Inter-Uni Tournament :):)

[Steve Hancock]

Hello all,

Yes I'm STILL at uni. Final year, Post-grad maths teacher training.

unowho - I'll PM you Chris's (from Warwick paintball club) mobile. I don't think he still runs the club, but he should be able to put you in touch with who ever does.

It would be great if you could introduce the Warwick club into a bit of tourney ball. We at Birmingham might be able to help you get started as well. If people were interested we could look at holding joint sup'air training sessions up at NPF on their tourny field. And we have a spare set of 5 markers (nothing special, just electro spyders) that you would be able to use for the day if you need.

Oh and as i'm a sucker for making extra work for myself, i'll probabley try and get the ball rolling on another 15-a-side woodland inter-uni for later in the year.

 

[unowho]

hi steve, yeah wud be good if i could get the number for whoever runs the paintball club, have already joined and hopefully will get to meet them in person, but a phone number would help..

hoping to form some kind of tourney team out of the motley crewe that join the paintball soc, but cant make any promises...

if something does happen team wise, it would be good if we could meet up to do a bit of trainin, i certainly need the practise, and it mite be nice for some of the others to experience tourney ball, i'd have my own gun, but i'm fairly sure the others would appreciate borrowing the spare guns you've got, cheers.

was the tourney last year woodsball then?? any chance of proper sup air games?? or is that quite hard to organise/expensive?? 5 or 7 man could be fun, tho limits the number that can play unless you enter multiple teams...

anyway, thanks for your help, hopefully we can get some thing organised in the future, shud be a good laugh.

 

[Steve Hancock]

Originally posted by unowho
hi steve, yeah wud be good if i could get the number for whoever runs the paintball club...

Check your PM's mate.

Originally posted by unowho
...was the tourney last year woodsball then?? any chance of proper sup air games?? or is that quite hard to organise/expensive?? 5 or 7 man could be fun, tho limits the number that can play unless you enter multiple teams...

Yeah last year was a 15-a-side woodland Rec-day. I tried to organise a 5-a-side sup'air tourney off the back of it, but some clubs couldn't organise a team (even clubs with loads of tourney players and a £5K grant fot the year, COUGHportsmouthCOUGH) and several pulled out at the last minute, leaving just teeside, brum and cov I think. So it was cancelled.

I'll probabley try again this year. It shouldn't be too hard to organise, just rent the sup'air field at a site for the day. With up to 8 teams - the MAX likely - we'd only need 1 field. Make sure the site has sufficient high-pressure-air, with 1 field it shouldn't too hard to find a couple of refs (5 ish) the site will probably have some marshals who play tourney who could ref at a pinch, or a local team could be roped in without to much cost. And you can have as many as you want on the squad, just rotate who plays for each game.

Anyway got to go, I'll speak to you later. Steve

 

[unowho]

Check your PM's mate

cool thanks, have also started recieving emails from the paintball soc, by the sounds of it the president is called alex finch...so will get in contact with him about forming a team, and see if i can get some people interested enuff to attempt a practise or something at some point...

doubt anythin much wil happen for the mo, havent heard of any other tourney ballers around, and people wont start gettin really interested until they've played a few games through the uni which isnt for a couple of weeks at least.

would be good if we could get some kind of tourney style games organised, as it would be a nice introduction for those who havent tried before, but by the sound of it, its not easy to do so... sortin a field and air etc shouldnt be too overly complicated, but gettin the teams formed etc could take some work...

also what would happen with gear...obviously i've got all my own kit, but those who are new wouldnt have anythin and may not want to spend a few hundred on a gun and stuff... did people use rental gats last time? or did people actually have their own stuff?? and paint bills could be fairly hefty...still whats a student loan for!?!? i'm savin money for hols and an eclipse series ego

cannot believe "a certain uni" get a 5k grant and wouldnt play, if i had that kind of funding i'd quite happily play every weekend!

cheers,

keith.

 

[Flash-Bugout]

Originally posted by Steve Hancock
(even clubs with loads of tourney players and a £5K grant for the year, COUGHportsmouthCOUGH)

Not a hope that Pompey got anywhere close to £5k, especially in the year that the Students Union went bust and had to be bailed out by the Uni.

Still, Birmingham must be doing alright, playign the PA and training as often as they do, even owning their own field from what I heard. That must be pushing £10k a year at least.

Or that could just be a figure pulled out of thin air...

 

[unowho]

Damnit!

how come everyone else gets money and i dont?!? i'm gonna sulk
oh if only i had 10k...a nice shiny new ego, or two, my own airball field....

 

[Steve Hancock]

Originally posted by Flash-Bugout
Not a hope that Pompey got anywhere close to £5k, especially in the year that the Students Union went bust and had to be bailed out by the Uni.

Still, Birmingham must be doing alright, playign the PA and training as often as they do, even owning their own field from what I heard. That must be pushing £10k a year at least.

Or that could just be a figure pulled out of thin air...

Last year I spoke to the pompy prez Jal, it was him that told me their grant was £5K.

Brum £10K! I wish, we get between £1k and £1.5K each year. Unfortunately we don't have our own field. I did spend a while exploring the option with the university. The Guild were up for funding it if we could get permission, but despite getting approval from several stages of University planning committees, the final answer was a no. They did recommend we re-apply for other areas, but time commitments dissuaded me from going through all those presentations etc again.

They also said that if there was a BUSA recognised tournament then it would significantly help our chances, and on the subject of that – with a BUSA recognised event, uni’s would have a reason to fund us (the BUSA rankings, and the points they would get from their team's results at a BUSA recognised event). This would mean a good £10k for most clubs!

Hence my desire to get an inter-uni tourney going at a level that BUSA might be interested in.

 

[unowho]

oooh that sounds fun!

it'll be good to get a regular event going, it would be great to get it official, but i'm bettin it'll take a heck of a lot of work to get it to be BUSA recognised...is there any sort of min requirement ? eg a certain number of teams, or events or something?? dont really know how the whole thing works as such but hey.

 

[Robin Hood]

One requirement I believe is that there have to be at least 15 universities with clubs who compete.....I'm sure there are plenty more requirements tho.

 

[Steve Hancock]

I expect the requirements have and will vary over the years.

As I currently understand (so please don't start quoting this as gospel and up to date), there are two levels of busa recognition. A recognised league and a recognised annual event/tourney.

To start with I think an annual tourney would be more within our reach (with a lot of work). Also I get the impression from the development of other BUSA sports I have read about, that it is normal to get a tourney first and then progress to a league, rather than jump straight into a league, except where an established league is already in place.

One pretty firm one criterion is that all the teams have to be comprised of current registered students at the same institution. This would mean no graduate's coming back to help, and no combined teams.

Another requirement is a minimum number of universities represented. This I think has varied over the years, and may even depend on other factors. But we can be pretty certain that there will be a minimum we have to get.

One thing that I wasn't sure about was whether the teams have to be part of a recognised club at there uni. And what level of recognition is required.

The course of action that I think would be best, would be to try and get a small annual sup'air tournament going. Basically hire out the field at some site and have a day of tourney ball. Once this is established, I think it would be great to try and affiliate it with the PA - The insert sponsor here Paintball Association University Cup. While an annual knock around down a site would be fun, the PA's structure and standards would increase the professionalism of an event, making recognition a more credible target. And also Gillie and hatts (of the PA) organised the earlier inter-uni tourney, and have offered help since then, despite being rudely knocked back by one or two of the people involved at the time. This however is just my idea - nothing has been properly discussed with the PA yet. Once this is established, then apply for recognition of the event.

So for now we need to get a small annual tourney going. I think the best format would be:

- Sup' Air (Well du'h)

- 5-a-side (because it is one car load, minimising transport requirements)

- Limited paint (to keep the cost down, and reduce the firepower advantage of the more established teams with their own markers)

- Teams of current, registered students, all from the same uni. (To be able to show prior compliance for when we come to get BUSA recognition.)

Any who - What do you all think?