This is again a post answering a lot of other posts, and I will apologise in advance, I find this is a way for me to clear my mind, and heaven knows what’s in here.
First of all, to some people welcome to planet earth, we are finally realizing that we don't have an over abundance of open scratch bowlers, with open pockets and an unlimited expense account.
I am disappointed but not surprised the Sydney Cup was cancelled. I think the answer is that we have too many tournaments clashing or too close to each other as someone else mentioned in another post, many other reasons are there I’m sure. Although I don’t participate in tournaments anymore I am still aware of what is around, the Sydney Cup certainly was not in my face often enough for me to notice it much, many others might feel different. I did get some entry forms in the last couple of weeks and I had them in my proshop.
However, it is the most regrettable thing a TD has to do is cancel a tournament, I have been part of that situation a few times myself, but if the numbers or interest isn’t there financially it becomes a disaster for the organisers and the sponsors, not mentioning the bowlers who have spent money to travel. It is also very difficult to run a tournament without numbers, you always have the problem of none of them turning up knowing the prize money is going to be slashed.
I see the blame lies with many of the bowlers themselves, as competitive bowlers you should all be setting your goals early, knowing what and where you will be bowling in throughout the year, this way you can budget for the event. If a tournament doesn’t get enough response during the 5 to 6 weeks before the event, then the TD can make a decision on how to get more interest happening, ring around or send emails or letters etc, nothing worse than throwing a party and there’s no-one there.
Bowlers need to decide as to what tournaments they want to participate in during a given year; the calendar is out with plenty of notice for 2003 already. Make sure you enter the event with plenty of time to spare, not a few days before like many do. Let them know of your intentions early, don’t make them guess if your coming or not, there’s nothing worse than hoping a bowler rings the night before to enter, or worse still cancel from the event. The organisers of these tournaments put a lot of effort into these events, and all the bowlers who are good enough or can afford it should support them.
I can speak for Victoria, where some tournaments major and minor in the state were a huge success this year, and some were not so successful. There was a couple of tournaments that have been cancelled because of a lack of interest, maybe it was the wrong day to have it, they didn’t get the right format, the cost, or they didn’t promote the tournament early enough.
I believe we can learn from our mistakes, and the past is the best place to look. Since the 60’s, Victoria had the premier tournament organization in the country the APBA, VCBA and ATBA (same organization). We saw the declining numbers at our tournaments and eventually saw the writing on the wall and had to do something about it, we had many of our bowlers growing tired and older, and had to move on, some were with the ATBA for 20 years or more. Reasons for the decline are many, but I think the biggest problem arose from the lack of bowlers coming up the ranks, and the fact that we as a bowling community created too big a void (15-30 pins) between the restricted/graded bowler and the true open bowler. This is still true now, just look at the difference between Walter DeVeer and Rachuig.
So a couple of years ago we regretfully went into hiatus and told our remaining members that we will not have a membership base for a few years, until we can build it up again. We knew that we needed to build our open bowler base and nurture our youth bowlers, this is done by coaching, creating tournaments that involve everyone and not just scratch bowlers, speaking to the centres that care and want tournaments on weekends, building a repour with administrators, bowlers, mums and dads and anyone interested.
The ATBA is now three committee members that help out with tournaments whenever we can, Ian Nicholls is the most recognisable amongst us, the others are in the background talking, organising, nurturing, building, coaching, or just helping find answers as to how we can get more bowlers to tournaments. We don’t do it for money, Ian works for accommodation and meals when he travels, and the rest of us tag along. An important thing to mention is that we have NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST when we run these tournaments, we don’t usually bowl in them ourselves, we run them for the bowlers and we make them welcome.
We all communicate with other almost daily about the next event, the Warrnambool Cup for instance we have been promoting since June, entry forms were out soon after and on websites in July, the event has been full with a month to go and with less than four interstate bowlers, the sponsor Neville Vagg has been sponsoring this event and the Colac Cup for 21 years now, he graciously donates $6000.00 into this tournament for absolutely no reward other than the fact he enjoys bowling. Neville is truly a remarkable man, and we all do our best to make sure everyone gets to Warrnambool each year. We put just as much effort into the Melbourne Tenpin Cup and other events we have been involved in, we try and support all events by posting them on our websites, and giving them some exposure, all fortunately have been successful so far.
Obviously there is a formula for creating good tournaments, I’m not sure what we are doing specifically, but I think it is a combination of many things, I don’t think we are there yet, but I think we are getting there.
Another thing that can help is as a bowling community, we need to work together and not against each other. There have been too many instances of tournaments clashing with each other, centres being sent entry forms and they end up in the bin, I personally put up any entry form I can on my own website, and link to many others that do also, besides we are all striving to reach the same goals are we not.
It doesn’t matter whether you are AMF, Goldpin or any other centre running a tournament, bowlers come from everywhere to bowl, provide a service to them by letting them know about the event.
Ideally there would only be a few major tournaments each year, most of the majors are more suitable for the men, when possible have incentives for the women to compete against the men. Women can still have separate tournaments.
Men: South Australian Cup - Queensland Open - Australian Open - Perth Cup or West Australian Open - Melbourne Tenpin Cup - South Pacific Classic – NSW Open - Brunswick Australia Cup.
Ladies: Adelaide Ladies Cup – Vic 150 – Queensland Ladies Classic – NSW Open – South Pacific Classic.
Youth: This group have so many to choose from in each state that they inevitably bowl in these and also adult tournaments as well, this is generally a low-income group that needs to budget to go to events.
The formats for these major tournaments should be formats that are at least 14 – 16 games qualifying and involve a match play section, the bowler that wins is the best. I don’t believe that major tournaments anywhere else in the world are any different; the AMF World Cup is a prime example of a format that doesn’t always end up with the best bowler at the end. The majors in tennis are all best of 5 sets for the men, they should also be the same for the ladies, all major golf tournaments involve at least 72 holes to be played.
The rest of the tournaments should be minor tournaments that build toward the majors, e.g free entry into the X Cup or Open can be one of the prizes; they should be one-day tournaments with low entry fees and smaller prize funds. All bowlers should be encouraged to participate, especially locals.
Coaches all over the country should be encouraging their bowlers to try bowling in these local or minor tournaments for experience; it wasn’t many years ago that bowlers bowled for the enjoyment of competing. Bowling centre managers need to help out when they can, in distributing entry forms or information to their better bowlers. When using handicaps they should be re-graded according to skill, to make the playing field more level
The one thing I have been saying for years is that OPEN BOWLERS DO NOT GROW ON TREES, they need to be created, taught and nurtured. Coaches do that and not lane conditions. But we cannot do it alone, we need some help. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have an ideal bowlers world.
Sorry for the long post, just as well I deleted some paragraphs.
Regards,
Patrick Birtig
First of all, to some people welcome to planet earth, we are finally realizing that we don't have an over abundance of open scratch bowlers, with open pockets and an unlimited expense account.
I am disappointed but not surprised the Sydney Cup was cancelled. I think the answer is that we have too many tournaments clashing or too close to each other as someone else mentioned in another post, many other reasons are there I’m sure. Although I don’t participate in tournaments anymore I am still aware of what is around, the Sydney Cup certainly was not in my face often enough for me to notice it much, many others might feel different. I did get some entry forms in the last couple of weeks and I had them in my proshop.
However, it is the most regrettable thing a TD has to do is cancel a tournament, I have been part of that situation a few times myself, but if the numbers or interest isn’t there financially it becomes a disaster for the organisers and the sponsors, not mentioning the bowlers who have spent money to travel. It is also very difficult to run a tournament without numbers, you always have the problem of none of them turning up knowing the prize money is going to be slashed.
I see the blame lies with many of the bowlers themselves, as competitive bowlers you should all be setting your goals early, knowing what and where you will be bowling in throughout the year, this way you can budget for the event. If a tournament doesn’t get enough response during the 5 to 6 weeks before the event, then the TD can make a decision on how to get more interest happening, ring around or send emails or letters etc, nothing worse than throwing a party and there’s no-one there.
Bowlers need to decide as to what tournaments they want to participate in during a given year; the calendar is out with plenty of notice for 2003 already. Make sure you enter the event with plenty of time to spare, not a few days before like many do. Let them know of your intentions early, don’t make them guess if your coming or not, there’s nothing worse than hoping a bowler rings the night before to enter, or worse still cancel from the event. The organisers of these tournaments put a lot of effort into these events, and all the bowlers who are good enough or can afford it should support them.
I can speak for Victoria, where some tournaments major and minor in the state were a huge success this year, and some were not so successful. There was a couple of tournaments that have been cancelled because of a lack of interest, maybe it was the wrong day to have it, they didn’t get the right format, the cost, or they didn’t promote the tournament early enough.
I believe we can learn from our mistakes, and the past is the best place to look. Since the 60’s, Victoria had the premier tournament organization in the country the APBA, VCBA and ATBA (same organization). We saw the declining numbers at our tournaments and eventually saw the writing on the wall and had to do something about it, we had many of our bowlers growing tired and older, and had to move on, some were with the ATBA for 20 years or more. Reasons for the decline are many, but I think the biggest problem arose from the lack of bowlers coming up the ranks, and the fact that we as a bowling community created too big a void (15-30 pins) between the restricted/graded bowler and the true open bowler. This is still true now, just look at the difference between Walter DeVeer and Rachuig.
So a couple of years ago we regretfully went into hiatus and told our remaining members that we will not have a membership base for a few years, until we can build it up again. We knew that we needed to build our open bowler base and nurture our youth bowlers, this is done by coaching, creating tournaments that involve everyone and not just scratch bowlers, speaking to the centres that care and want tournaments on weekends, building a repour with administrators, bowlers, mums and dads and anyone interested.
The ATBA is now three committee members that help out with tournaments whenever we can, Ian Nicholls is the most recognisable amongst us, the others are in the background talking, organising, nurturing, building, coaching, or just helping find answers as to how we can get more bowlers to tournaments. We don’t do it for money, Ian works for accommodation and meals when he travels, and the rest of us tag along. An important thing to mention is that we have NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST when we run these tournaments, we don’t usually bowl in them ourselves, we run them for the bowlers and we make them welcome.
We all communicate with other almost daily about the next event, the Warrnambool Cup for instance we have been promoting since June, entry forms were out soon after and on websites in July, the event has been full with a month to go and with less than four interstate bowlers, the sponsor Neville Vagg has been sponsoring this event and the Colac Cup for 21 years now, he graciously donates $6000.00 into this tournament for absolutely no reward other than the fact he enjoys bowling. Neville is truly a remarkable man, and we all do our best to make sure everyone gets to Warrnambool each year. We put just as much effort into the Melbourne Tenpin Cup and other events we have been involved in, we try and support all events by posting them on our websites, and giving them some exposure, all fortunately have been successful so far.
Obviously there is a formula for creating good tournaments, I’m not sure what we are doing specifically, but I think it is a combination of many things, I don’t think we are there yet, but I think we are getting there.
Another thing that can help is as a bowling community, we need to work together and not against each other. There have been too many instances of tournaments clashing with each other, centres being sent entry forms and they end up in the bin, I personally put up any entry form I can on my own website, and link to many others that do also, besides we are all striving to reach the same goals are we not.
It doesn’t matter whether you are AMF, Goldpin or any other centre running a tournament, bowlers come from everywhere to bowl, provide a service to them by letting them know about the event.
Ideally there would only be a few major tournaments each year, most of the majors are more suitable for the men, when possible have incentives for the women to compete against the men. Women can still have separate tournaments.
Men: South Australian Cup - Queensland Open - Australian Open - Perth Cup or West Australian Open - Melbourne Tenpin Cup - South Pacific Classic – NSW Open - Brunswick Australia Cup.
Ladies: Adelaide Ladies Cup – Vic 150 – Queensland Ladies Classic – NSW Open – South Pacific Classic.
Youth: This group have so many to choose from in each state that they inevitably bowl in these and also adult tournaments as well, this is generally a low-income group that needs to budget to go to events.
The formats for these major tournaments should be formats that are at least 14 – 16 games qualifying and involve a match play section, the bowler that wins is the best. I don’t believe that major tournaments anywhere else in the world are any different; the AMF World Cup is a prime example of a format that doesn’t always end up with the best bowler at the end. The majors in tennis are all best of 5 sets for the men, they should also be the same for the ladies, all major golf tournaments involve at least 72 holes to be played.
The rest of the tournaments should be minor tournaments that build toward the majors, e.g free entry into the X Cup or Open can be one of the prizes; they should be one-day tournaments with low entry fees and smaller prize funds. All bowlers should be encouraged to participate, especially locals.
Coaches all over the country should be encouraging their bowlers to try bowling in these local or minor tournaments for experience; it wasn’t many years ago that bowlers bowled for the enjoyment of competing. Bowling centre managers need to help out when they can, in distributing entry forms or information to their better bowlers. When using handicaps they should be re-graded according to skill, to make the playing field more level
The one thing I have been saying for years is that OPEN BOWLERS DO NOT GROW ON TREES, they need to be created, taught and nurtured. Coaches do that and not lane conditions. But we cannot do it alone, we need some help. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have an ideal bowlers world.
Sorry for the long post, just as well I deleted some paragraphs.
Regards,
Patrick Birtig
