uni ultimate... could you please forward to the appropriate person at griffith?

[Megan Barnes]

Uni Ultimate - 2012 and beyond

Hi everyone, I hope this email finds everyone well and you’re not still suffering from PTD. It was great seeing everyone up on the Gold Coast and I had an awesome time myself.
 
I would like to again congratulate Peta McNaughton on her work as the Ultimate Competition manager, as well as a big shout out to the four volunteers who gave up their week, worked hard and cheered on the sidelines!
 
A massive congrats to the winner of The Martin Laird Encouragement Award – Emilia Yap and Kyle Atkins. As well as the inaugural winner of the Martin Laird Achievement Award – Rory Connell.
 
As I said on Friday afternoon, Ultimate has some big decisions to make and I am happy that a number of people put down their emails to help me engage the Universities to make these big decisions.
 
In 2012 all sports will have an 8 team division one and from 2013 qualifying for Division one through regional events will be brought in across all sports.
 
Discussion One – The AFDA can suggest that qualification for Ultimate begins in 2012. The below is the rankings from AUG’s 2011 after relegation/promotion has occurred.
 
Div 1
MON
MELB
UWA
MAC
USYD
AU
UQ
UTS
 
Div 2
LTU
NCLEUNSW
ANU
UBAL
FU
ACPE
QUT
RMIT
CSU
MDU
VU
GU
ECU
BOND
UWS
UNDA
ACU 
 
If we were going to qualification
- division one are secure in that they do not have to qualify to enter….thus division one is set for AUG 2012
- the top two teams in division two also secure their spots for AUG 2012 so they don’t have to qualify, the automatically can go to AUG
- all other teams (from UNSW down to ACU in division two) all have to attend their regional games to qualify for AUG.
- if we are going to qualification, there would only be 10 teams in division two in 2012 and thus 8 vacant spots that are allocated: 2 to north, 2 to east, 2 to south and 1 to west and 1 to central (at this point as the qualification policy stands). http://www.unisport.com.au/InsideAUS/AUS_Event_Guidelines/AUS%20Guideline_Qualificaiton%20for%20participation_final_march2011.pdf
 
So as an example if at the EUG the final results are 1st UTS 2nd UNSW 3rd UWS then UTS don’t get one of the east spots cause they have already qualified, UNSW and UWS would take the two east spots in the final 8 teams that are to be allocated to division two.
 
 
Discussion Two  - AUS are potentially looking to have 3 divisions in the not too distant future. Mixed/Opens/Womens. Initially I thought this was a great step forward, but after a number of discussions with players at AUG’s, I understand that this split has the potential to do more harm than good. However, the discussion should still remain open and I am happy to hear any and all feedback on this.
 
Discussion Three – There is an opportunity to possibly go to three divisions, however this would be Div 1, Div 2 and Div 3. Division One would be 8 teams and division two would be 10 teams with the third division to consist of all other teams who are keen on playing. Div 1 and Div 2 would have a similar amount of games as Div 1 had this year (maximum of 2 a day), and the amount of games for Div 3 would depend on the number of teams registered.
 
If Div 3 were to occur, there could be an opportunity for people who are not playing in the event to attend on behalf of Ultimate to assist with Div 3 as observers/helping new teams with learning/applying the rules.
 
At the moment everything is open for discussion and I encourage you to talk with your teams and then let me know what you think about these things (but please 1 voice per team as I don’t think I could read through hundreds of emails.) Use this as an opportunity to discuss new ideas and give suggestions rather than criticisms with no suggestion on how to fix them.
 
Looking forward to hearing back from you all soon.
 
Jamie Bozza