Having had a look at the Fed Cup review thread , politics keeps getting mentioned.
Anyone care to fill me in a little what I've missed?
Cheers
Anyone care to fill me in a little what I've missed?
Cheers
Politics
- Thread starter Stokecity_m
- Start date
In Basic and simple terms...
If your not a sanctioned Federation event organiser ( Your names not down your not getting in )
If your not a sanctioned Federation event organiser ( Your names not down your not getting in )
and in well educated terms?In Basic and simple terms...
If your not a sanctioned Federation event organiser ( Your names not down your not getting in )
impulse that goes both ways if you have certain sponsers or play certain event they don,t won,t you to play this event
Agreed mate.... i was just merely stating that NSPL and CPPS are the only sanctioned Federation Venues in he UK...
So until such time as more venues are sanctioned by the Federation we might well see this trend continue at future event's..
the reason the fed is trying to build what it is 2with the 2 sanctioned events and the fed cup is a legitmate tournement scence for us to play in with out all the politics you seem to be talking about, you need to look at the bigger picture and maybe talk to some one on the board of the fed or even people involved with it to see there aims, as if they manage to pull of what they plan to do then all the politics you talk about wont be there or even matter
In Basic and simple terms...
If your not a sanctioned Federation event organiser ( Your names not down your not getting in )
I'm not sure why you believe this to be an example of the politics mentioned in the Fed thread ..... as far as I know, the sanctioning [or non sanctioning] of events hasn't really caused any problems as far as I am know.
If you are referring to wendy and the masters, she decided not to be part of the Federation any longer and so that was her choice, her decision, hers alone.
We most certainly kept our end of any bargain agreed upon and have already moved on.
Our expansion ethos has been mirrored in the CPPS's success in the midlands whereby they have nigh on doubled the team attendance at their events over last year's.
And to the CPPS's credit, they have kept their word to us and have worked closely and more importantly been totally transparent with regard to the what they are doing.
In this past year, we have built a significant trust between us which is crucial to any joint initiative and is in stark contrast to last year.
I think the CPPS, the NSPL and the Fed are gonna be the tripartite basis for a significant revival in the fortunes of UK Paintball .... I can't wait for 2011 because I think it's gonna be the best year we've had for a long, long time.
What does the Federation actually do? Why do events/venues need to be sanctioned by the Federation?
Try going back and reading what everybody else read a few years back ...it just takes a bit of effort that's all.
Everything you need to know is in the Fed forum.
No time for politics! - fed committee member
Sorry if Im spoon feeding some with old info but thought I want to give my views on this subject and it involves a little background info to demonstrate my point.
Basically paintball is a very young activity, it has been in existence only around 25 years.
With the exception of the great work the UKPSF has done in representing the Paintball SITE side of the industry, in the UK the REST of paintball has been completely unregulated and has essentially developed naturally as a complete commercial free-for-all.
This, as those with more than a couple of years in UK paintball under their belt will know, has led to a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the UK Tourney scene. There have been many tournament series started and grown to a decent size over the years - think PA, Midland Masters etc in recent years but we can go as far back as the 90s and look at HCL, NPPS and others (at one time the NPPS in particular had 80-100 10MAN teams playing every month!). So what happened to these series and why does it matter now that we have CPPS and NSPL?
Well, those involved in the Fed believe that these series were all victims essentially of the same problems to one extent or another - a complete lack of any centralised regulation, or even standardisation of rules, costs, safety procedures, basic facilities, reffing standards, coaching/teaching standards, player/team classification. There is NO year on year "ranking" or yardstick for a team to judge their progress nationally, no "official" nationwide league structure, and no requirement for a team to actually commit to anything in order to recieve bona-fide status as a registered team! - consider these facts and compare them to pretty much ANY other sport or hobby you have had experience of, and you will see they are dealt with by a NATIONAL BODY which essentially sets/controls/advises on all of the above points!
In paintball we have left this to the likes of Rich & Mark at CPPS, Chris Pelling at NSPL, Wendy at the Masters, Gillie and Hatts with the PA, and others before them all to essentially run things however they feel they can balance the best interests of the player, teams, event sponsors, and UK paintball in general, with the simple economic truths of running a business. With the best will in the world none of them have been, or will be able (or want to Im sure) to become a National Body able to deal with all the issues previously mentioned.
So far I hope Ive shown the case that it is in every ballers interest to support the requirement for a National Body.. now for the contentious bit which is the first place politics COULD raise its head..
1.WHO should be in charge of a National Body?
2.How do we get from our current situation to one which puts us on a par with other activities -who do have the neccessary structure in place to be a proper "grown-up" sport?
These are the questions I personally agonised over for a long time before sticking my head above the parapet to raise this issue with the industry big-wigs at the end of 2008.
Well, rightly or wrongly, I felt then, and do now, that the main starting point was to see if there was a cencensus of opinion on the matter from the main UK industry companies ie the guys whose livelyhood is directly affected by the rise or fall in the number of ballers out there! I discussed this with a few people including Ledz, Robbo and Jon Payne and everyone agreed that the only way we could get the ball rolling in the right direction was if we get close to universal support from the whole industry and so a list was drawn up which at the time consisted of..
Retailers..
BZ
JUST
LIPS
PHEONIX
WARPED
Distributors..
KEE
MANIC
JCS
Manufacturers..
ANGEL/WDP
DYE
JT
PLANET
SMART PARTS
Web
P8NTBALLER
In hindsight maybe it should have been even more inclusive, but it certainly wasnt in any way deliberatly exclusive at the time, just who it was felt had the most to lose from the tourny scenes malaise! Most opinions were that, because of the way we had progressed as a dog eat dog industry, it would be impossible to get anything near pan-industry support for ANYTHING - never mind a new Federation/National Body !
All of the above companies were invited to send representatives to an exploratory meeting. Most did so and we had a very frank and open discussion with many viewpoints but one thing became clear.. EVERYONE agreed that our current situ was unnacceptable and that our existing purely commercial free for all model was not bringing sustainable growth! Everyone knew tourny player numbers had plummeted, the PA had just folded, and it wasnt a great start to the year for any of the other tournament promoters out there - it was felt that there was wide enough industry representation right there and then to legitimately claim to be representative - and so the Fed was born !
Of the original bunch Smart Parts showed support but were unable to send anyone to meetings (I guess now we know why), Angel/WDP came to one meeting and had a strong view that it was primarily the tournament Format which was wrong, but unfortunatly chose not to come to any meetings since (but the door has never been closed), and DYE sent representation in the form of Tommy Pemberton before pulling out a few months later - for reasons, as far as Im aware, were not to do with lack of support for the concept or work of the Fed as an organisation - Im sure this has political fallout somewhere in the equation but I personally remain hopefull that Dye are not unsupportive of the need for the Fed, and that someday both WDP and Dye, will again take an active role in the Fed.
ALL of the other companies above still have representation at the Fed, and this year we have added Trevor Kent from H-PAC and thankfully (as I think its imperative if we are to succeed) Steve Bull (UKPSF) is now an active Fed committee member - the work of the two organisations is complimentary and our visions for the future continue to converge.
Whatever the future brings for our game it will never grow to become anything like a mainstream sport without centralised vision, regulation, and development of some kind. Now we have the Fed, if you dont like it please get involved in the debate and tell us what you think this body should look like.
The work of the Fed so far has been mainly about bringing in the first stages of some form of regulation. By creating a defined list of basic criterion for events, player registration, and by jointly supporting (as companies) specific event series who have the balls and vision to have a go with us, we hope to take the first small steps towards the future.
Next up we have the politics over the situation with the UK Masters Series. Lots has already been written about this and I dont want to stir anything up. My own view is quite simply that Wendy was not convinced (because of her character,our failure to communicate views properly, or a combination) that the potential short term loss of some control and requirement to conform to someone elses imposed views, did not outweigh the longer term potential advantages. And so a commercial decision was made by UK Masters (to run a southern series against the feds wishes) and as a result a strategic decision was made by the Fed to switch the sanctioning for the northern series to CPPS. So not difficult to see where there might be politics in that one but I can assure you no-one in the Fed now gives it a 2nd thought as we have little enough time to deal with running our respective businesses and giving what time we can to the Fed.
With regards the Fed Cup - at this stage it is simply a tool to demonstrate that we can work together, as an organisation and in partnership with tournament promoters, and to show that it is possible to have a SUSTAINABLE annual domestic event - (like the FA Cup has been suggested on another thread). The fact that it has run twice now and has been administered on behalf of the Fed by two different event organisers and at two different venues is another small step in itself. The plan is there WILL be a Fed Cup next year, there will be a Fed Cup EVERY year from now on. The vision is that it should eventually include all teams who play sanctioned events (and needs to be cheap enough for them to do so), it should give more and more away every year until one day it wont be cases of paint as prizes for the best in each division but maybe entries paid for (by the Fed) to the next years sanctioned domestic series or grants/sonsorship/expenses? for UK teams to move onward to the European or World Class level?
Hopefully everyone can see that we have to do SOMETHING to move the game in the right direction?
So whatever you feel are the pros and cons of the Fed or the Fed Cup, and wherever you fit into "the politics" please try and keep one eye on the future enjoyed by other sports..
Proper player registration?
real UK rankings?
standardised training centres with qualified coaches?
bouyant successful independant tournament series working to agreed standards - bulging at the seams with 100+ teams a month each (created and supported by a successful industry)?
true measured progression for players and teams - all the way to fully paid professional standard?.
It is achievable, so many others have done it!!!! - but no-one has a magic wand so it cant be done instantly. Along the way I guess there will be politics. Whatever old wounds were present between individuals or specific companies before the Fed are still present, but as far as the Fed committee is concerned there is no politicking or points scoring going on amongst the members - or collectively against ANYONE else.
Maybe there is a political power struggle to come down the line for control of the Fed itself , who knows - but its likely to be long after both me and the current committee have finished with our stint of helping push it along, so right now I can assure that as far as Im aware we all just try to keep working together to do the right thing - no time for politics!
Sorry if Im spoon feeding some with old info but thought I want to give my views on this subject and it involves a little background info to demonstrate my point.
Basically paintball is a very young activity, it has been in existence only around 25 years.
With the exception of the great work the UKPSF has done in representing the Paintball SITE side of the industry, in the UK the REST of paintball has been completely unregulated and has essentially developed naturally as a complete commercial free-for-all.
This, as those with more than a couple of years in UK paintball under their belt will know, has led to a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the UK Tourney scene. There have been many tournament series started and grown to a decent size over the years - think PA, Midland Masters etc in recent years but we can go as far back as the 90s and look at HCL, NPPS and others (at one time the NPPS in particular had 80-100 10MAN teams playing every month!). So what happened to these series and why does it matter now that we have CPPS and NSPL?
Well, those involved in the Fed believe that these series were all victims essentially of the same problems to one extent or another - a complete lack of any centralised regulation, or even standardisation of rules, costs, safety procedures, basic facilities, reffing standards, coaching/teaching standards, player/team classification. There is NO year on year "ranking" or yardstick for a team to judge their progress nationally, no "official" nationwide league structure, and no requirement for a team to actually commit to anything in order to recieve bona-fide status as a registered team! - consider these facts and compare them to pretty much ANY other sport or hobby you have had experience of, and you will see they are dealt with by a NATIONAL BODY which essentially sets/controls/advises on all of the above points!
In paintball we have left this to the likes of Rich & Mark at CPPS, Chris Pelling at NSPL, Wendy at the Masters, Gillie and Hatts with the PA, and others before them all to essentially run things however they feel they can balance the best interests of the player, teams, event sponsors, and UK paintball in general, with the simple economic truths of running a business. With the best will in the world none of them have been, or will be able (or want to Im sure) to become a National Body able to deal with all the issues previously mentioned.
So far I hope Ive shown the case that it is in every ballers interest to support the requirement for a National Body.. now for the contentious bit which is the first place politics COULD raise its head..
1.WHO should be in charge of a National Body?
2.How do we get from our current situation to one which puts us on a par with other activities -who do have the neccessary structure in place to be a proper "grown-up" sport?
These are the questions I personally agonised over for a long time before sticking my head above the parapet to raise this issue with the industry big-wigs at the end of 2008.
Well, rightly or wrongly, I felt then, and do now, that the main starting point was to see if there was a cencensus of opinion on the matter from the main UK industry companies ie the guys whose livelyhood is directly affected by the rise or fall in the number of ballers out there! I discussed this with a few people including Ledz, Robbo and Jon Payne and everyone agreed that the only way we could get the ball rolling in the right direction was if we get close to universal support from the whole industry and so a list was drawn up which at the time consisted of..
Retailers..
BZ
JUST
LIPS
PHEONIX
WARPED
Distributors..
KEE
MANIC
JCS
Manufacturers..
ANGEL/WDP
DYE
JT
PLANET
SMART PARTS
Web
P8NTBALLER
In hindsight maybe it should have been even more inclusive, but it certainly wasnt in any way deliberatly exclusive at the time, just who it was felt had the most to lose from the tourny scenes malaise! Most opinions were that, because of the way we had progressed as a dog eat dog industry, it would be impossible to get anything near pan-industry support for ANYTHING - never mind a new Federation/National Body !
All of the above companies were invited to send representatives to an exploratory meeting. Most did so and we had a very frank and open discussion with many viewpoints but one thing became clear.. EVERYONE agreed that our current situ was unnacceptable and that our existing purely commercial free for all model was not bringing sustainable growth! Everyone knew tourny player numbers had plummeted, the PA had just folded, and it wasnt a great start to the year for any of the other tournament promoters out there - it was felt that there was wide enough industry representation right there and then to legitimately claim to be representative - and so the Fed was born !
Of the original bunch Smart Parts showed support but were unable to send anyone to meetings (I guess now we know why), Angel/WDP came to one meeting and had a strong view that it was primarily the tournament Format which was wrong, but unfortunatly chose not to come to any meetings since (but the door has never been closed), and DYE sent representation in the form of Tommy Pemberton before pulling out a few months later - for reasons, as far as Im aware, were not to do with lack of support for the concept or work of the Fed as an organisation - Im sure this has political fallout somewhere in the equation but I personally remain hopefull that Dye are not unsupportive of the need for the Fed, and that someday both WDP and Dye, will again take an active role in the Fed.
ALL of the other companies above still have representation at the Fed, and this year we have added Trevor Kent from H-PAC and thankfully (as I think its imperative if we are to succeed) Steve Bull (UKPSF) is now an active Fed committee member - the work of the two organisations is complimentary and our visions for the future continue to converge.
Whatever the future brings for our game it will never grow to become anything like a mainstream sport without centralised vision, regulation, and development of some kind. Now we have the Fed, if you dont like it please get involved in the debate and tell us what you think this body should look like.
The work of the Fed so far has been mainly about bringing in the first stages of some form of regulation. By creating a defined list of basic criterion for events, player registration, and by jointly supporting (as companies) specific event series who have the balls and vision to have a go with us, we hope to take the first small steps towards the future.
Next up we have the politics over the situation with the UK Masters Series. Lots has already been written about this and I dont want to stir anything up. My own view is quite simply that Wendy was not convinced (because of her character,our failure to communicate views properly, or a combination) that the potential short term loss of some control and requirement to conform to someone elses imposed views, did not outweigh the longer term potential advantages. And so a commercial decision was made by UK Masters (to run a southern series against the feds wishes) and as a result a strategic decision was made by the Fed to switch the sanctioning for the northern series to CPPS. So not difficult to see where there might be politics in that one but I can assure you no-one in the Fed now gives it a 2nd thought as we have little enough time to deal with running our respective businesses and giving what time we can to the Fed.
With regards the Fed Cup - at this stage it is simply a tool to demonstrate that we can work together, as an organisation and in partnership with tournament promoters, and to show that it is possible to have a SUSTAINABLE annual domestic event - (like the FA Cup has been suggested on another thread). The fact that it has run twice now and has been administered on behalf of the Fed by two different event organisers and at two different venues is another small step in itself. The plan is there WILL be a Fed Cup next year, there will be a Fed Cup EVERY year from now on. The vision is that it should eventually include all teams who play sanctioned events (and needs to be cheap enough for them to do so), it should give more and more away every year until one day it wont be cases of paint as prizes for the best in each division but maybe entries paid for (by the Fed) to the next years sanctioned domestic series or grants/sonsorship/expenses? for UK teams to move onward to the European or World Class level?
Hopefully everyone can see that we have to do SOMETHING to move the game in the right direction?
So whatever you feel are the pros and cons of the Fed or the Fed Cup, and wherever you fit into "the politics" please try and keep one eye on the future enjoyed by other sports..
Proper player registration?
real UK rankings?
standardised training centres with qualified coaches?
bouyant successful independant tournament series working to agreed standards - bulging at the seams with 100+ teams a month each (created and supported by a successful industry)?
true measured progression for players and teams - all the way to fully paid professional standard?.
It is achievable, so many others have done it!!!! - but no-one has a magic wand so it cant be done instantly. Along the way I guess there will be politics. Whatever old wounds were present between individuals or specific companies before the Fed are still present, but as far as the Fed committee is concerned there is no politicking or points scoring going on amongst the members - or collectively against ANYONE else.
Maybe there is a political power struggle to come down the line for control of the Fed itself , who knows - but its likely to be long after both me and the current committee have finished with our stint of helping push it along, so right now I can assure that as far as Im aware we all just try to keep working together to do the right thing - no time for politics!