The life of a tournament director.

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[simmo]

6 weeks to go
- Emailed the state list advertising the tournament.
- Added the tournament to the AFDA calendar and set up a rego page.
Time spent - 10 minutes

3 weeks to go
- Phone tenant groups of Victoria Park asking if they planned to use Ovals 1, 2 and 3 on the day.
- Spoke to Ballarat City Council about the use of Victoria Park. Provided them with copy of public liability insurance certificate.
- Enquired about the use of privately owned fields (later proving to be unsuccessful. Oh well, at least I've got Vic Park confirmed)
- Email registered and interested captains more details about the event
Time spent - 20 minutes

1 week to go
- Answered questions emailed to me by captains
- Phoned players to organise my own team
- Phoned BUUF players about putting people up for the night
- Phoned Mel from The Courier to organise a photographer
- Phoned Mark from the Regent Bar to sort out 'happy hour' prices for players on Saturday night
Time spent - 40 minutes

2 days to go
- Responded to more emails from captains and players
- Created draw
- Printed out draw and scoresheets for teams on the day
Time spent - 20 minutes

1 day to go
- Phoned BUUF players to make sure they bring stuff like prizes, water barrels, cones, eskies and ice in the morning.
- Went to my parent's place to borrow esky and shade tent.
- Went to Brumby's to order bread rolls for collection in the morning.
- Printed out registration sheets for all teams, with space to collect details for players without AFDA numbers.
Time spent - 30 minutes

On the day
- Woke up at 8:30, did the usual morning stuff and drove to Vic Park
- Delegated tasks such as field setup, filling water barrels, setting up shade tents and buying fruit
- Captains meeting at 9:30
- Played the first two games
- Collected rego info and player fees off captains
- Missed third game to go to supermarket and buy lunch stuff
- Packed lunches
- Collected score sheets, collated results, wrote up afternoon draw and distributed to captains
- Phone Pinky's to order pizzas for the final
- Played fourth and fifth games
- Collected score sheets and advised captains of fields and opponents for playoffs
- Played playoff game
- Collated spirit and MVP scores during final
- Paid for and distributed pizzas
- Ran presentations
- Cleaned up rubbish (with assistance)
- Dumped rubbish
- Dropped shade tent and esky off at parent's place
- Home by 6:30 for shower, feed, Top Gear, then party.
Time spent - 10 hours

4 days after
- Deposited proceeds into BUUF account
- Finalised all team rego details
- Signed up new players with AFDA numbers
- Arranged for payment of AFDA fees
Time spent - 1 hour

Total time spent running tournament - 13 hours

Honestly, I don't see why people think it's difficult.

Share any advice, stories or tips and tricks for running tournaments.

[rachelg]

I know you're trying to make it seem attractive... but the timings you have there are for a pretty simple tournament.

For something like Nationals I've spent several hours on the budget/finances to date and am sure I will spend several more. Now Nationals is at the other extreme from an IV so you would expect more work to go in (ordering discs, organising the AFDA AGM, creating a program.... etc.etc).

But for a small/basic tournament once you have fields booked then the rest is pretty easy.

[Tiger]

What about running club training? If this season is anything to go by, it seems councils are paid a commission based on how many times they infuriate, ignore and bewilder teams. At least for Nationals you only have to book the fields once. Sheesh.

T.

[simmo]

I know you're trying to make it seem attractive... but the timings you have there are for a pretty simple tournament.

For something like Nationals I've spent several hours on the budget/finances to date and am sure I will spend several more. Now Nationals is at the other extreme from an IV so you would expect more work to go in (ordering discs, organising the AFDA AGM, creating a program.... etc.etc).

But for a small/basic tournament once you have fields booked then the rest is pretty easy.

Yeah, I ran Mixed Nats in 2006 and I'm more than aware of the work required behind a big tournament

Club trainings are nothing, Tiger. Just don't tell the council. If some ranger comes along, you're not an organised club...frisbee's not a real sport!

[littletom]

We can no longer get away with that for club trainings in the ACT...

But sometimes we do just train somewhere if something unusual has happened and we don't have booked fields.

The ANU club can get away with the old "not-organised sport" however...particularly beecause they don't have the numbers to look organised

-Tom

[JdR]

Club trainings are nothing, Tiger. Just don't tell the council. If some ranger comes along, you're not an organised club...frisbee's not a real sport!

Remember - cones make you look organised.  So do matching shirts.  Avoid them.

[mattdowle]

Not telling the council or University or any owner of the fields is good in theory - but totally unrealistic. In Sydney come the cross-over between cricket and footy, its hard enough to find space as it is and trying to say you're not an organised sport with 30 players turning up for training - you give that a go. Seems things are much simplier in Vic, especially with the tournament organising schedule you put out.

Besides, we need lights to train. Clearly we are not as talented and night-eyed as you Vic folk

[matt.h]

Most teams down here train once on the weekends during the day, they also have the option of utilising lights on a Thursday night (which I think two clubs do).

I would have to agree with Rachel though, that rundown is a little overly simplistic. Its a nice way to entice people into helping run or TD tournaments but as the Hat committee has experienced in the past, if you don't tell people from the outset what is required of them, once they realise they may just disappear on you.

[littletom]

ooooh, forget 'face of the games'!

Now we have baby dowle, the other dowle and surly dowle!

*cough* silence *cough*

[tom_brennan]

It's not too hard ... if you have done it before and have a large group of competent and willing volunteers. Your narrative below made it sound too easy so I liberally cut and pasted to make it more gritty and realistic.

6 weeks to go
- Emailed the state list advertising the tournament.
- Added the tournament to the AFDA calendar and set up a rego page.
Time spent - 10 minutes

- try to set up rego page and can't
- roam around AFDA site trying to find out how - fail
- email webmaster asking how
- webmaster sets up rego page for you
Time spent - 20 minutes

2 days to go
- Responded to more emails from captains and players
- Created draw
- Printed out draw and scoresheets for teams on the day
Time spent - 20 minutes

1 day to go
- Went to Brumby's to order bread rolls for collection in the morning.
- Printed out registration sheets for all teams, with space to collect details for players without AFDA numbers.

- receive email from one captain saying that their team only has 6 players and can't make it
- you email other captains asking if they have any players who want to pick up
- redo draw just in case
- print out new draw
- captain emails you later saying they now only have 3 players
- you give up on trying to find pickup players for them
- ring Brumby's to reduce order of rolls
Time spent - 40 minutes

On the day

- wake up, do the usual morning stuff and drive to fields
- council has somehow double booked fields, requiring negotiation of field space with under-9s cricket, and smaller fields for the first two games
- toilets have no loo paper
- delegate someone to go to supermarket to get some
- captains meeting at 9:30
- two teams aren't there for the captains meeting
- you wait 10 minutes and get two phone calls
- one team is running late and will be there in 15 minutes
- the other team has had to pull out as 3 of their players are sick
- you hurriedly redo the draw again on the back of a piece of paper
- tournament starts 20 minutes late
- games played
- captains fail to return scoresheets and MVP sheets to you so you have to go chasing them up
- afternoon games start late as a result
- try to decipher MVP names - is "Dog" the same as "Dave P." and what about the team with three Michelles? Which one did they mean? You go and ask appropriate captains, who are little help. Give up and award male MVP to Adam Mortimer
- run presentations
- ask everyone to help by picking up rubbish
- pick up everyone's rubbish that they didn't help pick up
- pack up
- go home
- fall asleep before party
Time spent - priceless

Share any advice, stories or tips and tricks for running tournaments.

There is a tournament organising wiki on the AFDA site. The idea is that anyone can edit it so that it is a useful tool for all TDs - feel free to add to it. http://afda.com/wiki/tournament_toolkit