Mass Debaters

Well the debate has hotted up in biggest election to take place in 2008: The race for the new BPL League Director. The candidates have sent out statements that are so hot of the presses, its like touching a ranga's hair.

Stu Austin:

For those interested, my previous Tournament Director experience is:

South West Student Indoor Regionals - 1999, 2000, 2001

Student Indoor Nationals - 2000 (you play a lot of indoor ultimate as a student in the UK!!)

Previous League Director experience:

Started Bristol Winter League in 2003, and continued in 2004.

BWL was slightly different to BPL as it had about 8 to 12 teams (depending on how cold it was) travelling in from a 150km radius. Therefore the league was a series of 1 day tournament on the first Sunday of each month from October to February, with teams playing in pier pools. You then had promotion/relegation after each event. Unfortunately in 2005 Bristol Plastic Factory (the main club in Bristol) decided to turn it into a pickup league so that they could recruit new players, at the first event they only had 20 players and it was never run again :-(

Since then I have been doing a bit of coaching here and there but haven't run any tournaments/leagues for a few years now. As for next season of BPL, the only change that I was going to make (which has already been discussed quite a lot on the blog) was that only first place seed wins field 1 for the next season. If the 2nd place team wins field 2, then teams 3, 4, 5 and 6 each end up playing 50% of their games on field 3, which isn't really much of an improvement on this season (other than for team 3). If only team 1 keeps their field then they never play on field 3 and the other 5 teams only play 37.5% of their games on field 3.

I'm sure discussions will continue as to the use of other fields, currently the Monday night fields 3 and 4 are being used on a Thursday night.

I'm not sure if my connection with Lookfly could improve the league in any way, their could be some sort of sponsorship, this would have to be discussed with BUDA and Lookfly. Obviously it would never be at the expense of the players. Dog-cup merchandise would always be optional rather than part of the player fee.

Stu

Wetnose:

Well while I don't have the previous league director experience that Stu does, I certainly feel like I would still make a good league director for the ever growing BPL.

I have helped run tournaments over the past 3 years since I started playing Ultimate, and have this year taken on the role of treasurer for Firestorm. This position involved liaising with suppliers, cost calculation and budgeting, along with collecting fees from players; all roles that would aid me in leading the BPL into a next few years.

As I said, I don't have the same past experience of being a league director that Stu has, however there is always the ongoing complaint from people that there are not enough volunteers in Ultimate. If we are only going to use people that have experience and not bring in new volunteers to help them grow and gain experience then eventually the experience will leave and we will be left with people who don't know what to do and are not able to be assisted by people who have the experience but no longer wish to have the main role in their hands.

I am also looking into changing the draw to not "reward" a team that comes third by sticking them out on the dark field. I am looking into two scenarios: One is that both the first and second place teams from the previous season gain home fields and everyone else is rotated through the other fields. The other scenario is only rewarding the reigning premiers with a home field and rotating games through the other two fields.

Unlike political elections, there will be no mud slinging and I will let Stu say anything he likes about what he wants to do without me commenting, and I'm sure he will do the same.

I am very excited about the possibility of helping BPL continue its growth and development of the best players in Brisbane, and ask you to please vote for me.

Cheers

Wetnose


So there are your candidates, the power is in your hands. Votes can be entered/changed here until 11 September.