Careful what you wish for Brad, you might get it!

Good suggestion on the consolidation Bill. There are a lot of things that come up and sometimes it is hard to sift through it all and tell what is serious and what is Disc Golf Wars Episode IV. I'll see if I can distill what people have seriously suggested here so far sometime this weekend.

if the tags are not the answer, then the Champs. would seem to be...as long as absent-voters have a chance, if needed. (Holy Cow!! Agreein' w/Bud again?!?!?) Griff

If this is a tournament series and in order to be on the "Board for the tournament series" you need to be voted for, then I still think the players who make the tournament series up (all of us) should be allowed to vote.

There are some players that will play in tournaments that will not play in any of the championships, so Bud, your option would not work. Lack of time or quality of play does not diminish the interest that some people have for SN.

Here I sit, reading these last few posts since my last post and smile. To see the opinions of how Board Members should be appointed gives insight to how difficult some issues can be for the Board. Each opinion has true, honest merit and answers the concerns of some players. Yet each opinion of how Board Members are selected lacks some fairness or objectivity of other players.

How many players wish upon themselves the responsibility of being a Board Member?

Matt, I will appreciate your efforts to consolidate all the suggestions for the means of Board Member Selection.

Please include mine in your list. To restate, it is:
If someone wants to serve on the Board let them step forward and declare. The current Board members were selected by a criteria of experience, demonstrated dedication, and some consideration to region. Those that declare interest can lobby the Board, tournaments and the Forum. The tone of the players will show who they can see not leading them but rather who can lead the Southern National Tournament Series to be the best it can be. Who will support the Southern National's tradition and dedication to being inclusive of all players, and the play and promotion of disc golf. The Board would then make the appointment. Is it fair? No...are any suggestions so far fair and keeping in what the Southern National is? No...Each and every suggestion has it's merit and fault as seen by one player or another. Most suggestions I've seen have elements of restriction. A player has to do something or they can't be involved. They have to buy a tag, they have to play a championship, or they have to pay a fee or else they can't participate. I fall back on the best attribute of the Southern National. It is inclusive of all players without mandates. All that is asked of the players of the Southern National is that they have fun playing disc golf.

Matt, if you need to, see if you can recruit some help to sift through the Forum.

Now it's going on 2:00am and I have to leave for Shreveport in the morning.

Bill Trousdale

FUN..... wow how profound. That is indeed what it is supposed to be about.

Exceleent points and well said, Bill. Griff

I admire Bill's altruism.

I am not a naysayer by habit, but I would like to throw another log on the fire ...

This utopian SN experience we are describing here is all well and good. Certainly in the abstract there can be little wrong with everyone having fun, fun, fun 'til my lady takes my Firebird away.

As I have stated previously, I am a relative newcomer to the land of SN. I came from Virginia where I was as active a disc golf participant as I am here. Virginia had (perhaps still has) no ties to SN. All competitive roads there led to PDGA-sanctioned tournaments. Regional clubs like Mid Atlantic Disc Club fill the gap that SN fills here, sponsoring a great slate of regional tournaments in conjunction with local clubs.

Now in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama (argueably the cradle of SN) between now and June 1 there are 15 SN 1- and 2-day tournaments within reasonable driving range (5 hours is my limit unless we are talking Bud Hill). Over the same period there are only 3 PDGA tournaments ... all of them in Alabama ... all of them also SN tournaments. Between now and next March 15 there are but five ... the other two being our SN championship and Magic City in Birmingham.

My first point, (and perhaps it is really a question) is that SN seems to have filled the need that regional clubs like MADC have filled elsewhere. But here in the deep South, there seems to have been a direct and noticeable break from the PDGA ... Was this intentional? The result of bad blood? Empty wallets? Conflicting priorities?

Regardless, the SN tournament series now holds as effective a monopoly in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama as the PDGA holds elsewhere. Simply put, if you are a competitive disc golfer - if your idea of fun is knocking heads against the best for cold hard cash and bragging rights and players ratings - then you are either stuck with SN or with nine to 10-hour drives.

Are there such golfers, for whom teeth-baring, trash-talking competition is as good as it gets ... know any disc golfers in your town that fit that description.

Sure we have gained a feel-good, everyone-in-the-pool happy family environment. But the very openess and inclusiveness of SN is also a potential Achilles heel competitively. What happened at the last SN pro championship when a traincar load of Florida golfers showed up having qualified by playing in one tournament each and walked off with most of the trophies and a good bit of the money. It was a bit like watching wolves among sheep. I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the train compartment headed home listening to that celebration.

If the real idea is just to include everyone and have fun and everyone is down with that, why do we even charge money and offer prizes for good performances?

Well, mostly 'cuz that's the way it's done. It ain't just about fun ... it's about trying to keep the fun in competition.

SN has grown by leaps and bounds just in the few years I have been here. I can guarantee that this year in Poplarville we will see another version of the Baton Rouge Massacre with PDGA pros swooping in and picking up a lot of the prizes.

Makes one wonder about the structure of the championships and the requirements for qualifying and how points are awarded and if membership is really a four-letter word and what's wrong with a championship won over the whole season?

I want you to understand, if you have worked your way through this disjointed rambling, that I am not attempting to argue for or agin' anything in particular ... like Bill, I am much more interested in creating and sustaining the type of dialogue that will lead the people who care to the best decisions possible.

Chris

Good Points, Chris. There are two PDGA tournaments in LA this year, the LA open in BR and the Sport city Challenge here in Shreveport.

Jamie,

You might want to get them on the PDGA calendar. They don't show up when I do a state by state search its website.

Chris

Executive Summary of suggestions (for the unabridged discussion read the entire thread) I have a digest version in a word document that leaves out the bologna if anyone wants it I'll email it. It runs 14 pages. (Y'all are some verbose individuals)

I tried to capture the essence of each suggestion. I am not endorsing them, just restating them as clearly as I can. I apologize if I misrepresented anyone’s point. Feel free to correct me.

I left out suggestions for teh website if I didnot think they were board related

1. There should be set payout schedules consistent across all SN events or at least a suggested payout schedule.

2. We should not post tournament results until the SN fees are paid from the tournament. Others felt timely results are more important, bottom line we need to have one address/person (John K) to send fees to and perhaps a goal of a timeframe to get them in.

3. For Major events someone (other than the TD) should be given the responsibility of setting up the courses for play, marking, T-signs, maps etc. This person should be given a complementary entry to the tournament for their efforts. Added suggestion that a committee be set up to ensure the championship courses have the appropriate difficulty/set-up for pros and ams

4. $.50 of the $2 SN fee should be kept back and added to SN tournaments in later years.

5. There should be set entry fees consistent across all SN events. Several players argued against this suggestion as impractical.

6. SN “Commissioners” should have a quarterly meeting with TDs at their course. (May be talking about the courses use for the championships)

7. A “club challenge” based on points in SN events should be explored for friendly competition between cities. (This topic has its own thread)
a. Leading city in points should host championships.
b. Leading city in points should not host championships, it should rotate.

8. The championships serve as the culmination of the Southern National tournament year and points should be awarded for the championships.

9. Board meeting notes should be posted on the website.

10. SN should designate a discreet set of divisions to be offered. (PDGA has dropped intermediate masters) The divisions would still be at the TD’s discretion. PDGA divisions would apply to dual sanctioned events.

11. Doubles tournament money or a portion of it should go to the doubles championship.

12. Should SN consider different “tiered events” given the growing difficulty of scheduling all SN events in the 52 weeks available.

13. A number of suggestions were posted concerning how to select new board members. A suggestion was made to make the terms 2 years and stagger them for some continuity from year to year. The selection suggestions were in no particular order:
a. The same way the original members were selected (Jim in consultation with other leaders in the SN community)
b. A vote of all bag tag holders (make this a perk of bag tag ownership)
c. A vote of all players at the SN championships
d. A vote of all SN players (anyone who plays in SN tournament, TDs give out paper ballots)
e. Do voting online if possible.
f. Create a “membership” that confers the right to vote.
g. Add some exclusions (TDs etc) for the bag tag rule.
h. Make it a regional vote or selection for a representative of that region.


14. SN board members should have web access in order to function as board members.

15. It seems some Florida Pros poached a lot of prizes at the championships after playing only one SN tournament.

I can't believe I am going to say this, but I think it must be said....WE ARE NOT a protectionist organization trying to "guard turf" to the exclusion of others.

I DO FEEL we should develop easy but sensible requiremets for how to become a SN "series" event...that may solve the "poached" issue...

As I recall, that tourney which indeed was a SN qualifier did not not have very much advance notice(of its SN series inclusion) and was a considerable drive for almost all "regular" series golfers to attend--had they even known the tourney was going to be an SN event...

BUT, the fact that those golfers traveled, attended, and won at the Championships really should not be an issue at all. They played a SN tourney, traveled to the Champs. and won....'nuf said!

THE ISSUE RESTS WITHIN THE TIME, PLACE, AND MANNER THAT THE FL. TOURNEY BECAME A SN QUALIFIER....the bottom line is that it was a qualifier, so the rest speaks for itself. I would imagine that the feelings of "poached prizes" is legitimate in some respects....HOWEVER, imho, IF we want to "see where the series can take us" in terms of growth and competition, then the "poachin' players" are a creation of the beast itself.

Unless the Board sees fit to make it a multiple tourney participation requirement with a certain amount of advancved notice of said inclusion in the series for the players(in order to be eligible for the Champs.), then everyone worried about who else is playing and how well they play simply needs to practice more so that in the future the core SN'ers will be up to the "poacher's" challenge.

Respectfully submitted, and again, imho, Griff

I know that this is a suggestion box...so I will make this short. Florida players "poaching" is sour grapes. They played in SN Tournament, one that sends a lot of money to the SN's. They qualified. Period.

So not to get off topic, my suggestion is to leave well enough alone and don't make a lot of rules and regulations like the one
s that Matt has compiled.

1. You want a SN Tourney? Ask ahead of time then, send $2 per player.
2. Anyone who plays in a SN Tourney can play the Finals.
3. All rules played by PDGA standard rules.

There's your SN book. I am still willing to become Southern National Dictat....err...Ruler.

Brad

Brad,

What I compiled was other peoples' suggestions. Quite frankly I think 90% of them are pretty loopy but I'm not on the board so I don't have to deal with it.

I agree with Griff about being up to the challenge. If you don't like someone poaching on your turf, practice more and kick their tails back where they came from.

Personally I only like my eggs poached, you can really ruin perfectly good salmon that way.

I know our tournament(sport City Challenge) is sanctioned. We are listed in the latest DGWN on Jul 17-18. I don't know if they've set a date for the LA Open yet, but it has been sanctioned the last 2 years.

Matt, I knew you were compiling people's ideas. No way I would think that you thought all those nutters up. ;)

Brad for Southern National Disctator

My Running Platform:

1. All Doubles Tournament Money goes to Doubles Championship

2. The Treasurer's Freaking Address is put up on the front page of the SN Site.

3. Tourney results listed as soon as they happen...but they are clearly Marked in the Results Section as which Tournaments has had money sent in and which has NOT.

4. One person is assigned to Bag Tags and Fund Raiser Discs. ( Either this is the Treasurer or they work CLOSE together. ) If I buy and sell 300 Bag Tags...I wanna know where that $6000 is. Same thing with Fund Raiser Discs.

5. All Bag Tags have a card attached for the person buying the tag to fill out. Name...Address...E-Mail Address...Phone Number. Card is turned into Bag Tag person.

6. Brand New Tournaments in Tournament Series pay $3 a head. If they do it the next year, reverts to $2 a head.

7. Southern National Championship's...PRO's...AM's...Doubles..Have Ad Placed in Disc Golf World News...paid for by Southern National.

8. Close Ties maintained with U.S. Disc Golf Championship and Lobbying done to get more Tournaments rewarded as qualifiers. E.G. Southern National Championship Top 5 qualify...Memphis Dogwood Classic...1st place qualifies...Halloween Howler...1st Place qualifies. Couldn't hurt to ask nor Lobby.

9. Lobbying done to the U.S. Open to reward the Southern National Points Champion with a U.S. Open Automatic bid and the Southern National's Pays for the entry.

10. Southern National's Pay for the entry to the U.S. Open of the First Place Southern National Champion...ONLY if he has played in at least 5 Southern National Tournaments.

11. Bonus Points Rewarded to Top 5 Finishers of Tournaments that draw over 30 to a Division. Example: Memphis has 30 Pro's.... Top 5 finishers get the points they were always going to get...PLUS 1st place gets 10 bonus points...2nd place 8...3rd place...6...4th place...4...and 5th place 2 bonus points. THUS rewarding guys doing well against a lot of competition.

12. Any Tournament charging over $35 or more for any AM Division required to have Plaques or Trophies for Top 3 finishers. Same with PRO Division's charging $45 or more.

13. Lifetime Position to Brad as Southern National Disctator. When people greet him they do a putting salute and say" Brad the Merciless Welcome" !



Ahhh.....now that felt good. THERE are some suggestions you can ponder over. Throw out all the others.

"So let it be written....so let it be done."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2004 09:13PM by .

Brad the Merciless has my vote! (if I had one anyway)

Brad, I could never vote for you. Sorry. ;OP

I am leaving Louisiana in the morning and returning to North Little Rock. I jumped on to see what posts there have been since my post last week. I have never seen such constructive discussion on the Forums. This is great! I did have a comment about Chris asking about PDGA vs SNDG tournaments in the "south".There was a riff in the hierarchy of discdom years ago that led to where we are today. One was when I was PDGA Regional Representative over LA, TX, OK, KS, MS, and AR. Texas and Okalahoma were the disc golf meca of central US. John Houck was at the beginning of his promotion of disc golf in Texas. Oklahoma was already on its way with more courses than most. Together they were formidable. This power house seperated from the PDGA. I can only summise that the south seemed to follow but without the representation, with the exception of ALABAMA. Subsequently from this vacuum came the SNDG. Since times gone by, Texas and Oklahoma have become active in the PDGA again.


I would say build it and they will come. All it takes is an individual who wants it. It takes work, promotion, foot work. All a person has to do is contact the PDGA and submit a form to host a sanctioned PDGA tournament. True, thier requirements are a bit stiffer than the SNDG but they are and have earned the title of Professional Disc Golf Association, the operative word being Professional.

Brad, you've got my vote too. Matt, you did a great job collecting suggestions from the Forum. I would suggest to the Board that we get serious and put together Steering Committees addressing the different General Topics. Get these suggestions down to a consolidated referendum or two that then can be presented to the Board with the Steering Committee's opinion and suggestions.

Ya'll are doing great!! I'm confident the SN is going to be stronger and live long with the dedication of the players seen here on the Forums.

Bill Trousdale

Brad - the treasurer's address is now included in the new "tournament application" link on the front page.....

> 1. All Doubles Tournament Money goes to Doubles
> Championship

Valid request.

> 4. One person is assigned to Bag Tags and Fund
> Raiser Discs. ( Either this is the Treasurer or
> they work CLOSE together. ) If I buy and sell 300
> Bag Tags...I wanna know where that $6000 is. Same
> thing with Fund Raiser Discs.

That all comes down to trust.

> 6. Brand New Tournaments in Tournament Series pay
> $3 a head. If they do it the next year, reverts to
> $2 a head.

That is just silly. Especially for TDs that have run other events.

> 11. Bonus Points Rewarded to Top 5 Finishers of
> Tournaments that draw over 30 to a Division.
> Example: Memphis has 30 Pro's.... Top 5 finishers
> get the points they were always going to
> get...PLUS 1st place gets 10 bonus points...2nd
> place 8...3rd place...6...4th place...4...and 5th
> place 2 bonus points. THUS rewarding guys doing
> well against a lot of competition.

This sounds more like my score system I created in the stats area.

Brad will occasionally throw a good idea out there, you just have to sift through all the posts :)

Brian - thanks for putting up the tournament application link. Whenever I send Brian a question or request it's always responded to quickly, and it is appreciated. You wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't for you...

Thanks
John k

Brian ignored like 8 of my suggestions! I can only assume that means he loved them dearly.

Disctator Brad

p.s. Losing Zinger's endorsement just helped my campaign tremendously. ;)

Let's practice, shall we?

Brad, the birdie-less, welcome to Mobile ...

> Brian ignored like 8 of my suggestions! I can only
> assume that means he loved them dearly.

Just means have no opinion.

I have just seen the usefulness of SNDG player numbers. My name appears twice in the stats section as Robert Cassell and Rob Cassell. I'm either in 46th place, 56th place or (as it should be - combined) tied for 19-21st. Quite a difference... Unique player numbers would fix that.

-Robert Cassell

A couple of us were talking the other day and had a suggestion of maybe having a SN "reporter" and maybe trying to get some SN coverage in the DGWN. They cover the Eurotour, Fab Florida, etc. Just a suggestion. Peace