On the money as ususal from Missy but I'd like to add a few things; Firstly, there were two guys running the CPPS, Mark was the money man and Rich was the 'go do' guy.
All through this year, Mark has been keeping me up to date with what they were planning and what they had achieved.
I put all this information before the board as the year progressed and as we saw those guys put on the sort of event we were aspiring to, we decided to award them provisional status sanctioning with a view to running exhibition events in the year 2010.
And so, please don't tell me again, the Fed are against or ignoring anything the CPPS were doing, quite the contrary in fact.
It became obvious for Mark as the year progressed that maybe investing the thousands he did in tournaments wasn't going to be a policy that he could continue with.
What some of you may not really appreciate is, events like the Blackpool Pier tournament was a success because of Mark's money and NOT because of team's support.
Mark put his money where his mouth was but I'm afraid the number of teams who decided to support their events was so low, it meant Mark lost thousands, and I mean thousands at just that one event.
That situation wasn't gonna last; it's all well and good, everybody jumping up and down flying the CPPS flag when the series just couldn't sustain itself without Mark continually pumping in his thousands of pounds.
Mark is no fool, he had to look at 2010 with another pair of eyes otherwise the poor sod was gonna go skint.
As soon as he realised the reality of what event paintball in the UK would return, he decided to pull the plug and lose no more money ...and let's face it, there's not a person among us who could justifiably criticise that decision ... well if you did, you're an unthinking dick !!
This left Rich Harriss holding the baby as it were; now I don't suppose Rich minds me saying, he has had a rough year, what with some personal problems that pretty much meant Mark did most of the work as well as the funding.
This took it's obvious toll but when Mark pulled the financial plug a few months back, there was a consequent financial vacuum that Rich wasn't really in any position to back fill.
When word got out that something was amiss, people began began bleating this, that and whatever but the harsh reality is, the CPPS was a circuit that couldn't be sustained ... it was doomed to fail from the start.
As to why?
Well, it's simple finances, you cannot run events like the CPPS promoted without a certain degree of team support and I'm afraid that just wasn't forthcoming.
Of course, people will suggest that all Mark had to do was wait out another year, well that's fine, but are these people prepared to stump up thousands on the chance it will attract enough teams?
Nah, course they ain't.
And so where are we now?
Rich has declared his intention to continue but the harsh reality of that decision is this, either he has to locate another money man who will fund next year's series ... likelihood?
A big fat zero !!
...or, he attempts to run the series with less funding.
The consequences of the latter decision, although brave, does mean the standard of event must be lowered ... no disrespect to Rich in any way but he hasn't got the same financial muscle as Mark and therefore won't be able to invest in any events in the same way Mark did.
In fact, these events will have to be run on shoestring budgets closely tied to how many teams pre-book and more importantly pre pay; And this is because sooo many bloody teams just say they are coming and then not turn up leaving the poor promoter financially compromised.
And so please no more cr@p about the Fed not getting on with the CPPS or wanting to put it down in any way whatsoever, that's just plain insane guys, and I'm damned sure Rich has the utmost respect for what we the Fed are trying to do because we were running parallel paths this year which would have I'm sure, converged for the 2010 season.
I hope that's straightened things out here guys.
