Inter-University 5 Man Sup Air

[ChairChimp]

I'm with Edd on this one.

The long term view he is taking is to aim for BUSA certification. I've been involved with this stuff before for various bits of Manchester Uni (pre-merger) and it is a royal pain in the bum to get new sports into the roster without lots of media support (see Sports Council grants to Martial Arts clubs getting headlines, subsequently they are part of the busa rotation...oooh shock!).

To aid this, prior useage of BUSA guidelines / practices etc is very very helpful.


Now if we take the view that we aren't going for BUSA affiliation then I agree with the idea of a representative team being made up of payers pooled from the Town/City area and not specific universities. Thus you could easily have London 1st 2nd and 3rd teams etc.

My 2p,

Chimp

 

[Charlie]

Does it really matter if we get BUSA recognition? I don't think american football does and we don't really need it. We have our own governing body the BCAFL, who is in association with the national governing body BAFA. Most uni teams can get recognition from their own uni just by setting up the club and applying for sports funding from the uni, or if your a combined uni you could try and get funding off all the uni's or just choose the biggest uni and try to get some funding that way.

I have heard that the Birmingham Lions football team gets a budget of about £70, 000, Hertfordshire also get funding from Hertfordshire uni, yet they have players from a number of london uni's. If your after funding then there is no reason why you shouldn't just try your uni anyway, convince them that paintball is a big sport and that there is an inter uni tournament then they will hopefully let you form a club, or if you can only setup a society then you can still get funding from your SU. I know Brookes does a scheme where if you setup a society, the total subs you raise for that society will get doubled by the SU, so you charge someone £25-£50 for the society (hey its an expensive sport), then the SU will match it and all of a sudden you got £50-£100 per person to spend on paintball days etc.

Plus with the work the brum guys have done with this maybe they could setup the college governing body of paintball, in association with the national governing body (a.k.a. the PA) which they are already doing. Whats so special about BUSA anyway?

Charlie.

 

[AJermstad2]

BUSA recognition would be a pretty big step towards getting paintball more officially recognised, within the UK at least. My main thought however was that it will probaby allow the clubs better leverage with their student unions in regard to getting funding for the club each year, as it's backed by some official governing sports body - But then again, Portsmouth already get something pretty heafty like 5Gs a year, although they have been about since around '89 or something silly like that!

With memberships costs too, if you start charging £25-£50 per member, fair enough you'll get some descent cash back from the union for those who join, but you'll scare away the majority of members which will form the heart of the club - the occasional rec-ballers. The majority of which will never have played before and are pretty unwilling to fork that kinda cash out to simply join, then pay extra to try it.

Thinking again...sorry about these rants......I'm not up to speed on the financial side of the union/club relationship, but I suppose if it were the case where the membership dues were doubled, you could always say the first trip is included in the membership, and you may even end up with change in the clubs pocket after the first trip? Depends on how each union works, I guess.

 

[ChairChimp]

Ok, to clear things up....

Edd did say that he was trying to get BUSA recognition. That's the important bit. I'm here talking not about IF he should because he already is aiming for it.

Charlie, you have several v.g points, but I fear you've missed the above point. You ARE right that several sports do very well from uni funded activity and by hard work at getting local clubs and uni clubs going. BUSA is not the be all and end all of it, far from it.
Portsmouth Uni team shows us that a well established club can do well irrespective of any affiliations with BUSA.

The bonus to pushing paintball as a BUSA activity/sport is that universities will then produce teams to compete. This takes the onus of organisation away from people such as Hatts (who started the orig tourny for uni's I think) and onto the BUSA authorities. This means that you get independant organisation of the tourney and lots of venues at uni fields all over the country.

This is all still very much up in the air of course, and it could easily fall flat on its face, sorry Edd, it could.

The up-side of non BUSA routes to Uni-paintballing is that you can get top links with sponsors etc, and, as you pointed out, make lots of funding available to the club.

I see that as a good route, but possibly not the way I would like to see University paintball head. The idea of taking a large-ish membership of paintball newbies and producing a team or set of teams to compete in an inter-uni tournament would be more of what I envisage a paintball club doing at uni. It goes without saying that experienced players are the heart of any club, but it would be a sound base to 'spread the word' about paintball to non-players and interested parties.

I have met a fair few people who used to play a sport 'at college' or 'when I was at uni' and remember it fondly. Paintball could become one of those sports, can't harm at any rate.

Anyway this is all pie in the sky, but more power to the collective elbows of those who keep pushing the idea. I wish there had been a Manc Uni paintball team before now, would have got me involved much earlier at any rate.**


** Hmmmn not sure if that's a good thing.




Chimp

 

[ryu_xXx]

hey guys what would the rules on teams be? because im at man met and i have a friend off my team there to. but we not in no uni club. can we just put a team together that represents man met with other players?

 

[AJermstad2]

I would have thought it would be best if the two of you at Man Met found 3 other peeps at Man Met to come with you, even if they were newbies.

It looks like we're heading to represent as many individual Unis as possible, and encourage the growth of clubs within each Uni.

I don't think it matters that there isn't an official club there as yet, as long as you are all students, but we're encouraging you to go out and begin to build new clubs where they aren't already established, hence recruiting newbies for the tourney.

 

[chrismrgn]

OMG i cant wait til i get to uni!!!

 

[frahill]

hehe 2dary is not close to uni

 

[DybDyb]

Manchester

I think I may be able to field a University of Manchester team, I have myself and one other experienced player so far-my 3 flat mates are interested in making up the numbers.
I was wondering if anyone knew any experienced players at manc, so far I've only met one other person-and he's only met me!
I'm hoping to use this to push paintball with the uni and get some recognition-they really don't know what they're missing!!!


Mark

 

[Steve Hancock]

In answer to the combined teams issue:

While there would be a greater level of competition if we allowed all the student ballers in the country to form area based teams, it would not do as much to promote the establishment of paintball clubs in the uni's.

Also by allowing students from a uni that doesn't have a club, to enter a team i am hoping to pursuade the people on the team to form a commmittee and start a club.

A combined team on the other hand would not be able to do this.

Also while you may be able to join a sports team at another uni, if on placement near there, you wouldn't be able to play for them in the busa leagues.

In answer to the questions on the importance of busa:

Many uni's (but not all) divide their groups in to two categories sports clubs and societies. Sports club status is often harder to attain and can be dependant on the sport being busa recognised, and even if it is not 100% dependant it will help greatly.

Also if pb was busa recognised, busa points will be available for and inter-uni, thus the unis would have an incentive to fund them as it would help there standing in the overall busa tables.

Regarding Pompey/Brum Tourney players v. new club tippy wielders.

I'd like to get to the point where we have enough established clubs that we can have a division for the established tourney clubs, and another for the new clubs. For now i will just have to set up the format to try and level the playing field a bit, limited paint and plenty of bunkers to break up the machine gunners lines.

Anyone interested in entering a team from there uni email me at paintball @ bugs.bham.ac.uk.