd of 6 at Lovefest.

1st on 2040 points – UQ Lovers (Brisbane Mixed)
Won AUGs for 1000 points, plus 100 points for travelling to the Gold Coast. Won Lovefest for 600 points. 12th of 16* at Halibut for a further 340 points and the Club of the Year 2007 title. Well done!

Final thoughts – I am sure people will see different ways to weight the points, but I can say I made my best estimate for rewarding turning up, travelling and playing well, and then ran the team results through it. I was pleased to find total points that seemed about right, and that certainly gave Clubs some encouragement for 2008! Good luck to you all, and as usual, comments and corrections welcome.

*Most Halibut results are estimates – final results have yet to be confirmed – however these results do not appear likely to influence placings a lot?
*Edit – well, the fine folk of the Pass emailed me to say they came in 9th at Halibut rather than my poor guess of 13th – while slides them up the rankings to 7th. Fixed now!

A Night with the Stars - QUDA Bash 2007

So here's a one-eyed report from Saturday night's QUDA Bash. I was sort of busy being the MC for the evening, and then went home relatively early (I'd been renovating all day and was buggered). If I get anything wrong, blame the bacardis. But updates, corrections and additions welcome – just use that comments button at the bottom.

About 50 people descended on the Ashgrove Golf Club on Saturday 24 November for a bit of an end of year get together. Many people had dressed themselves up real pretty like, although the most fashionable accessory to be sporting was some sunburn picked up at the McTournament: New Tastes event earlier in the day. Most useful accessory was Cath's radio, from which she was able to pass on results from the Federal Election as the evening progressed.

Some fine food was laid on and the barstaff kept busy as chief organisers Maylin and Peta welcomed everyone at the door. Some enjoyed the deck area, and several social butterflies flutters around for the first hour or two.

Eventually, MC Jase (ie me), got the group assembled and relatively quiet for the presentation of a series of Awards. A few 'Who Am I' quiz questions livened things up and got the crowd a-thinkin'.

Queensland Club of the Year 2007
First up was Queensland Club of the Year 2007. As discussed elsewhere on this blog, the idea was to reflect the continuing growth of ongoing clubs in Queensland (and northern NSW) and their tournament results usings a fairly 'objective' set of rules to award points and such.

While there was only one winner, it was good to go through the efforts of the various clubs through the year. Check out tomorrow's Brisbane Ultimate Blog for the full results and analysis, but particular note should be made of the Gold Coast's GU-nit (props to Stef!), and Byron Bay's The Pass for their exceptional grooviness this year.

Congratulations were thus extended to the UQ Lovers who were named Queensland Club of the Year 2007. The Lovers had a great year, winning AUGs of course, plus hosting and winning Lovefest, getting a lot of rookies to Halibut, having the fab-est shirts at AUGs, and winning one BPL season and coming runners-up in another. The delightful Bree received the award on behalf of the Lovers. Yeah Lovers!

Little Miss Tickle
Next up was the first of the Sultry Awards, this one presented by the delightful Emma Bendall. It had a proper name but sorry I forget. Something to do with Mr Tickle and orang tang arms and recognising the awesomeness that is Maylin Chua! Yeah Maylin!

Brisbane League Director of the Year
The third award for the night was Brisbane League Director of the Year. Four League Directors (plus their helpers) were nominated:

Already-a-legend Brett Matzuka for his enthusiasm in that most venerable of Queensland Leagues, the UQ League (UQL);

Eireann Gilligan, who's been running the Women's Ultimate Frisbee League (WUFL), currently on Tuesday's at Toowong. Perhaps the highlight of the League has been that it generated two teams of women who went down to Melbourne for Nationals in April;

Jon Good, who took on the Brisbane Premier League (BPL) at the start of the Year. The BPL has grown from four to six teams during 2007, while maintaining what's arguably the highest standard of Open League in the country; and

Mark Malloy (and his sidekicks Adilia Murabito and Dan Blacklock) for the Monday night Mixed Yeronga Ultimate Frisbee League continues to be the most popular league in Brisbane, having to (unfortunately!) turn teams and players away as it exceeds capacity!

This all indicated a great year for Leagues in Brisbane - thanks to these fabulous League Directors!

The tension built as delightful Maylin Chua opened the Oscars-style envelope – to report that the judges (after several days of struggle) had agreed to a four-way tie! Congrats Brett, Eirrean, Jon and Malloy&Adilia&Dan!

Roger, Over
The Sultry brains-trust again took the stage to pass out a big THANK YOU to Roger Church for his efforts in coaching the two squads to Nationals this year. Well done Roger!

Outfit of the Year
Somewhere in the flow of things, there was also the Outfit of the Year Award. There were three nominations:
- Liam Gilliam's Mankini from Nationals, AUGs and Surfers Paradise Police Watch-house;
- Dusty Czok's Blue Lizard from Mixed Nationals; and,
- Peta McNaughton's Queen's Frock from Halibut.

The decision was made by the crowd screaming for each nominee … and the winner was Peta McNaughton! Yeah Pete!

Queensland Arse of the Year
The QUDA Bash then saw Brisbane adopt a prize originating from Newcastle Ultimate (first they take our Halibut trophy, now this!). So blame Notty.

First, through a convoluted process involving sex, drinking and coin-flipping, Ange Connellan was selected as the Judge.

Next, all the menfolk in the room were made to face a wall, with much joviality ensuing, particularly from Sean Flanagan, for whom this all seemed very familiar.

Judge Ange was then blindfolded and led down the line, pausing for a professional feel of each male arse. With advice from Steph, Maylin, Emma and Eireann, Ange appeared to be using a complicated scale considering such qualities as size, firmness, curvature and whether and what sort of noise the owner made while his arse was being grappled with.

After a second feel, the Best Arse in Queensland was announced as Heather's boyfriend Dave, who doesn't even play Ultimate (but may start now).

Mike Neild, Matt Eastburn and Al Don voiced some protest and appeared to be ready to call for a re-grope, but giggling generally prevailed. Next year the Arse of the Year may well be an all-female category, so start asking for those 2008 QUDA Bash tickets now!

Volunteer of the Year 2007
QUDA Treasurer Bruce McNaughton then stepped up to speak on a great year for Ultimate in Queensland, and present the Volunteer of the Year award. A lot of great stuff had already come up through the evening, but a few others were mentioned here:
- Biggest Halibut ever

- Bootius Maximus winning Mixed Nationals
- Yeronga Disc Golf Course
- Capalaba League kicking off

- more teachers becoming accredited coaches

- Indoor tournament in Brisbane
- Townsville leading a team to Nationals
- and a bunch of other stuff.

Bruce also introduced the new QUDA Volunteer of the Year Award, noting that, compared to other sports, volunteers in Ultimate have an extra load, as they are usually players too.

Brett Matzuka and I were recognised for our volunteer efforts in 2007, and Bruce said lots of nice stuff about us. Thanks Bruce!

That wound up the awards, and dessert arrived, but I've rambled enough for now.

Readers, if you have some photos from the night, send them to me to post, or send me the link.

Overall, a great night out, and to summarise those awards again:

Club of the Year - UQ Lovers
Special Sultry Award for Maylin
League Director of the Year - Four Way Tie!
Special Sultry Thanks Award for Roger
Outfit of the Year - Peta McNaughton
Arse of the Year - Heather's bf Dave
Volunteers of the Year - Brett Matzuka and Jason de Rooy

Worlds2008 Website Up

http://www.wugc2008.com/

The Canadians have updated the website. Still a little bare, but info about which countries plan to attend.

Not Getting Your QUDA Bash Tickets Makes Baby Maylin Cry

Seriously - get your tickets!

And because we like to offer content here on the Brisbane Ultimate Blog - did you know Maylin has a blog?

Simpson's Disc Golf

If you weren't out at WUFL or the Self Improvement Session (sounds vaguely Maoist) on Tuesday night, you might've caught Milhouse getting in a bit of disc golf on tonight's second episode of The Simpsons. Cromulent!

Queenslanders in Aussie Masters Squad

No time to comment, but here's the Queensland folk named in the Australian Masters Squad for World 2008. The squad heads to a selection camp in February (after a few of these names have been put in or out of the Open team) in Sydney, to battle it out for places.

Matt Anscomb
Dom Ventura
Chris 'Buzz' Burwell
Piers Truter
Jonathan Potts
Matt Ryan

Go old farts!

Anyone Got html Time and Skills?

I'd like to bling up the blog beyond Blogger's standard templates, but don't have the time and skills. Anyone interested?

To start, I'm keen to personalise the banner, and get all the labels into a group (rather than a lengthy list).

Thunking Up the Queensland Club of the Year Award

Hey people,

In getting everything just right for the upcoming QUDA BASH, Maylin (bless her) asked a few people if a bit of award presenting would be appropriate.

Yes I said! And so I got to thinking, and decided that one thing that would be quite cool would be a "Queensland Club of the Year" Award.

But rather than the higher-effort approach for the AFDA Club fo the Year (which involves nominations addressing several on and off-field critera, then voting by the AFDA Board), I'd pinch some of Potty's work on Walkabout, which was about giving points for attending and succeeding in tournaments, and modify it to suit our Queensland environment.

A key thing I also want to do is that, aside from recognising the overall top club, is to recognise all the other clubs and what they've been up to. Perhaps they can aim to improve from year to year to generate some bragging rights.

So I've done my thinking and this is what I've got. I figured comments from the readers here might be useful, so your thoughts welcome. But I ask that you not spoil the surprise for the QUDA Bash by trying to work out the results for 2007 (which of course I will post here eventually)!

Guidelines - Qualifying Elements
- Clubs must play two tournaments, or have travelled over 700km for one tournament (we don't want "one-off" groups involved, but do want to ensure non-Brisbane efforts are recognised).
- Club must be majority Qld or NNSW players (to include Byron).
- Players may play for multiple clubs through the year, but only one club per event.
- Clubs may accrue additional points via multiple teams in the same event.
- A tournament must have at least four teams to be included, and be by open invitation/qualification (hence, NUFL not included, as only certain clubs can compete).

Guidelines - Determining Points
- Points are given for placing in relation to the size of the tournament. Bottom place gets x points, each placing above that gets x points, but to 10 teams.
- If there are more than 10 teams, the top points are 10x, and the points per placing distributed down to x points for bottom.
- Spirit points are given as y points per team at the tournament - so for example, winning spirit at a 8 team tournament is 8y points.
- There is a travel bonus to recognise that getting a team a distance takes more effort. 50km-700km is z points, 700-1400km is 2z points, more than 1400km is 3z points. (So you can see, Gold Coast/Byron/Townsville get recognised for getting to Brisbane, while all teams get recognised for travelling to Sydney/Adelaide/Perth/etc).

Test: Last Year's Club of the Year
Applying this to the *2006* results (with some small pieces of subjective judgement in the input stage), here's what I get:

1. Bootius Maximus 2991 points (success at Halibut and Mixed Nats + WUCC make it big)
2. UQ Lovers 2076 points (Halibut, Lovefest and AUGs success in Adelaide)
3. Dojo Mojo 1400 points (Regionals and Nationals success)
4. 74 Flood 1390 points (Regionals, Nationals, WUCC + spirit at Nats)
5. Sultry 1200 points (special for Regionals, Nationals + spirit at Nats)
6. Buggers 1150 points (Regionals and Nationals)
7. Shoot to Kill 1112 points (travelling and a good result at Halibut helps!)
8. Crikey 1065 points (travelling and a good result in Ballarat helps!)
9. Lounge Lizards 890 points (Halibut and Lovefest, but stayed in Brisbane)
10. QUTies 500 points (Lovefest and AUGs, but low results)
11. No Panda 400 points (travelling to Regionals gets them on the board)

Sound good?

I'm looking forward to announcing the 2007 result (pending Dusty getting me the Halibut results! C'mon Dusty!!). Clubs in the running seem to be the Pass (Byron), GU-nit, Bootius, Lovers, Firestorm, Sultry, QUTies, Lizards, Thor, Armidale Freeze and Concrete Donkey.

More Sandford

I'm not picking on Sarah, its just that people like Leon seem to take photos of her that I can use.

Byron Bay - Redux

So while we were visiting the NSW Sport and Rec Centre at Lennox Heads last weekend for Badman's Birthday Bash, Sean Flanagan and Tony Ross and others revealed that the venue had hosted many a frisbee event back in the day (the day being the '90s).

The flashback got Sean to go digging through his big box of photos, and we'll be featuring a few of the results here at Brisbane Ultimate Blog: Your Choice for Brisbane Ultimate History!

Sean thinks these date from around 1991 or 92. For those who were there last week, the dunes look the same, the fields a bit rougher, and there's a lot less in the way of buildings!

Click to make a lot bigger!

Of the next row of three, Sean says: "This one has me, Simon Wood, Joel Duckham, Sam Howard, Brendan Love and Stew Marcoom looking into a frisbee for some reason. The second photo shows the fields before the basket ball hall. And the third shows a young Jenny Keys - the guy in red in the same photo lives in lismore and organised most of these events for about 9 years (Greg Lynn)."

Click to make bigger!

And here's one of the man (Flan) himself, getting into some freestyling.

You really want to click to make this one bigger.

We've got a few more to post next week.

If you've got some old photos - why not email them and we'll post them for posterity and share the wisdom with the young-folk.

Shake It All About

Another of Leon's NUFL2 pics.

Oh, the humanity!

From Leon's NUFL2 photos.

Badman's Birthday Bash

The lack of blogging has been due to the sheer fantastic awesomeness of the Badman's Birthday Bash two-day hat at Lennox Heads (south of Byron Bay) on the weekend.

It was so good its difficult to write about in a coherent fashion. The venue was outstanding. The food was outstanding. The people were outstanding.

I can only suggest you catch up with one of the lucky people who were there.

Thanks to everyone who had a hand in making it a great event.

Molly has posted some of her great photos, featuring the fine people, lovely campfire and quality play.

And here's a couple from me:

Blue sky, lush fields. Beach off to the left, lake off to the right.

The Cabins we stayed in were right next to the fields.

Fine food.

Badman's Birthday Cake!

I predict the next one of these to be heavily oversubscribed - so if you see the chance, register early!

Coaching and Adults

The Australian Sports Commission has launched an on-line basic coaching course. Good on the UFNSW for spotting it.

I'm curious if anyone has some time to have a poke around - let us know. If its useful and not too time consuming we might spread it around the qld-ultimate lists.

The site indicates that it has a particular focus on coaching kids, but I'd be interested in what it says about coaching adults.

I've said to a few people that one of the things I like about Ultimate is watching people come to an entirely new sport as an adult. That's a pretty rare experience for most people, and something which I suspect puts a lot of people unconsciously off giving Ultimate a go ("I'm worried I'll embarrass myself because I don't know what I'm doing so I'll stick to the sport I've been playing since I was a little tacker").

Once they're playing though, the thing that separates adults from kids (and I don't really have the terminology for this) is that they can self-direct their learning. Many adults new to Ultimate will pick up the strategy and tactics of Ultimate well before they develop the skills to use them (not just throws, but perhaps more importantly, reading the play). Or at least they'll recognise that there's stuff they don't know, and start to ask.

Brisbane Ultimate Blog Awards

So now that I've got polls and stuff bedded in, and now that I've finalised posting the AFDA Awards on afda.com, I started to think about rolling out the 2007 Brisbane Ultimate Blog Awards.

Of course, the Awards would be all about you, the readership, so give me a comment and we'll see where we get. Suggest an award, or suggest a nomination for some other award, or tell me to forget about it.

Here's a couple of ideas to get you going:

Best Thing to Happen to Brisbane Ultimate in 2007
Nominations: Bootius Win Mixed Nats; BPL Grows from 4 to 6 Teams; Lovers Win AUGs; Biggest Halibut Evah.

Best Off-Field Moment in Brisbane Ultimate in 2007
Nominations: Liam's Mankini; Notty Moves to Brisbane; Boy on Boy / Girl on Girl Chants; Jangles Getting Caught.

McNaughton of the Year 2007
Nominations: Bruce; Peta.

Brisbane-Based Website of the Year 2007
Nominations: Brisbane Ultimate Blog; QUDA.

Worst Team Name in Brisbane 2007
Nominations: Passion; Hooray for Everything

Biggest Loss in Brisbane Ultimate 2007
Nominations: Rena; Scott Massey; Rubes and Tegan; Women from a Season of BPL.


Hit me!