National Series 2011

The National Series is looking for a head ref!

Responsibilities along the lines of:

• Reviewing and maintaining the National Series rules.
  
• Holding a refs meeting before each tournament which individual tournament refs must attend.
  
• Delivering a pre-tournament rules briefing that players must attend.
  
• Organising tournament reffing schedules so that inexperienced refs gain experience early in a tournament and experienced refs take charge of important games.
  
• Being the first point of contact for rules enquires and the final word on disputes.
  
  

This doesn't mean you have to attend every tournament (you could have a deputy or a co-head-ref).

You can ref as much or as little as you want at the actual tournaments.

PM me if you'd be interested in helping establish consistent reffing standards over the course of the National Series!

So there any dates for these events (specifically Edinburgh).

Is there such a thing as a Polo Google Calendar, with all the tournament dates, which I can import? If not, I'll start one.

league calendar often gets big events added to it. if you want you can be added to that and add any events you want.

Ah yeah, just imported it, cheers. Not to bothered about being able to add events, as long as someone does. Happy to do it though.

A non-league google calendar would be a good idea, be nice to have polo related stuff without the league things, which although good & all, ain't of great interest to me

Hey everyone. Meeting the guy in charge of the venue this week, so will know better when we will be running our polo tourney, in Edinburgh.
Was thinking the weekend 16th or 23rd July - likely to be one of those two.

Bill has kindly taken on the role of head ref for the National Series.

If anyone would like to work towards helping secure sponsorship then please let me know. We have a couple of sweet leads but it would be nice if someone good at blagging stuff could help out.

I just read through the first page of this, sounds awesome!

Some NAH organizers have been discussing a similar points-based system for 2012, but with a few differences:

• smaller, but more, tournaments. It's REALLY easy to organize a tourney for 16 teams on one court. It's much harder to organize a tourney on two courts.
  
• a tiered system in which you need X number (or Y ratio) of Cat A players in for it to be considered a Cat A tourney.
  
• every city that organizes a Cat A tourney would have to organize a Cat B tourney, too. But since one-court tourneys are easy to organize, no big deal right?
  
• points might stay with individual players, to continue to let players shift around between teams.
  
  

Problem is, it's going to be a ton of work and we'll likely need a full time staff person to be keeping track of everything. And even if we use this year's qualification system, it'll be tricky to decide who is Cat A and who is Cat B, at the outset. And if you can move between Cat B and Cat A during the season.

Anyway this is all speculation at this point, but wanted to let you know that others are thinking of a similar model.

If anyone would like to work towards helping secure sponsorship then please let me know. We have a couple of sweet leads but it would be nice if someone good at blagging stuff could help out.

The LHBPA's private sector contact list is always available... although I keep hassling people lately, so any other in-roads people may have (friends of friends, PR companies, etc) would be useful.

I'd also suggest putting together a promo pack that each city/scene can use to find local sponsors for their event... tiered sponsorship kind of deal (National Series sponsors and individual event sponsors). Again I can help with this.

The sponsor agreements would have to be written carefully but I'm fairly certain I can lead someone in the right direction for all of it, etc.

Can everyone have a final look over/read of the rules that are here. They will be fixed for the National Series after Brighton (7th May):

http://www.lhbpa.org/resources/LHBPA_Bike_Polo_Rules.pdf

The 2011 UK National Series will be open to any team

Does this mean we (a french team) could run for this as long as we play at least 3 UK tourneys ?

yes, do it!

Does this mean we (a french team) could run for this as long as we play at least 3 UK tourneys ?

Yeah, as long as you shave the Union Jack into your pubic hair, and learn the words to 'Land of Hope & Glory'.

Corrected

Yeah, as long as you shave the Union Jack Flag into your pubic hair, and learn the words to 'Land of Hope & Glory'.

Done

Results after event 1, Brighton!

1. Nice Touch - 32
   
2. Spring Break - 28
   
3. Cosmic - 23
   
4. Hooks - 19
   
5. Cream - 14
   = Degeneration - 14
   
6. La Schmoove - 10
   = Netto - 10
   9 Fenboy3 - 6
   = ASBO - 6
   = Poloerectus - 6
   = The Smooth - 6
   
7. Fah-Q - 3
   
8. Multiple Scorgasm - 3
   
9. Broken Legs - 3
   
10. Dogma or Pie - 3
    
11. Team Warin - 2
    
12. The Casuals - 2
    
13. Thor - 2
    
14. Tornadoes - 2
    
15. Bi Polo - 2
    
16. Playmopolo - 2
    
17. Hacked Off - 1
    
18. Acopolo - 1
    
19. The Gutterballs - 1
    
20. Rusty Rims - 1
    
21. Floating T(h)urd - 1
    
22. Big Bush Bears - 1
    
23. Ex'POLO'sions in the Sky - 1
    
24. Mix Team - 1
    
25. Daft Punks - 1
    
26. Skiprats - 1
    
    

Note: points will be re-distributed if teams do not play in the minimum required number of NS events. This is not a final allocation of points.

Fuck yeah two points!

So how are those points worked out?

And what's the next event?

Edinburgh (assuming everything goes ahead as planned on their end) and then the London Open.

Just a comment about reffing of National Series events. In view of the fact that we are currently unlikely to get non-playing refs anytime soon, I am going to insist that every team, without exception, makes one of their players available to ref.

At the Brighton tournament, of 30 teams, only 12 had a ref. This is not enough refs. I appreciate that many people have a problem with reffing, but without a ref, you don't have a game.

It is not ok to expect other teams to take up the slack. I was especially disappointed to see that teams with plenty of tournament experience, who really should have a good grasp of the rules, did not supply a ref. I am thinking of Netto, Fenboy & Cosmic, amongst others.

I feel that it is only fair to spread the reffing around ALL the teams.

Think of it as an encouragement to actually read the rules.

Results after event 1, Brighton!

Note: points will be re-distributed if teams do not play in the minimum required number of NS events. This is not a final allocation of points.

Shotgun Nice Touch's points if they don't want them.

Well said Bill. It amazes me how some teams who have been in the game for literally years, hate to lift a finger to help out.

I don't want to bang on about it, but if all the teams had put up a ref, that would have meant each ref doing 3 or 4 games each. Not such a huge imposition.

Just a comment about reffing of National Series events. In view of the fact that we are currently unlikely to get non-playing refs anytime soon, I am going to insist that every team, without exception, makes one of their players available to ref.

At the Brighton tournament, of 30 teams, only 12 had a ref. This is not enough refs. I appreciate that many people have a problem with reffing, but without a ref, you don't have a game.

It is not ok to expect other teams to take up the slack. I was especially disappointed to see that teams with plenty of tournament experience, who really should have a good grasp of the rules, did not supply a ref. I am thinking of Netto, Fenboy & Cosmic, amongst others.

I feel that it is only fair to spread the reffing around ALL the teams.

Think of it as an encouragement to actually read the rules.

Ha! Named and shamed.

To be honest, in the future, if my team can't make it to an NS event I'll probably go anyway and be a full-time organizer. The stress of doing two things (playing and organizing) is not for me. Sorry if I got jumpy at people at any point.

I really don't want to bang about it, but if there are teams that think that their chances of doing well will be compromised by reffing, Nice Touch supplied a ref & a whip, Spring Break had one of the best refs, Degen supplied head ref & tournament co-ordinator.

Is there a National Series web-page yet?