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Ultimate Happenings: Issue 153 - Nov 27, 2000

OCUA Web site: http://www.ocua.ca

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"

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CONTENTS:

- Some Comments On Winter League (from the PRESIDENT)
- Trinidad & Tobago Carnival
- Thanks from the New Editor
- Calendar Of Events

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SOME COMMENTS ON WINTER LEAGUE (FROM THE PRESIDENT)

Some of you have expressed concern over the organization of 
this year's Wednesday night indoor league. For those of you 
not familiar with the issue, the coordinators opted to return 
the division to it's historical, more competitive focus, 
which due to poor communication on our part and a dramatic 
increase in demand, has had some unfortunate consequences. 
Therefore, I'd like to take a few minutes to explain the 
situation, and some of the history behind it.

With respect to winter leagues in general, OCUA has 
historically allowed the coordinators to run their divisions 
with relative autonomy. The divisions are small and self-
contained, and due to the high cost of indoor facilities 
forcing high player fees, are intended to be run as 
essentially break even operations. So it works well for one 
or two people to handle the day to day operations on their 
own, and we trust our volunteers to keep in mind the best 
interests of the players and the organization while doing so.
I can happily say that they don't let us down.

It was with these good intentions that the Wednesday 
coordinators made the decision mentioned above. Demand for 
winter ultimate has been on the decline over the last few 
years. Saturday indoor disappeared due to a lack of 
interest, and coordinators were having to scramble to find 
players to fill out the Wednesday division even before it 
became an OCUA division last year. There were also some 
complaints of a declining level of play, and the high level 
players that traditionally formed the core of the league 
were drifting away. It was with all this in mind that the 
coordinators decided that the best way to revitalize the 
division was to promise a higher level of play. It was 
hoped this would draw back those that had left, and would 
serve to help the newer players by exposing them to a higher 
quality of ultimate. But to achieve this, they realized 
that they would need the buy in of the high level players.
So they started to actively canvas the competitive teams, 
and reserved 40 of the 96 spots available for competitive 
players. Given that many of them already played in the 
league, and demand had been on the decline, this wasn't 
anticipated to be a problem.

However, that appears to not be the case. Once the initial 
registration was completed, there were 180 people who wanted 
to play, and only 96 spots. Perhaps this was due to the new 
facility, or maybe word had gotten out about how well run 
the league was last year, I don't know. Regardless, this 
was an increase in demand that neither they nor the board of 
directors had anticipated. So, the coordinators had to make 
some difficult decisions. Given that they had promised 40 
spots to competitive players, they upheld that promise, and 
that left 56 spots for the other 140 people. They opted to 
give priority to the returning players for those 56 spots. 
Unfortunately, that still left about 10 returning people 
without a spot. They were hopeful that they would be able 
to fit these people in as people dropped out at the final 
registration, but I haven't heard the current status on this 
as yet. Even worse, it leaves another 75 people who feel as 
if they never had a shot at playing in the first place. And 
to further complicate the issue, there is a lot of 
misinformation spreading around the community - hence my 
taking the time to write this letter.

First of all, let me make it clear that this IS an OCUA 
division, and the board accepts full responsibility for the 
problems at hand. They are the result of a lack of 
management of winter league as a whole, rather than the 
actions of specific coordinators. There is currently no 
overall plan for the coordinated delivery of winter or fall 
leagues, and it is apparent from this year's experiences 
that those are both required. We need to ensure that we are 
offering appropriate leagues, at appropriate times, for an 
appropriate number of people. This will require a good deal 
of pro-activity, particularly for winter league, as the high 
demand and cost of indoor facilities prevents us from 
offering a large number of options and then seeing if we can 
fill them. Communication is also a critical issue, as I'm 
sure that if people were aware of how the league was going 
to be run in advance, this would not be as much of an issue.
There also needs to be better communication within the 
volunteer organization, so that these types of potential 
problems can be addressed before they happen.

As for the coordinators, they still have our full support. 
They volunteer to run the divisions on our behalf, and in 
general, they do a good job. We also believe that the more 
competitive format that they have chosen will be beneficial 
to Ottawa ultimate in the long run. Yes, they have made 
some mistakes in handling this matter, but they are still 
relatively inexperienced at running leagues, and mistakes do 
happen. As I mentioned above, blame for this should not rest 
on their shoulders - it was a lack of direction and support 
from the organization that lead us to the current situation. 
The coordinators were simply trying to insure a successful 
and healthy division. We have discussed the situation with 
them, and they are aware of the issues. In addition, we will 
continue to work with them to insure that the league runs 
smoothly this year, and to avoid problems such as this in 
the future.

All that being said, we are still faced with a problem for 
this year. We have been blind sided by this demand, and while
it is obviously beneficial to the league as a whole, having 
to turn away so many people, particularly people who have 
supported winter league in the past, is not. We have 
responded to the demand by creating a Saturday league, but 
even that appears to be almost full. Unfortunately, our other
options are limited. Time at the dome is at a premium, and so
the likelihood of getting time for another division seems 
slim. And there isn't room for expansion of the existing 
division. It is still our hope that the coordinators will be 
able to find room for the 10 or so returning players who were 
excluded. As for everyone else, we see the new Saturday 
league as being the only viable option. We realize that this 
may be insufficient to meet the entire demand, or certain 
people's needs, but if that is the case, the best we can do 
at this point is apologize that we can't accommodate you, and
guarantee you that OCUA is committed to handling this better 
next year. In fact, plans for next year's leagues, summer 
through winter, are already being discussed. This is a 
volunteer organization that is going through some growing 
pains, and sometimes things don't work out as well as we had 
hoped. This is definitely one of those times, and we 
appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

Ken Lange
OCUA President

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TRINIDAD & TOBAGO CARNIVAL

In early 2001, a coed beach tournament will be held in 
Trinidad & Tobago (2 islands at the Southern tip of the 
Caribbean Island chain - 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela) 
during the biggest party in the World - CARNIVAL. This
tournament will be held Friday - Sunday (February 23-25, 
2001) on the white sands of Maracas Bay in northern Trinidad.

Immediately following the tournament, the Carnival 
celebration begins - officially at 2 a.m. on Sunday 
night/Monday morning with "J'Ouvert" (The Opening), which 
goes until 7 a.m. Carnival is a HUGE celebration that will
keep you up for many hours - as the Trinidadians say, "The 
more you sleep, the more you miss!" Visit 
http://www.carnaval.com/main.htm and 
http://www.entertaintnt.com/Carnival to get a taste of the 
action - you'll be hooked!

The Carnival celebration continues for the 2 incredible days 
that follow J'Ouvert - more dancing parades, outrageous 
costumes, incredible music, and exuberant spirit - all of 
which we participate in! That's right, we buy outlandish, 
skimpy, jingling, feathered costumes, and join in with the 
bands. Wednesday is a day of rest. On Thursday, those who 
need to fly home, can. Otherwise, stay for another few 
days... relax... visit Tobago, tour the Asa Wright Nature 
Reserve, introduce local kids to the sport and play with 
them in their own one-day tournament on Saturday, March 3... 
and fly home on Monday, March 5.

As you can imagine, airline tickets can be extremely 
expensive at this time of year, and availability is even 
worse. We've arranged for cheap group airfare (only $595 if 
you act by December 1st) from New York City (a major hub - 
to accommodate ultimate players from around the World), 
departing on Thurs, Feb 22, and returning either on 
Thursday, March 1, or Monday, March 5. Including airfare 
from New York, the cost of the tourney ranges from US$795 
to $1195, depending mostly on whether you camp or stay in a 
hotel. Again, you have to act fast to ensure these costs, 
they may go up after December 1st (maybe and additional $100).

Check the web site (http://www.ozzodesign.com/trinidad). It 
has full details. We will need the full $$ amount by DECEMBER
15 (DECEMBER 1 if you want the reduced rate), so that we can 
purchase the group airfare. Remember, if you get the deposit 
to us by December 1st, you will get a $100 airfare discount.

Bids will be announced by January 1. (Note: if you need to 
know earlier - so you can book your flight to New York or 
whatever - we can probably give you a good idea sooner. Let 
us know.) Team bids (approximately 10 people/team - 3-2 coed
format) will have preference over individual bids (to be 
placed on a team in a "hat" draw).

We are not planning to repeat this event next year, so this 
may be your only chance to combine beach Ultimate with the 
craziest party on the planet.Email us if you have any 
questions - trinidad@ozzodesign.com .

We hope to see you there!

- Ozzie and Yusi
  Organizers

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THANKS FROM THE NEW EDITOR:

Well, after sending out the last UH post, I got (literally)
hundreds of replies back! :) There were two main reasons
for the emails that I received:

1- People congratulating me, and thanking me for taking over
Ultimate Happenings. I would have replied to each of you,
but there were so many, that I figured I'd just send out a
general reply here... IT'S MY PLEASURE! :)

2- Bounced email addresses (boy, there were A LOT of those)!
So, I've removed the addresses that bounced from this post.
If you have a friend who finds that he/she is no longer
receiving UH, have him/her email uh@ocua.ca to get back on
the list. I suspect that most people haven't bothered
updating their email address (ie: lots of newbridge.com's)!

Specifically, many U of Ottawa email addresses did not
accept my messages.  I only have 3 uottawa.ca emails left on 
my list that haven't bounced yet! (just a heads up for you
U of O people...)

That's it for now! Take care,

Tony Argentina

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS:

2001/06/16    : 10th annual Beach Tourny (Ottawa, ON)
2001/06/30    : Pre-Canada Day Camp Out Party (Ottawa, ON)
2001/07/2-3   : Gender Blender (Fergus, ON)
2001/08/16-19 : Nationals (Edmonton, AB)
2001/??/??    : Layout For Life (Ottawa, ON)
2001/??/??    : Ottawa 'Plaid Jacket' Open Disc Golf Tourney
2001/??/??    : Women's Hat Tourney (Ottawa)
2001/??/??-?? : Fr'equinox (Co-ed, Ottawa ON)
2001/??/??-?? : Montreal Jazz Tournament (Montreal, QC)
2001/??/??-?? : No Borders (Ottawa, ON)
2001/??/??-?? : OCUA playoffs (divisions to be announced)
2001/??/??-?? : Parlee Beach (Shediac, NB)
2001/??/??-?? : Unknown Legends (Hamilton, ON)

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