Deborah Aspland
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Extended seasonI cannot see the reasoning behind extending the season.
Two teams drop out of Division 2 -the second division have a bye to compensate this -the season ends in May as usual.
One team drops out of Division One -the season is extended. The season now ends in June.
Why?
I must say that the committee have made a decision that I am not happy about. Surely decisions like this should not be made without some consultations from the players involved.
It may be that many players are happy with this decision but I am concerned with how it has been made when a bye in Division One would have worked just as well. A extension of the season should be discussed at next year's AGM if the situation remained.
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Andrew Lyman
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Hey-ho!Hi Debby, good to hear from you.
A few points worth noting;
As agreed at AGM, we started league matches on 20th October. One week earlier than normal, two week earlier than in some years.
It's not correct to say that the season would have finished in May - finals night would have been on 6th April. This is a consequence of both fewer matches and a relatively late Easter (E. Monday 20th April 2009)
There's a difference between having a nine-team Division Two and a seven-team division; the difference being that for a nine-team division although each team plays 16 matches, the full 'cycle' takes 18 weeks to complete. Each team has two bye-weeks. With a seven-team league, each team plays only 12 matches over a 14-week cycle; by increasing the number of matches to three per pairing, teams now play 18 matches over a 21-week cycle. Or three weeks longer than in previous seasons.
The main plus that I can see is that it increases the number of matches everyone will play. To play a full season and only play 15 games (12 league, one cup, one plate and one handicap) seemed a little like short-changing the league's members to me. Also, with 18 games and no chance of scoring from passovers, Simon's worst nightmare of the Individual competition ending up as an eight-way tie has less of a chance of happening. The downside of course, is that under a pay-per-game scheme people will play more, and subsequently pay more.
This decision (to have a all-play-all three times) was made by a quorate committee, and I personally spoke to the other two committee members about it last week. Not a word of disagreement was heard from any committee member - apart from Brenda who stated that this would mean the season finished when she was out of the country. But she spends less time in the country that Lewis Hamilton anyway. Seriously, had any of the committee members given me a coherent argument against this, we almost certainly wouldn't have proceeded with it.
If it turns out to be a poor decision, then no doubt it will be a talking point at AGM2009 - and correctly so. The league has a committee to make decisions like this. The only way to ensure that you are involved in every decision the league makes is, of course, to become a member of the committee!
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Deborah Aspland
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Thankyou for your reply Andrew
I still feel that this is a decision that should not have made after the AGM. While I appreciate we have a committee to make decisions I still see this as a change that should not have been made without consulting members and the AGM is the place for this. To my recollections the season has never been extended in such a way. Anyway, I would appreciate this being discussed at the AGM 2009.
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Official Simon
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Extended seasonThere have been a couple of seasons where there were three matches against each team. I can't remember which ones, but there were one or two (honest!).
I also don't agree with the terms "extended" or "extension to the" season and also the term "as usual". The season is simply what it is, there is no "as usual". And we have finished in June on more than one occasion before, of which last season was therefore not the first example. With last season finishing on 2 June this only represents two extra calendar weeks to the season.
The only other I would like to mention is that although you say you don't like this decision, you don't actually say why?
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Andrew Lyman
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| Deborah Aspland wrote: |
...I still feel that this is a decision that should not have made after the AGM. While I appreciate we have a committee to make decisions I still see this as a change that should not have been made without consulting members and the AGM is the place for this... |
At AGM we still had 16 teams. Remember that we hadn't heard officially from Jason and the Chucks, and didn't know about the Lee Brigands. We also had a couple of other teams that had made overtures about joining, and one of our members was going to a club in Normanton the day after the AGM and he hoped that he might persuade them to join... It was quite conceiveable that we could have had eighteen or nineteen teams for week 1.
Once we were down to 14 teams our choices were clear - leave it as is and finish the season on 6th April, or do something about it. Before the season started I saw representatives from three or four teams, all of whom expressed delight that the season was almost upon us. I think that the majority of teams would be delighted that they were having more quiz this season, and that was our motivation for making the season all-play-all-three times (and we're going to have to think of a more elegant way of saying it than that!).
Alternatives? Interdivisional week(s), or, as one team suggested (after the event), collapsing the league to a single division in which all play all? No, I'm happy with the decision that we made and look forward to discussing it at AGM.
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Delilahcat
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I'd just like to say that I was delighted to see the new fixture list. With only 7 teams in the first division it would have felt like a very short season if we only played each other twice. I feel that the committee were trying to give people who enjoy quizzing more of what they enjoy.
Diane
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peterpotato
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I'm siding with Diane on this one too.
Should we be in the same position next season though, with 14 teams in a 2 division league, maybe it would be an idea to have one division of 6 teams, and one of 8. To explain...........
The teams in the division of 6 could play each other 3 times, making 15 games with no bye weeks, and consequently a 15 week league season.
The teams in the division of 8 could play each other twice, making 14 games with no bye weeks, and consequently a 14 week league season.
This would have the effect of foreshortening the league season compared to this current one, but all teams would be playing every week.
Just a thought.
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Official Simon
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ShurrupI do wish you'd shut up about uneven divisions...
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Andrew Lyman
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Good answer, Simon!
and only thirty-two days to think it up..... 
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