Chennai Heat 2013 Feedback

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Welcome to the feedback post. Before you proceed, let me warn you that this post is going to be extremely long. Read only if you have time, patience and a sense of responsibility to make India Ultimate better.

Before I begin my criticism, I would like to take a moment to thank every person who was involved in the preparation and execution of Chennai Heat 2013. Its not just the tournament directors, committee members, party organisers or the list of volunteers but everyone else who whose names we did not hear in the “thank you list”. Being close to the organizers of the event, I know that they ran into many problems with sponsorship, especially in the 11^th hour. They had to make some decisions which did give them a bit of headache. Nevertheless, they rolled up their sleeves and worked harder to make the event successful.

Feedback begins. The next few paragraphs are my thoughts. After that, the consolidated feedback follows.

Every tournament in India should have a dedicated team to organize the event. The TD or TD’s, other members and volunteers should not be working for the tournament and playing for a team. It just doesn’t work that way. There have been many instances in the past and also in CH13 where people did not know who the volunteers were or who was keeping time or any damn thing for that matter. This is mainly because players want to run the event and play for their team. Consider this idea – going forward, give the tournament organization to a club. Let them organize the event. They don’t get to play but they get to keep a good percentage of the profits from the tournament. If this is not an option, then you HAVE to create a team that will not play.

We need to have a place called GAME CENTRAL during the tournament. This should be the official desk for all matters related to the tournament. This desk should be manned by volunteers throughout the duration of the tournament. All communications should go from here and every query should be answered from here.

Okay, we divided the tournament feedback into many sections and this is what we have.

Communications

By and large, all communication was done through Facebook which according to many is not the preferred option. The tournament website was hardly used for any form of communication.

Schedule and changes were all communicated within a span of less than 1 week to the tournament. This is totally unacceptable and should be taken seriously by all tournament directors. Going forward, schedules and pools should be released atleast 2 weeks before the tournament.

For urgent and important updates, a smarter form of communication such as SMS or phone calls should be used. The idea is to ensure that players or captains get the message.

Registrations

Registration details should be communicated well in advance. Teams should be instructed to pay to an account number before arriving for the tournament. Only registered teams (read paid money) should be considered for scheduling.

Competition

Every player is attending the tournament for a great experience on the field and I think that the competition format affected many teams.

Seeding and groupings were not effective at all. Sometimes looked very biased and beneficial to some teams. Its not UPAI’s responsibility to manage the seeding but the organizers of Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi (these are the biggest tournaments in India right now), should sit together and come up with a standard ranking system which works for all tournaments.

The number of teams should have been restricted considering that it gets too hot after 9.30am. Many teams did not have games at 9.30am or 3.30pm and some teams had many games at these times. This may not be a bias but the scheduling is sometimes insensitive. By reducing the number of teams, the game time per team could have been significantly increased. Having 3 pick-up teams and not counting scores against them is just ridiculous. Period.

Playing a kid because you don’t have women or you have lesser number of women IS NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I thought the rules had clearly mentioned this and hence I don’t understand why this issue came up in the feedback. Whichever team did this, I am sorry guys, you are not fit to play a tournament. This is such a dispirited act. I cannot accept any BS explanation in this regard.

Everywhere I have played, the teams have 2 time-outs during the entire game and generally time-outs are not given during the last 5 mins or so. And what was this floating time-out I heard about? Who comes up with these ridiculous rules? Apparently time-outs ran for 2-3 minutes. This is why we need assigned volunteers for every game. These volunteers should be responsible to conduct the game, keep time and manage other administrative tasks. We cannot ask someone on the sideline to manage time because no one else did.

Spirit captain and WFDF accreditation was a great move and has been well appreciated by all teams but the organizers should also consider having observers for certain games. People standing in the sidelines have no authority to give opinions. Also the playing teams should ask them to please shut up.

Fields

The fields were not in the best form. Many teams had complaints about glass pieces and stones. Organisers should look to allocate some money to run the sand sifters before the tournament.

Many spectators were very close to the sidelines. Going forward, it may be good to have two lines at a 3 meter separation just to keep the crowd away.

Facilities

All teams were happy with the availability of water, ice, physio and first aid although some teams did not know that the physio was around. Portable toilets would have been a boon for the women.

Merchandise reaching the fields on the last day was such a bad idea. Efforts should have been made to get it on the first day. This all ties up to ensuring that registration is done atleast 2 weeks before the tournament so that the organizers can get everything sorted out much earlier.

For CH2014, we definitely need to provide sunscreen.

Food

This is where the organizers scored a lot. Bananas were good. The next step is hydration fluids. The tie-up with CFG for discount food coupons was an awesome idea. We need more!

Social

No concerns about the party as well. Everyone loved the party for the atmosphere and food. Although a few think that the price was slightly on the higher side, I still think it was a fab effort from the party organizers.

Travel and Acco

Apart from parking problems which are strictly not in our hands there was nothing much.

Overall

Chennai Heat 2013 gets an overall score of 7.8 on 10 which is very good. Can we say that people have been very generous with their scores? Haha. I am not undermining the efforts taken by the organizers but we have a long way to go.

Why do we still have to play 7 on 7 when the international standard for beach ultimate is 5 on 5 with a 3-2 ratio? Choosing this option would give us more fields and shorter games. The number of games per team would increase as well. Sooner, we will be able to have Open and Mixed divisions if we choose 5 on 5. On the other side, with soaring temperatures in the south, next year’s Heat may definitely need a supply of sand socks.