Multi-division tournaments

[teacup]

There is such thing as Nationals qualifier.
Combining Divisions would reduce number of qualified fencers from Bay Area

it is already hard to qualify in sertain events from Central/Northern CA

.

I totally agree that there is unfairness in the qualifying procedures for National qualifiers for large vs small divisions.
In small divisions, three fencers can show up and all three are qualified whether they can fence or not. In a large division if there are 3 - 12 fencers, not only do only three qualify but they must fence off for the third spot. This discrepancy should be discussed but that doesn't mean that merging the divisions wouldn't help solve the problem of the Bay Cup sanctioning issue.

[mfp]

Even team is based on the number of entries.

Numbers of clubs, not entries, of course.

What is does mean is potentially a bit more travel to a (better) qualifier event. But if the Bay Cup works at all this travel is clearly worthwhile already, as it occurs for every other event on the schedule.

Bigger is not necessarily bigger in this case. Combining multiple Bay Area Divisions' qualifiers could result in some pretty huge events -- so large that they would beyond the ability of most of the typical venues. Not everyone can, wants, or does go to all 6 of a particular Bay Cup series events, however there's only one division qualifier.

Also the current staggered qualifiers allow the divisions to import referees (a bunch who are fencers themselves) from the other area divisions that aren't running qualifiers that weekend.

[jjefferies]

I think bringing it back to a single "Peninsula Division" is certainly feasible and I have no problems with that. Not that doing such a thing will reduce the politicking and such.

Heretic. If you think re-orging the BayCup is fun the idea of combining the two divisions no matter how sensible would be many times more interesting. How come you didn't try to do that in the years you were the NorCal chair??

ByTheBye: regarding BayCup registration, something that hasn't been mentioned is that people from outside of the area were allowed to enter events without paying the BayCup registration fee for one or two events. But then they had no points standings and couldn't win prizes.

[edew]

Not quite true. They get point standings and could conceivably win prizes. But in order to do well enough to make top-8 for the prizes, one most likely have to attend more than 2 events, although at one time, our JWS series was won by someone who attended just two events. The point is, if a person is serious about fencing more events in the Bay Cup, they pay the reg fee and consequently, they have a good shot at winning a prize. The administrative work to keep on top of that was a bear and I would be happy to require a reg fee uniformly no matter how many or few events the person attended.

I had no interest in asking CenCal to combine with NorCal mainly because the split had real rationale to it, even now. The "speciation" of CenCal from NorCal has been complete for quite a while and asking them to join back would be very difficult.

[edew]

Numbers of clubs, not entries, of course.

Bigger is not necessarily bigger in this case. Combining multiple Bay Area Divisions' qualifiers could result in some pretty huge events -- so large that they would beyond the ability of most of the typical venues. Not everyone can, wants, or does go to all 6 of a particular Bay Cup series events, however there's only one division qualifier.

Also the current staggered qualifiers allow the divisions to import referees (a bunch who are fencers themselves) from the other area divisions that aren't running qualifiers that weekend.

Actually one of the goals was not to stagger the qualifiers but to have them held over the same weekends so that more weekends are freed up for competition or otherwise. We have enough referees that their need is not so much an issue. However, we might have saber on a Saturday at division X and Sunday on division Y so that if someone wanted to referee, they can in a neighboring division and vice-versa.

[oiuyt]

which is about 350 tortuous miles south.

Heck, you can do THAT even in "small" New England states such as Maine.

That said, I favor having more, smaller divisions. I think having lots of local groups scheduling tournaments in lots of areas is more likely to provide more level-appropriate tournaments to just about everyone. Especially with sufficient information available via the internet that people can figure out when to skip over division boundaries to go to another location for larger/stronger events, especially at the open level.

I liked living in Western Mass where I was a 2-3 hour drive from New England, Connecticut, Hudson-Berkshire, Northeast, Westchester-Rockland, and Green Mountain divisions, all of which scheduled completely independently of each other. I could always find a worthwhile event on any given weekend. Those divisions all used different methods for determining their schedules, for organizing their events, and for how tournaments were run financially between the divisions and clubs. And I would routinely visit all of them over the course of a season. There was no central organizing body, committee, supervisor, coordinator, overlord, comissioner, group, whatever. With the additional spread of information and sharing that's growing increasingly common (remember, even a couple of seasons ago no one in the Northeast used FRED), this is becoming ever easier.

-B

[sanadika]

I would like to throw my two cents in here. When I was a beginner fencer I couldnt find enough tournaments to go to. I was tournament ready by the time the season was closing down. I didnt have good direction at the place I was being taught as to how to find out where tournaments were but once I found out about the bay cup i was going to every one i could get to. It was an honour to get to go to all the clubs in northern calif( i think i only missed out on Santa Cruz). With the goal of the 05 nationals ,preparation and experience were very important. Being able to fence against some of the best fencers in the country right here in my backyard just made my game that much better. I was told the baycup is a "nice" regional event and that the NACs were a much better place to try out what it is like to fence at nationals .Well i beg to differ. i follow the placings of people at Nacs, and nationals and many of the top ten are fencers from northern california. It may be easier to get higher ratings at Nacs ,and ill be looking into next year.

As to why a lower number of fencers this year at bay cup: nationals is back east. I was training specifically for nationals out here. I m not at a place in my life that ill fly back east to go to a national esp in the humidity.I also show horses for a living and its a trade off .so horse showing this year , fencing circuit next year. Also i think with Eric Dew getting suspended it caused confusion as to how the bay cup would proceed.some paid membership (or registration) and then got told no pay each time you fence those who paid in advancewould get credited etc. it was confusing. I think it has smoothed out and next year will be better. From what i know of meeting Eric i think he is a great organizer, a talented fencer and quite imaginative with german curse words! but really eric did and does a great job having tournaments that are competitive and fun
one thing id like tosee as far as bay cup is No Coast included in the bay cup circuit. we are no farther away than some of the sacramento clubs and id like to host some of the tournaments. Geez guys we have air conditioning up here really!! haha
i do have a question. being still new and now knowing to much history. I was told that Eric Ricketts is the originator of the bay cup (though i dont think it was called that then) and that Massialas took it away. now that could be pure rumor and Ihave yet to have anyone with the real knowledge clarify that for me.

[edew]

Part of the reason for the existence of the Bay Cup is that none of the three divisions are large enough to run sizable events. If even one of the (NorCal or CenCal) division is as large as the Metro division or the NJ division, we can easily eschew the whole Bay Cup concept. We can adequately run well-attended tournaments and not require either division to coordinate schedules.

However, it is precisely the close juxtaposition of the divisions and the relatively small (enough) sizes of the divisions that fostered the creation of the Bay Cup. Perhaps, in five or maybe ten years, growth within each division will create events within each division that are large enough to split events among the two divisions (Mtn Valley has always been a tag-along division rather than an active participant in the Bay Cup) and then the schedules need not be coordinated.

Even then, there is still no reason why a specific person cannot be assigned to do the dirty work of creating a workable schedule. (Committee work on a schedule will surely grind it to a halt.)

[nahouw]

It was never and is never a "membership" fee. It is a registration fee no different than what you pay as a registration fee for competing at various major events such as NACs and such. We use the word, "member" to state that one has registered. We could have used the word, "registrant" or "registered" to denote those who have paid the registration fee.

It is a registration fee that the work was done to verify the fencer's USFA membership and ratings, and that information was uploaded into fencing time. There is an adminstrative burden for the computer operator to key this information. The fact that they say that you are a member, means that the fencer's data is known to fencing time. The more people that are members (included in the fencing time database) means that processing at-the-door registrations and commencing with the initial seeding of the tournament is completed quickly. This is the hallmark of a well run organization.

From my understanding of the Bay Cup, it was well run and organized. It takes an individual to be the focal point of a well run organization, and if Eric was the person upon whom three divisions with consulation agreed to be the point person, I don't know what the problem was. If you remove this individual, and the Bay Cup is not the same as what it was, then it further illustrates his tournament adminstrative abilities.

[nahouw]

Even then, there is still no reason why a specific person cannot be assigned to do the dirty work of creating a workable schedule. (Committee work on a schedule will surely grind it to a halt.)

Right -- in the NJ division, our tournament committee tries to coordinate with the clubs for their competitions -- our qualifiers come first. Having a dedicated person coordinating 3 divisions schedules in an area that doesn't have the same volume of fencers as ours makes sense in order to facilitate ratings and large competitions.