Planning 2012

The Autumn started encouragingly with the promise of some quality indoor Ultimate and the return of some winter outdoor Ultimate in the North in the form of RAW. Steal put in a decent performance at Sheffield Beginners and Birmingham Warm-Up, but an administrative cock-up meant there was no outing at UKU Indoor Qualifiers this season.

It’s my last season as the Indoor Director of Competitions so I’ve still been involved in scheduling etc, and will continue in that role until Mixed Indoor Nationals in February. I hope to wangle my way on to a team for Open Nationals too, and hopefully Steal will have another CMIN adventure.

On the work front I started training toward my CIMA management accounting qualifications and had two exams last month. Seemed to go OK but I won’t find out until mid-January. All the extra work has meant it’s been difficult to put as much effort into events as I would like but that is all change now (at least for a bit – tuition starts again in Feb).

As I mentioned at the top, I was planning four one-day Winter Series events running from November to February. Unfortunately this has now been cancelled. Perhaps I was a bit naive in thinking it could be the event I wanted ideally (ie 8 teams entering all 4 events) which meant that even if we had had enough teams to run an event each month, I still would have lost out financially. As it is, I lost the deposit on the venue but I had to cut my losses at the end of the day! It’s very disappointing as teams were entering each event but just not enough to make it viable. Having cancelled the November event at short notice, I made the decision a bit earlier for December but decided it was easiest for everyone to just cancel everything.

The thing I am still cracking on with is, of course, Mix & Mingle. This February will see the 5^th edition of M&M to take place in Sheffield, and the 3^rd under the ninety2 brand. I hope I am able to keep on making this a fantastic event and we are helped this year by the return of the 2010 winners and runners-up, DiscMen and Don’t Let Go. The competition should be really tight this year with Trigger, Rehab, and Skills or Bills returning; new entrants Dazed and Confused, along with the likes of Some Team and Hull Night Long.

We’re also looking at the possibility of up to 7 Sheffield-based teams competing this year (Don’t Let Go, Razzle Dazzle, ET-LC, Lethal Frizzle, Phat ‘eds, Hallam and Dynamite Thunder).

We probably could have had up to 32 teams competing this year but that is not possible without an extra pitch unfortunately. We’re provisionally booked into Ponds Forge until 2015, but I may look at the possibility of using the pitches at the EIS in future as they have 3-4 available. I’m just not sure we’d get the same atmosphere up there...

I hope to have the party plans sorted before Christmas. Tom Styles is unable to DJ this year but we’re hoping to have his BlockStack.TV partner Steve Giguere. We’re possibly heading back to the Stardust Bar so there could be more revolving dance floor action! And an after-party at Reflex? Half the party headed on to Reflex at 1am last year so I’m looking at making that more of an “official” after-party. Watch this space.

I’m trying to plan some kind of live draw for the seedings this year (World Cup stylee). The teams will probably be put into six pots of four teams, with one team from each pot going into each of four pools. This would just mean that there’s less onus on me to get the seedings right, if I just allow a bit of flexibility in the random draw. I’m going to put this out to the teams shortly and see what they think. The other thing I’m considering is a move to have the event sanctioned by UK Ultimate, mainly for insurance purposes, and we may go for the GAIA Spirit Sponsorship which we had successfully at the Sheffield Hat in 2011.

The other main ninety2 event in 2012 will be the Sheffield Hat in September. Moving to a new venue in Hillsborough, there’ll be camping and party onsite meaning we have more chances for fundraising, plus much less hassle for me!

I’m undecided at this point on whether to bid for UKU Regionals again. It just about breaks even each year but there isn’t much incentive to push it forward. Combining with the Midlands would make a much bigger and more competitive event in my opinion. There’s also no word as yet on Super 7s. We ran that in March last year but I know it wasn’t really as successful as we had hoped. I’ve not yet spoken to Scraggy or Nathan but it may be that it pops into the calendar at some point.

Of course this time next year I will be married (!) so I have less time this year to put into Frisbee event planning as I expect to have to spend some time planning the big day! Can’t wait though, 2012 is going to be a good year!