Great idea, we already began some talks about that on pignonfixe.com but it was more about developing a league or something similar in europe. What is the first point of this email, do we have to give our point of view on this page ?
and then... ?
Thanks and take care
European Polo Association discussion, have your say...
The following has been sent to a figure head for all the European polo scenes I have found to date (90 cities in 20 countries). Please join the discussion below and have your say regarding the formation of a European polo body.
You're receiving this email as I have you down as the figure head for your particular polo scene/city. Please let me know if you'd rather it was sent to someone else, or if you'd rather I didn't email you in the future.
Recently the Americans/Canadians formed a governing body for NA Hardcourt polo and it got some people talking about a European equivalent. Here are the main reasons for why this could be a good idea:
- One set of sanctioned rules for all of Europe to use
- Management of the EHBPC country selection process
- Support/advice and (possibly) monetary support for the EHBPC hosts
- Management of the qualification process (and allocation of number of country/city spots) for the EHBPCs
- Creation of further European polo events (including the possibility of regional qualifications for the EHBPCs)
- Creation of a platform for polo players to share ideas/experience and a central resource for polo in Europe
- Further support and promotion of polo across Europe
- A united voice for European polo (currently the NA association swamps any kind of formal setup we have in Europe)
The negatives would possibly be:
- Lots of work for those put in charge
- More bureaucracy within European polo
- The potential for less transparency if things weren't handled openly/carefully
- No support/voice for "undergound" polo, or for smaller cities/countries
This is just the starting point and it's likely that you have your own unique views and thoughts about what's best for European polo, so I'd encourage you to head over to the thread on LOBP and have your say: [link to this thread]
If you'd be so kind as to share this news/starting point with others in your scene/city then we'd be able to ensure that everyone has been considered.
Thanks for your time and hopefully see you on court soon.
"One set of sanctioned rules for all of Europe to use"
Why only for Europe? I think a universal set of rules would be best for all the world, since the pinnacle event is where all the world is present. Let alone polo-tourists.
One set of rules is a nice idea, but currently there is no International body for polo to develop such rules and make those important decisions. The NA association has taken on the management of a set of rules... I suggest Europe does the same (we're pretty much there already).
Ok I also just open a discussion on our french forum : http://www.pignonfixe.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=61189&page=1#Item_1
We were thinking of starting a league in France. But a national league would be too expensive for players (around France) as far as travelling is concerned.
We think, that the easiest way would be to organize tournaments (starting in March-May), a sa purpose to qualify the best french teams for the euros.
Logically, thes same teams, or best french teams listed at the Euros could be qualified for the Worlds. But that's another thing.
Things are improving, this is great news.
If we want things to get serious without being part of the cycling federation, Let's do this on our own and well.
Ready to help out.
What is the first point of this email, do we have to give our point of view on this page ?
It would be great to hear any concerns people may have at this stage.
Also, what are people's views on the idea of regional qualifiers for the EHBPCs in 2012 rather than country/city qualification? Also how would the Euro association come together... one person per country? Does anyone have any legal skills regarding the best approach if we went ahead (association status, for profit, ltd company, etc)? Basically anything and everything is up for discussion at this stage, then I imagine it'd all come together into a few options for people to decide/vote upon, etc.
What is the first point of this email, do we have to give our point of view on this page ?
It would be great to hear any concerns people may have at this stage.
Also, what are people's views on the idea of regional qualifiers for the EHBPCs in 2012 rather than country/city qualification? Also how would the Euro association come together... one person per country? Does anyone have any legal skills regarding the best approach if we went ahead (association status, for profit, ltd company, etc)? Basically anything and everything is up for discussion at this stage, then I imagine it'd all come together into a few options for people to decide/vote upon, etc.
First off, great job Jono.
I think a euro standard is essential, and i don't think this it's mutually exclusive for a world standard, it simply facilitates our input into that process.
I think regional qualis are good so long as there are wildcard stages at EHBPCs to help encourage smaller scenes to compete.
A voluntary associations would probably be best atm with it's own rules and memorandum which would help with transparency as everyone would be able to see whats said at meetings.
Afaik a single european company/legal entity it would be hard/impossible. In the UK Community interest Company (CIC) might be ok, it also means you have access to funding and grants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_interest_company
i think that eeach country should have its representative int eh EU polo association.
i think that eeach country should have its representative int eh EU polo association.
I strongly believe that we can only move forward by assembling together.
Polo is not recognized in most cities as an activity, even less as a sport. A euro body would at least back up existing/emerging communities to develop further.
As the host city of the EHBPC 2011 it would have been great to count with such support.
Hi,
Glad to be part of this. First of all, I think one set of rules for the whole planet should be a primary goal. I agree the organisation should be established first though. The same goes for how we should set the slots for European and worlds.
this is good to hear.
a universal set of rules is vital, this is the only way it will be fair (and not confusing) when international teams meet is to share the same set of rules, if the proposed european rules differ that much from the NAs then perhaps we could meet in the middle .. ye know, for the greater good of polo, but i cant see it being too much of a problem
gluck
this is a nice call for "official polo". as there will be an EHBPC and WHBPC every year from now, I also think that the ruleset should be the same for the whole poloverse and the only way not to let the NAs choose for everyone without discussing, is to set up a European Board at the same level than the NA's to debate. So yes let's go on to create some kind of European Polo Fed. or some like that.
Maybe we should already focus on how?? How many people (divided per city/area/country) to control the board?How to divide Europe (city, area, country) How will people be eligible for this(again city? area? country?)
@Jono : Are the numbers you're talking(92 cities 20 coutries) related to the mail connections you already sent (I talked of it with Clement I think)?
I think NA Hardcourt is onto a good thing.
They have city reps who are accountable to their club, and regional reps who are accountable to the city reps.
This allows every city to have their opinion heard and a small group entrusted to make decisions based on this information.
You could have a rep for every country. Or group smaller countries together (obviously if they agree). This allows smaller clubs/countries to still have a voice, but not participate in the organizing, if they don't so wish - such as our Ukrainian friend above.
2 australian cents.
Yeah the first question (in my opinion) is about that point. How to divide and choose the reps. When we organised the euros last year we based our choice on cities but as Jono said there is a lot.
I think I saw that there is 7 regions in NA so I throw a question : How many regions in Europa League???
As for me, thinking in terms of cities is a bit restrictive, as now teams are mixing a lot of people from different cities and sometimes different countries. So Yeah, I'm also for a region splitting of europe, to have a certain amount of spot by region for the euro.
For the worlds I'm a bit more confused about how to select the teams... on their performance at the euro ? It means that all non qualified team at the euro will not see the worlds... Another quota thing by region ? don't know and it needs to be sort out....
Also, a europa league could also organise a vote for city candidatures for organazing the euros....
Yeah lots of things to do.....
There will be 16 euro teams at WHBPC 2011, the first 16 teams from EHBPC
yeah that's the most logical, but not what happens this year fo example.... We organise a French HBPC to know who will go the the worlds.... It gave more chances to little teams but make no real sense in terms of level and qualification. I'm for a regional championnship that will qualified to the euro and then if you are in the 16th slots you 're in the world champs. simple.
Here are some illustrations to help everyone (please excuse my outdated Euro map):
European bike polo cities
European bike polo cities by region (my arbitrary/random regions for example only)
The North/East/South/West/Central European borders could be useful for regional representation and perhaps for ensuring the European Association Committee have an even geographical spread? We'd have to decide on which countries are part of which region. Failing that we could just elect people to be in charge, without worrying about an even geographical spread (they have simply proven themselves to be up to the job, or have exceptional language skills, etc.) and simply make a rule such as "maximum of one elected committee member per country"?
The way I see it we should encourage each city/scene to have a representative. We should then either elect a European Association that's formed of two people per region (10 people total) or perhaps just have a floating number of elected committee members (between 8 and 15?) and use the regional boundaries for things like EHBPC qualifying tournaments only?
I'm eager to hear people's views on the ideal number of people who make decisions/organise things/have control as I'm sure ideally each country would like to have a representative within the European Association, but this would be 20 people at the moment and would grow over the next few years, perhaps this is ok, but perhaps it's too many to efficiently communicate and get things done?
NAH started with 21 people (3 per region) but in my opinion it's too many to be manageable, and people are considering downsizing it in the future. I think 8 to 12 is good to aim for. You could also have a mix of regional and floating, say, on per region plus one per task, like secretary/communications/website/sponsor/etc
I think the regions you drew aren't bad Jono.
Drawing lines on a map is never going to be perfect. It would may be be worth moving Switzerland into the South region in order to give more strength to the region and balance it with the others. The east looks alot weaker than the rest. Not much you can do, hopefully they will build.
Keep up the good work!
we (ukrainian teams) will do our best!
so there are 16 teams from europe are going to be on worlds. and there are 5 regions of europe. so will it be like 3 best teams from every region or the best 16 teams overall?
For the European Championships this year we are still without a European Association so Alejandro (and the Barcelona community) will be deciding how qualification for the tournament will work. They will allocate team spots to the different cities/countries how they choose and then the top 16 winning teams from the Euros will get to go to the Worlds.
It's the process for 2012 that we are discussing/brain-storming at the moment, I'm guessing most people would want the best European teams overall being represented at the Worlds, but there is a "represent every region" element to the process that would need deciding upon.
When the lines drawn on the map are so arbitrary, I'm wondering what the value of "regional representation" is. I understand where you are coming from, but you should really be sending the best teams to Worlds. We had the same discussion here in Aus.
If you really wanted to go down the regional path you could guarantee the top qualifier from each region a spot for worlds and then fill up the rest of the list by working down the list from EHBPC results.
The city maps isn't correct, I don't know any one playing in Cadiz (Rota) that club its a joke, it doesn't exist.
I organized a "national" (spain+portugal) tournament for the Barcelona's BFF, and there was people from Madrid, Gijon, Zaragoza, Valencia, Olot, Barcelona and Lisboa. In the map you just put Barna, Lisboa and some city in the north that I think is Gijon.
As well I know there is people playing in Vasc country (bilbao)
All this new cities have to be considerated in the "asociation", they are going to organize couple of tournaments for the next spring.
How did you choose the people of the e-mail list? This think have to be more clear, I didn't recive that e-mail, and I copied this discussion in our local forum, the asociation have to be inclusive and support small comunities, they are the future of polo. More cities playing, less we have to travel.
LOBP email addresses for registered clubs, Google and ~30 direct emails after I requested that each European city/club comes forward.
If you could help with sourcing more accurate info that'd be great... anyone can email jon[at]lhbpa[dot]org with their email address and club details and they go into the database, easy.
Spain does look surprisingly sparse, I agree, I couldn't find much about Spanish polo clubs online... the more info/clubs, the better. What's your site/forum?
There are a lot of cities in Spain that have just started playing and they have yet to find "the ressources"....
So far they have been adding themselves to the Iberic league (www.libp.tk), and they shouldn't take long to come to this place.
The way i have solved the communication between cities that i have formed a assosiation and have picked out of 10 cities REPS. I have contact with them and they with me. WHen it comes to contacting with the outside poloverse i do it. But that is becasue Poland isnt as large as Germany in the amounts of player. Its organisable. :)
I think that each country should have a rep or two.
i think that 20people is enough.
This is great news, a EU body for the promotion and organization of bike polo! And an open invitation to have your say. I'm, like lot's of others, quite new to HBP and both hyper-enthusiastic as eager to play more.
A helping hand in guiding bike polo players in the same direction will be a major improvement. I agree with all the pro's mentioned above and agree that sanctioned rules should be valid word wide. Lot's of cons are actually pros if you ask me. We're with a rapidly growing number of players, many hands make light work, specially in our era (with Internet and all). Bureaucracy does not have to be a lot more that a simple set of guidelines to follow on a smart website (e.g. register as a team, keep track of games you played with other registered teams and keep track of the outcome per game). I believe transparency is something you choose, not hope for.
I am missing some stuff though. When are you a team? And what would be the guidelines for starting one. I understand this is something you pick up at the court, but if you're the first 5 players in a region, help in how to form an 'official' team should be a number one priority, then, with enough teams, you can form a league (or leagues), it'll be easier to organize team events, attract funds, build a relation with sponsors (that help improve bike polo) etc.
Besides how to start a team, I get the feeling that people would like a smaller group of people to maintain in control (and do the work), even-though like here on the forum (or on wikipedia) we're all in control, together. I think it should be a bit more about how you are organizing bike polo in your region, where to play, what platform do you register (here, on a local forum, facebook, twitter, a wordpress, etc), how do you keep scores, what are the minimum requirements to play (court, bike, mallet, helmet, ball), where to get your equipment, do you need insurance (?), first aid, etc. I understand that it all started with a small scene of bike-enthusiasts starting to hit a ball, adapting/re-inventing existing sports rules and combining it into something that is no longer a type of subculture, but is actually becoming a popular (more main stream?) team sport. "Got a bike? Join us!" That's how I got into this.
I think 'the league of bike polo' would be the perfect place to do this. Creating the possibility for more world regions (besides NA, EU) to join and start their own organization (having help from the work that others did already), in stead of setting up your own website/group/forum, register here. I could be wrong, but this site is running Drupal (also a community effort), perhaps we can ask Dries if he would be up for sponsoring a bit more than he did already, and have some geeks help out further develop this awesome website? I'd be happy to put a Drupal sticker on my bike.
That's my (twenty) two cents, keep it up and thanks for sharing!
agree with that, but we all have to keep our individual particularities and it begins often with a website / forum. It helps us to organize ourselves more easily in our city/country/region, and then we add our club in the league of Bike polo to share and organize with all players over the worlds. That's how it works right now.
In france people seems not to be very enthousiastic about the idea of building a european association, we start discussing about that in our forum but that's a lot of pros and cons... so not done yet ! As for me it is a natural evolution of our sport/game, so if we don't want a cycling federation or something else take it, we have to organize it ourself. Not only on forums/website/emails but officialy and by region.
The Jono's map is a good start, let's discuss and share about it, as some countries are more close to others... France / switzerland for example....
As for all clubs in this map, the best solution is to ask everybody to registrer here on League of Bike Polo (as Ewoud sais) and then we will all have an idea of the whole Bike polo scene in the worlds.
I think country divisions are not obligatory. Maybe it could be easier to move to another country than to the other side of yours. Example from Grenoble to GVA or to Rouen is not the same trip. I dunno but if we think in regions, maybe we can set up our proper frontiers... around big polo communities/centers : London, Paris, Genève, Barça,....
A very important point if we wanna setup qualification processes for EHBPC and organizing them, is how the city/community is able to handle a big size polo tournament (especially in terms of courts) matching the Association's standards.
right, going to Rouen is the end of the world for us in Grenoble, and Gva is so closed so yeah why not building community around big bike polo center. Good idea.
For the organization of the EHBPC and the courts, if we build up a commmunity or a european association we will have more support from the officials and organization and funding will be easier.
I pretty much like the idea,agree about the rules should me made once for all,just dont understand that... if you leave in small country,where polo its still new compare to other places,like we in Dublin,I heard to play in europeans we gonna be consider as a one country with UK... and we not the only once that gonna be affected... to be fair every country,not matter how small is it,should have option to send their own team to represent their own country,after all we live in free europe as far as I now,so we should consider everyone and give equal chance for all... Thanks paka pa
BTW i just updated the region pages so that there's a list of European tournaments separate from other discussions, over at http://leagueofbikepolo.com/region/europe
So what are we doing now?
Comitee issues:
0)Can we have an european body, and is that relevant?
1)Have we enough time to form an european body before 2011-2012 "season" (after whbpc) ?
2)Does this comitee should be by country, regions? or not specially geographically representative, just made by a small number involved people, choosen by the european community?
3)Is this comitee gonna be a legislative organization?`an executive one? both?
4)How big?
my opinion:
0) Don't really know. Jono put a lot of good points in the first post of the thread between the pros and cons of a comitee.
For now with don't have any body, and things are moving forward without too many problems. We don't are North american too, we don't speak the same language, don't live in same country etc... But for a lot of other reason, an european body can be really helpful: legitimation, organization, ruleset, selection etc...
1) Don't think we can't make it for this season, but tryin' if people agree on the idea couldn't be a bad thing.
2) Last solution is for me the best. If we choose to form an european body, don't think we have to make geographical rep' system. We can imagine that everyone intersted post his view about all this, and get elected by the european community. I prefere to elect a londonian who have the same idea about all this than a genevian who think the opposite.
3) Don't know yet about that. Give lot of power to this comitee is great for make thing moving forward, but loosing control from the people. Be only an executive who apply the opinion of the majority is more democratic, but slower.
4) between 5 and 10 people.
0) Yes, yes.
1) Planning this depends on the goals we set. It's plenty of time to start a non-profit, it's a bit short if we plan to write and execute some 5 year vision for EU polo including the necessary resources.
2) Shouldn't this be based on what type of knowledge is needed to fulfill the tasks supporting 1?
3) I think in many ways it has to be both, if you want it to be community-driven.
4) How big depends on the goals this association aims for and what you mean by that question. A European Bike Polo Association would represent 27 countries, I guess bigger, at least.
Perhaps we could outline some of the goals we'd like to achieve, or even what type of organization would be needed to reach those?
0) I think we really need an European body and pronto, we need to sort out a proper system to qualified for the Europeans Champs and a commun set of rules. I think the language is not really a barrier, we will can work around it.
1) I know this would not happen for 2011, and maybe not even for 2012, but I will like to see it up and running for 2013
2) I think a mix between geographical and people involve will be the best. It is not necesarry that every scene or town or region must have a rep, but I would like to see people from different places to be involve.
3) I think this group needs to have power, if not what is it for? there are not gonna have infinite power over the day by day of polo in every ciyu, if not in isseus that Europa as a polo comunity need to solve. This possitions will be voted for, so if you vote for someone you should trust that person in his/her view of how to run the show, there is not point to elect a rep if you dont like how he/she see things, but once you elect someone you should be happy with what that person is deciding, so I dont undesrtand the "loosing control from the people"
4) 10-12 people
We need a body ASAP in my opinion, it's only a matter of time until organisation at a European level becomes "crucial" to the development of the Euros. There are many other positives too (info sharing, rules, standardisation, archiving, growth of Euro polo, monetary support, sponsor sharing at a European level, etc).
I'd like to see 5-10 people running the Euro body (less is more in my experience, all processes and decisions would have to be completely transparent to every European polo player). The officials would be voted for from a pool of volunteers/club reps. The first stage is to get the pool of club reps/volunteers together and to agree to allow someone to organise the formation of the Euro body (paper work, process and overview of initial vote).
I'd volunteer to do this but am swamped with London/UK polo at the moment, I'd like to see some volunteers from the more established scenes come forward... if there are no volunteers then there'll be no Euro body, simple.
If things start moving we can easily have everything in place for 2012, it's not that difficult. But if we want to wait till 2013 (and beyond), then fair enough.
so, what needs to be done? I can help, Jono?
We just need a "starter list" of 5-10 volunteers to get the ball rolling amongst themselves (flesh out what's needed from the EHBPA, etc). We then propose a solution to the European polo community as a whole.
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
I'm definitely down for helping to write up a proposal/constitution and am also keen to incorporate a refereeing body into the EHBPA.
i have some time on my hands, would be happy to get involved.
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
6. Agata
Jono, am i correct in thinking this is a provisional list, with the final set of people to be voted later by the Euro community ?
Either way a set of rules and practices would hit the nail on the head. And finally something to keep those pesky qualifier tourneys in check.
Absolutely, the individuals above would just try to create a proposal initially... then you can try and source feedback from the European community and go from there. Eventually X number of reps (or whatever internal system was chosen) would be elected and the EHBPA would be born.
For now I have a lot of business organizing the German Championship but afterwards I would be glad to help
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
6. Agata
7. Florian
For now I have a lot of business organizing the German Championship but afterwards I would be glad to help
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
6. Agata
7. Florian
8. Alejandro.
we play the itals this we. will'try to found an italian rep. (hope english spoken better than me..)
:-=
we play the itals this we. will'try to found an italian rep. (hope english spoken better than me..)
:-=
Scimmia (IT)
... at your disposal!
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
6. Agata
7. Florian
8. Alejandro
9. Hannes
1. Clement
2. Rik
3. Jono
4. Giv
5. Gabes
6. Agata
7. Florian
8. Alejandro
9. Hannes
10. William
1. Clement (CH)
2. Rik (DE)
3. Jono (UK)
4. Giv (?)
5. Gabes (UK)
6. Agata (PL)
7. Florian (DE)
8. Alejandro (ES)
9. Hannes (DE)
10. William (FR)
11. Mark (UK)
1. Clement (CH)
2. Rik (DE)
3. Jono (UK)
4. Giv (CH)
5. Gabes (UK)
6. Agata (PL)
7. Florian (DE)
8. Alejandro (ES)
9. Hannes (DE)
10. William (FR)
11. Mark (UK)
1. Clement (CH)
2. Rik (DE)
3. Jono (UK)
4. Giv (CH)
5. Gabes (UK)
6. Agata (PL)
7. Florian (DE)
8. Alejandro (ES)
9. Hannes (DE)
10. William (FR)
11. Mark (UK)
12. Scimmia (IT)
1. Clement (CH)
2. Rik (DE)
3. Jono (UK)
4. Giv (CH)
5. Gabes (UK)
6. Agata (PL)
7. Florian (DE)
8. Alejandro (ES)
9. Hannes (DE)
10. William (FR)
11. Mark (UK)
12. Scimmia (IT)
Gio (IT)
and now, what happens next? how many reps do we need? will there be a quota for each country? should we elect in any way?
how about meeting in person in barca and discuss a couple of things?
flo
Let's chat in Barcelona.
ok
We can have a MEETING around the court on THURSDAY during the wildcard.
Points to discuss:
Qualis to Euro
- how a player can or not play in different qualis around Europe (same for Nationals Championship)
- how to share the slots for Euros 2012
Separate Qualis and Nationals
-why? share opinions about this
-best format to use for both of those competitions (maybe do the same in every countries?)
-why Germany used a strange format for their Nationals ahah
Rules
-update about some new situations (block and t-boning, mallet under the wheel and over the handlebar, etc..)
Also maybe speak quikly about the tournaments planning for next season to dispatch it correctly.
If you see something else please write here to prepare the meeting, thanks!
Personally I think this is jumping the gun a little.
First you need a European body that would actually be able to tackle any of the above.
Therefore I'd like to see (by way of a vote/discussion during the Euros) that the majority of polo players think that forming a European association is a good idea for the future of European polo. Let people voice their concerns (if any) and we'll talk through them and double check that this would be the best way forward.
Then I personally think the next step is to pull together a representative for each country/scene and we'll ask Kev to setup a Euro Association private forum here within LOBP (this is how NAH works). I'd also like to see a temporary acting secretary for the potential association that is responsible for nudging the country/scene reps (through emails or similar) and keeping them active/involved/working through this process (basically an admin/organising/management type role). The country/scene reps would then come to the European community with a few options for the formation of the association, including a constitution (or equivalent), voting procedure, aims and objectives, etc.
Then if everyone agrees, we all vote on the type of body/organisation/setup, get all the paperwork sorted, elect some officials and get on to the fun stuff (completely transparently, but with a definite process and sense of leadership/direction to work within).
The alternative is what we already do now, online communication without real structure or an objective.
I'd like to see central Europe lead the process in the early days somewhat as I think they have the most European-wide understanding of things and will be better equipped to deal with language issues, etc.
Clement would be a good candidate for overseeing the formation of a Euro association in my opinion.
It would be great if each scene/country thinks about how a European body might effect/help them, so we've all got some thoughts in our heads pre-discussion (this also means we can have an innovative and interesting discussion and not just a "let's do X, Y and Z" without first giving everyone a chance to think/speak).
I agree with you on the way to buid or not a European Comity.
Excuse my english, simple and I try to go directly to the essential, so when I purpose a meeting on Thursday, it was of course with everybody, not only with people who wants to be in a maybe future comity.
Just to discuss together about some points no so clear..
well well well, now the euros are over and we didn't get the chance to talk at all (except for all the inofficial fun and trash talk ...--> http://vimeo.com/25763835 ha ha). I personally like will's points of discussion but also agree with jono (the fuckin' master of summing things up and organizing) concerning the "paperwork" and including everybody. so what is the next step?
I'd say we write a letter to the national communities and let them know what we are planing and what's in for them. then collect the answers and reactions and maybe even have representatives for each country (region?). these reps then can meet and talk things through while communicating with their countries/areas.
greets to you all, it has been a wonderful week in barca - flo
Agreed, I talked to lots of people about it, but the meeting didn't materialise as most people were busy (myself included). The general feeling was that a Euro association would be a good thing and just needs enough committed organisers and transparency.
Next steps: Elect an unofficial central person (I vote Clement!) and they can speak directly with regional/country/city reps (I can pass on the mailing list) and do the research/ground work for formulating the governing body, etc?
Could it be an idea to use a wiki (or similar) in stead of mailing letters? Helps in transparent communication, collecting answers/reactions and perhaps to spread some of the work-load.
I enjoy following these developments, and I'm very much looking forward to see the initial plan and scope! TY
I vote Jono (no offense, clement, but democracy needs more than one candidate ;-))
Thanks to think about me for this. this days I'm pretty occupied by hanging around na and playing polo ( 3 months, from now to Seattle). I think I can handle a good part of the coordination work, and by the way I can also try to understand a lil bit more how the na association is working.
And even without any clear strucure, the soon as people are answering this questions the better it is:
Which cities step up for organize ehbpc 2012
Which cities step up for organize whbpc 2012 ( assuming that it's gonna probably be in Europe)
Which cities step up for organize a major tourney ( who can be sanctioned as a qualification step if we choose this kind of system)
Which cities step up for organize regional or national qualifications
Ok for the coordination we need one person, but to take decisions we need a comity, I agree with Flo, one person for each region or for each important city playing polo.
Personnally, I won't be able to assume the coordination, so I'm not candidate because of my english, but I would like to be a part of a European Comity if I'm elected by my region/country.
Which cities step up for organize regional or national qualifications
Grenoble is speaking about organize French Qualies 2012 (depending of the number of teams)
I would say that 10 or more people would be too much. In my opinion, the best way would be to have a small committee (less than 10 person) to discuss on topics such as ruleset, court size, blablabla,...
Thing is that every year an EHBPC is gonna happen.Maybe we (or the committee, or someone, or something) should think about standardize this tourney (as i said, ruleset, courts, etc,...). Like everything the EHBPC demands, how many courts, how big, surface, balls, rules, could or should be set by the comittee.
Then the local organizing crew could focus on : setting up the spot, sponsors, housing, food, etc,...
I think the first job for the comittee would be to set a "package" wich would include the standards needed to organize EHBPC and also manage the bids/city election for each year championship.
To start a discussion about an European body/committee, it will be a good idea to encourage every country's representative to make a census, to obtain statistical information about a polo-players population.
This will help to understand how big that committee will be (I can agree that 10 persons are enough) and how we are going to decide who has to be part of it assuring that every little polo-community will have a coordinator that will report for them and at the meantime supporting them.
Here below (based on LOBP) we have the 21 European countries where at least one polo community exists but I don't know much more about ...
Austria 3
Belgium 3
Croatia 1
Czech Republic 2
Denmark 1
Finland 1
France 14
Germany 20
Hungary 3
Ireland 1
Italy 15
Netherlands 5
Norway 2
Poland 6
Portugal 2
Russia 1
Spain 9
Sweden 2
Switzerland 9
Ukraine 3
United Kingdom 15
Nice.
So now the plan is i think every people who told that they are motivated to do something (see list in first posts), have to find a rep for each club in their country.
Every rep gonna have the job to keep people in touch about what's happening for the european polo. And they gonna give us back the feed back about it.
Make an example with switzerland.
Gimmefive find a rep for every clubin switzerland, he told them about this thread and all the stuff that can happens. In a second time, after having all this rep stuf from the major part of europe, we can send to the rep questions, for example, first of one: "do you want that an european association exist based on this kind of system (to determine).
Like that we can begin to work with a good legitimicy.
After that we can determine how big gonna be the commitee a nd how is gonn work ( like Eddy say for example.)
Just a point aout the futur system
As i can understand for the NA system, the project that they have now is to go into a membership system, who is really helpfull to make votations, statistics and bureaucracy easiest.
For example, the cost for a card in European Association is 5 euros. In your club, there is 8 players intersted in being part of the association and play the major tourney (like qualifications and EHBPC). In your club 4 other guys didn't care. So you just pay 8x5 euros, take the name of each folks. And then, when you have to vote about something, you know exactly how many members are in this club, and how many vote they can have.
This system is great, because if you have to vote on something, for example the size of the courts, you can count every vote pro and cons. If in your club you are 20 for x courts and 21 for y courts, we don't gonna say this club is for y court, but 21 people are for y and 20 for x.
Like this too, the European Association can have a good amount of money to help cities who gonna orgnanize next ehbpc.
Ok but even if we put our names on the list, we shouldn't be elected by our country before say we are rep??
I'm ok for the 5€ for each player who want to take part of the European association/discussion.
I start to speak about the rep election with the french community..
For now The most simple thing is to dissociate rep from committee. We can t imagine that every country gonna
Have a rep who gonna be in the comitee. For now just thinking about how communicate. And the simple thing to do is each city/club choose someone in which they trust as messenger. Then we cam began to talk about wha we have to do, etc, like this we can have feed back from every clubs.
All the ideas that I post before are just ideas, we can't really began to work without the positive answer from clubs reps. If we try to do the stuff to quickly all gonna fall down quickly too.
I'll get all the UK stuff done and sent on to Clement post-London Open, we have most of that information already (we've just got to nail down the regional reps for rest of UK).
we should kick our ass...
I need to kick my ass. Im back in Europe now, after 3 months oversea.
Jono just gave me the whole contact for England Bike polo. Im gonna need that from every country I think.
Im also gonna need help for sure, as Geneva trying to post a Bid for hosting Wolrds in 2012, im gonna be under pressure for this too..
ok, clement, what exactly do you need? emails from every player n germany or every city or just one area rep?
and when do we vote for reps? we need to think about that before the next season starts.
and good luck to everybody in konstanz. ;-) flo
Sorry for being silent again.
Give me name for aera or city rep. Just to be sure to have to chance to contact the major part of europolo word.
Italians rep contacts collected and sanded to Clement.
Nice one Italy, maybe we need a list of all the European polo countries and who's submitted their city reps to Clement?
Here you go:
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
Clement, I've also shared with you a European polo player database that you can use to chase the different countries/cities, some may not check this thread, etc (this list is possibly out of date but is better than nothing).
I had some city contacts (direct emails), but not many, Clement now has them.
The onus is on each country to supply a list of all their polo cities and source a name and email for each city representative (it's likely that a country representative will then be chosen/elected from the city representatives).
For example, many UK cities had no idea this was going on, but after some prodding from London are now in the loop and can have a voice moving forwards...
My hope is that Clement will end up publishing a list of the ~100 European polo cities, the country representatives will then be selected, we'll then write a constitution and be legit in no time (if the countries send on their city list ASAP).
The communication/decision making is likely to go top down: EHBPA body (~20 elected country representatives) -> city representatives (~100 people) in whatever forum they choose (probably our existing forums) -> ~8,000 Euro polo players.
Communication then comes back up again too: Average polo player -> City representative -> Country representative -> EHBPA
The city/country info is also a great resource moving forwards, it's a pretty crucial stage in my opinion (some cities/countries may have no interest in a Euro association forming at all).
ukrainian contacts sent to Clement
belgian contacts sent to Clément!
Austria
Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
Germany is working on it
France sent me also some rep names. But not for every city.
Austria
*Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
*France -Sent
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
*Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
*Ukraine - Sent
*United Kingdom - Sent
Shall we began to make a list of people intersted in participating in the comitee? or are we gonna use the one made in this thread few post before?
One of my biggest issue with the european comitee or association, is how are we gonna elect the comitee, how many people, and how representative it need to be. For example, allow one people from every country to be in mean that every country is equal?
Do we really need something as one country one vote?
I think countries are (historically at least) a good way to add another tier to the organisation, so we'd have: Euro polo players -> Euro polo cities -> Euro polo countries -> EHBPA.
The acting committee/individuals/group would need to be less than ~20 in number to actually get anything done, so perhaps 4 (or 5) country representatives rotate in/out of the core working group and are held accountable by the others, etc. Obviously they can ask for more/less help by the others as needed and would be able to task others with specific objectives (for example: Germany can we have your bid for the Euros by XX date you will be working with this person as they have previous experience with organising it).
We could elect representatives within a private forum on here and see how that kind of process works out? The first year should just be about forming, sorting the Euros and sharing our ideas/experience I reckon... there are bound to be teething problems initially but we'll get there.
surely countries like UK , Germany, France ect... will have more "weight" that countries that just start playing polo.
I will say have 12 member in the committee, 6 permanent, and 6 temporary (or share by two countries, they can choose who take the place for this year kind of thing)
something in the style of the UN security Council (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations#Security_Council)
YES, let's call it the
European Security Council about Polo Empowerment (ESCAPE)
but seriously, kind of like the idea.
at least it seems make sense to handle some of the (polo-poeple-wise) smaller countries as one region, in order for the commitee not getting too large.
maybe even 5/5 not 6/6
that being said, it (maybe unfortunately, maybe not) makes a lot of sense to draw region borders @ country/language borders, as every drawing a line is at some point a brute/inappropriate cut, but these are just the easiest. Although it should be less about nationality tan rather what city you're living/playing.
France sent me also some rep names. But not for every city.
some????
how many do you need per country? I though you only needed one
hungarian contact sent to Clément!
Austria
Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Hungary -Sent
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
sry... twice
Austria - sent
Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany - sent
Hungary -Sent
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
Thanks for sending me this, things are moving.
There's for me the main question for the first association year:
Should we have a national representation structure comitee, or an elected one, without national basis.
1)National representation:
We wait to have all the name of the contacts of every city-club. Then we can try to know how big is the community. After that, every community choose a number of rep, one for small country and more for bigger. (this could also be one per country but more voice for a rep of a big country).
Then we get a 20 member (or more) comitee for EHBPA.
Pro: Representative of nationalities. Pretty clear and logical.
Cons: big comitee. Hard to make it happens quickly, and hard to make it work well.
2) Elected comitee:
We pick a time limit to comunity to send us a number of player in cities, and a rep per city (or at least a way to be sure that every body know what happens).
Then every people in europe can put himself on an electoral list. for example 20 people who want to be involved.
They put a small amount of information about the way they see polo in europe, the EHBPA, the ehbpc, the ruleset (cheatermallets bannisher or not :) etc...
And then people in the whole europe vote for a list of 10 or around people (between 5 and 12 in my opinion).
This people, let say 10 people, are the EHBPAComitee for one year. It can have 1 or more people from the same country in it. That's not nationally rep.
Pro: Easy to make work. People vote for a vision of polo, not for a rep of their nationality. Smaller comitee
Cons: Maybe no rep from several country so unfair in a way.
What's your opinion about it?
P.s.
This is for the first year, 2012 i think... that's why im clearly for the second way to do it. really faster to make it happens.
elected comitee in my opinion too
But comitee should count 9 or 11 people for example (odd number), in case of voted decision.
As we just had a big election in Germany, and have (nearly) all the city-reps toghether,
I would definitely prefer Clement's suggestion "1) National representation".
I can't see the relation between the parts of your sentence... You can be the national rep and being in the euro comitee
I also prefer a elected committee. Makes decisions much easier. In the future when the scene getting bigger we can also switch to the other option.
My personal mind is that right now, in this first phase, we should use a "National representation" system and after we could switch to elected committee (if the national rap. sys. looks to be too slow and bureaucratic).
The risk to ignore little country, rooky polo nation and periphery-polo exactly in the building-up of the EuroOrganization is too hi.
A little elected committee will work faster, but faster is not synonym of better.
In any case, minorities gonna have smaller weight in the system. Im not talking about forgetin' them. I my idea everybody gonna have the right to give a vote for the euro comitee, and choose someone who think the same about polo.
I prefere the idea of voting for a french people who think like me about futur of polo as have a ref who just represente myself as a part of a "country".
For me faster in this cases is really often synonym of better, because bigger gonna be synonym of nothin'...
And i think that tryin' the national rep system then switch if it don't work is impossible, a national rep system gonna be too hard to put on to let him down after...
How a national rep system gonna work?
-One vote per country?
-Many votes for bigger country? how many? what's a bigger country?
I see the smaller comitee solution as a way to choose into a huge panel of people across europe, some folks that we know and are trustable and efficient, because of what they did, because of their experience as players, because of their experience in tourney organization etc. For example, im clearly gonna give vote for hannes or jono if they promote themselve into it. This is the best way to have a comitee who gonna work well, and with people that you gonna know in it.
National representation. at least for now.
It's hard enough for a National rep to get in touch w/ all communities, but way better than for one committee trying to reach all cities @ once.
maybe the National reps can vote for a smaller "working" group, or s/th. but the chance of missing some scenes is already high on an National --> citiy-base.
""It's hard enough for a National rep to get in touch w/ all communities, but way better than for one committee trying to reach all cities @ once.""
As i see it, the small comitee gonna be in touch often with all the national reps. Also, the national rep gonna have the power to report some demand to the comitee.
And about missing a scene, i think that country or city who gonna want to be in gonna move. And yes we gonna probably miss some folks around europe, but that's not a big deal in my mind, small and young comunitee have to grown a little bit...
My point is also that, right now, that's the orgnanizers discretions to make the rules, allow spots, choose number of courts, everything... without any official help and official game and organizing rules and process. So this idea of a small elected comitee gonna help a lot and create emulation, more than only players VS organizers boards fights.
I can't imagine a national representative system workable and efficient for 2012.¨
The things that this comitee should be in charge for the first year is:
EHBPC:
-Help finding a location, make a vote system happens
-Fixing and update ruleset, or find a way to make it.
-Put some rules about organizing the EHBPC
-Choose a selection system for the slot alocation
EHBPA:
-Make a big brainstorming during the year about how people see the EHBPA in the futur, and how it should work
-Find a way to work for first year or maybe more ( boards, meeting, etc...)
i think it would be a good idea to split europe into 8-11 regions and get/vote region-reps. so the comittee won't be too big, but still there would be the advantages of the "national representation" system. also with this kind of system the weight of the different countries could be balanced beforehand. say you take three smaller countries as one region with one rep, who has the same weight in the comittee as the rep of one big country.
the time-problem is an issue, though. the vote of region-reps should not take too much time when the countries who did'nt vote their national-reps yet, get their asses up and all the contact-information together..
There is 20 country in the list here, do you have an idea of how to get around 10? who gonna be linked together, and does it make sense in any way?
What's the advantage for you of the national representation? Is this advantage always true if some country are paste togheter?
When im talking about time, im not only talking about how to elect the comitee but also how this comitee gonna work.
There is 20 country in the list here, do you have an idea of how to get around 10? who gonna be linked together, and does it make sense in any way?
my first idea of how to make a list of around 10 was something like this:
France
United Kingdom + Ireland
Germany
Spain + Portugal
Scandinavia (Denmark + Norway + Sweden)
Italy + Croatia
Switzerland + Austria
Benelux (Netherlands + Belgium)
Poland + Hungary
Czech Republic + Ukraine + Russia
this list is NOT overthought a lot! i don't know if these "regions" reflect the amount of cities or people playing there in any ways. it's rather made geographical- and/or language-wise.
What's the advantage for you of the national representation? Is this advantage always true if some country are paste togheter?
that's a good question. actually i didn't think about this a lot before i made that suggestion. but i think there are some advantages in a regional representation. first, some of these "regions" are already organized quite well. like benelux for example, they have there own league there, so i think they already have some experience in communicating with each other, which could be useful for the EHBPA when it comes to fast decisions.
second, when you do a regional representation system, you make sure that people from all areas in europe actually take part in decisions and discussions and act for certain region's interests. in europe, there are the "big countries", who are well established for several years, have a lot of good players and teams and have people, who want to organise stuff. that is cool! but i think it would be a nice thing if there also would be some other people in the EHBPA from "smaller" bikepolo countries, like the scandinavian countries for example.
regarding the national rep system you wrote earlier:
"Pro: Representative of nationalities. Pretty clear and logical."
What did you mean with that? perhaps these thoughts could be expanded to a regional rep system..?
i don't know if there are more advantages for a regional rep system. perhaps others do? and i don't know if these advantages i said are still true if countries are pooled, especially the second one. the region-thing was just an idea and is perhaps worth discussing about.
well, only if we have time for it.. ;)
I agree that an elected committee could work, but that's actually a pretty neat solution for a 10-part split.
Advantages: smaller scenes still have a say, take advantage of pre-existing communication forums/methods and each Euro representative is held accountable by the scenes/countries they represent.
The danger of an elected committee is polarisation when making decisions and no "real" knowledge/input behind the decisions each individual makes (they are "trusted experts" rather than "regional representatives", etc)
Both solutions could work though and it will be easy to create a constitution around either voting in an elected committee, or swapping out regional representatives.
It sounds as if everyone is agreed on a 8-10 person committee, perhaps 9 people is ideal (no vote split as mentioned up the thread).
I think we should keep an assemblee made by the whole rep from every country, and elected a small comitee for making the huge part of the work. The rep comitee could ask to put some point into the debat, can reject some decision, and promote some referendum that the community they rep want to be disscuss'. The reps comitee has also the task to be the media between the small comitee and and communities.
But im pretty sure that a big rep comitee for making the association working, at least for first times, is a bad idea. Way too heavy to move. Na association are moving back from this system after testing it.
I think we should keep an assemblee made by the whole rep from every country, and elected a small comitee for making the huge part of the work.
+1
But, how you vote for this? how you know who is EHBPA member?
Are the representatives assemblee electing the small cometee or all the EHBPA members doing it?
I think both (reps and cmall cometee) have to be choose by all the euro comunity. For my first question i have no answer.
I agree that an elected committee could work, but that's actually a pretty neat solution for a 10-part split.
Advantages: smaller scenes still have a say, take advantage of pre-existing communication forums/methods and each Euro representative is held accountable by the scenes/countries they represent.
The danger of an elected committee is polarisation when making decisions and no "real" knowledge/input behind the decisions each individual makes (they are "trusted experts" rather than "regional representatives", etc)
Both solutions could work though and it will be easy to create a constitution around either voting in an elected committee, or swapping out regional representatives.
It sounds as if everyone is agreed on a 8-10 person committee, perhaps 9 people is ideal (no vote split as mentioned up the thread).
x2
I agree that an elected committee could work, but that's actually a pretty neat solution for a 10-part split.
Advantages: smaller scenes still have a say, take advantage of pre-existing communication forums/methods and each Euro representative is held accountable by the scenes/countries they represent.
The danger of an elected committee is polarisation when making decisions and no "real" knowledge/input behind the decisions each individual makes (they are "trusted experts" rather than "regional representatives", etc)
Both solutions could work though and it will be easy to create a constitution around either voting in an elected committee, or swapping out regional representatives.
It sounds as if everyone is agreed on a 8-10 person committee, perhaps 9 people is ideal (no vote split as mentioned up the thread).
x3
I prefer one rep for every nation for the first rendezvous
Elected committee for me, please
Elected committee for me, please
+1
first things to do from committee is collect a little bit of money from all euro players (10 euro ? maybe more? ) and buy three stock hockey boards courts (or maybe on wood?). Leave the boards in the middle of germany and when the nations do a tourney the organizers pay only transport.
crazy idea?
Concerning commitee: with an election, we don't have to decide geographic representation or not, because the community by voting will decide it. Each person will choose if he/she want a geographic rep. or give his/her voice to people they trust.
Tobia's idea: I'm crazy like you. I don't know exactly how but could be awesome. Problem, people who pay will want to have a garanty to use it ( I mean for EHBPC for example slots are limited, but yes courts could be available all year long). Just for information, when you played football or as for me ice hockey, we had to pay a very very expensive license each season (250€), so I can easily imagine pay 100€ one time to have 3 great courts that everybody can use when needed after that. Imagine 64 teams with 3 players paying 100€/pers = 19200€ (then sponsor can complete). After that, there will be a less expensive euro license for each player just to pay the place we use to stock the 3 courts. More interested in hockey boards than wood by the way.
+ 1 for elected comittee. I'd rather vote for someone who shares some of my views on Bikepolo than have someone from my country who doesn't represent what I think is best just because we speak the same language.
I also like the idea to buy boards everyone could use for oganizing a tourney. Would make things a lot easier for most cities.
Big +1 or x2 to the idea that this organization should consist mostly (but perhaps not entirely) of people who have organized large events. These people are do-ers, not just talkers, And their primary work is to help ensure that events get better, despite increased competition for registration etc. I sometimes joke that NAH should change its name to NATO, the North American Tournament Organizers union. Of course there is more to a governing body than tournaments, but tournaments (and rules) will always be the biggest source of controversy.
Ha!. And I add my agreement here. Teamwork with successful organizers should bring new levels of success to a new city. I can't wait to learn where it is that I'll definitely want to go to next year! (edit: after Milwaukee)
Devin
fully unrelated (think it's a poem about a breakup) but this is one of my all time favorite lines: "The Dreamers ride against the Men of Action Oh see the Men of Action falling back" Here's Martha Wainright singing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMgYxYYqbHc
x2
especially for better sounding acronyms :)
(I hat the sound of these ..hbpc.. tongue twisters)
In France, a comitee have been elected by the french community in november, in order to take some decisions concerning rules/format/qualis/etc easily.
Find here the members of the French comitee:
Hugo (Paris)
Will (Grenoble)
Woods (Rouen)
Paulo (Toulouse)
Greg (Paris)
Norbert (Nantes)
Martin (Lyon)
We decided to give a task to each member, Greg and me will be in relation with the European Comitee and maybe take part of it (depending of the way European people want to do it).
Great work guys.
Here's the Spanish comitee.
A Coruña: Sebastian.
Alicante: Dani.
Barcelona: Bernat.
Bilbao: Guillaume.
Gijón: Pelayo.
Madrid: Hector.
Palma: Medir.
Vitoria: Endika.
Zaragoza: Pablo.
Spanish representative: Alejandro.
Nice one.
Austria - Sent
Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France - Sent
Germany - Sent
Hungary -Sent
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain - Sent
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
German representative: Hannes (Karlsruhe)
FYI the list of all city reps I'm in touch with:
Berlin: Adam & Rik
Bielefeld: Daniel & David
Büppel: Franky
Dresden: Maik
Dortmund: Marc
Düsseldorf: Alex
Frankfurt: Mo
Gießen: Jupp
Hamburg: Robert & David
Hannover: Flo
Heilbronn: Flip
Karlsruhe: Hannes
Kiel: Julian
Köln: Hagen
Konstanz: Andi & Saade
Leipzig: Richard
Mannheim: Jon & Steffen
München: Anja & Angie
Münster: Johanna
Nürnberg: Jürgen
Ulm: Olaf
Polo is practically dead in Denmark - down to one or two game nights a month at the most. I'll probably still travel to tournaments during the summer and stuff, but I highly doubt anyone else will - so there's no need to include us in any EPA organizing, especially not regarding Euro qualifications.
In Sweden there's a hand full of guys that play once in a while, but their scene is really small and I doubt they're devoted enough to travel too far. Great guys though.
Norway has polo in Oslo, but I have never talked to any of them and none of them came down to our tourney, so my guess would be that they are in the same boat as Sweden and us. Social polo only.
RULES DEBATE:
Instead of set up a Euro Rules Committee, and after a discussion with the French Committee, we think it could be great to go directly to a International Rule Committee.
For an International Committee, Woods & Greg could be rep for France.
Kev your help is needed ;)
Doesn't change the European Association debate.
True!
BUT Woods is in charge of Rules for France, he should be in, and Greg is a part of EHBPC organisation so should be in too at this tittle.
For the rest of European rep, one per "big" country (could be 2 for Swiss as they organise WHBPC but nobody else than Clem looked interested) and that's all.
I would prefer an election, but as it looks complicated and some countries doesn't find a way to give a rep quikly it could be simply something like that:
Woods
Greg
Clem
Hannes
Jono
Alejandro
Boom done!
Ok so,
Im kind of busy busy about WHBPC 2012 organization. What i got right now is the list of contact from several countries. And some of them in detail like UK for example.
Jono i just saw right now the file that you send me early jan' with the data of every people from euro who visited this site or who contacted you. It looks way more classified that my shitty lazy word doc.
Riht now i don't know what to do. I suggested before 2 options, one with a comitee formed with rep from every country or a smaller one elected by rep. But i don't know how to make it happens etc, how to choose that etc.. If somebody here get a better view of international organization. Or maybe an history of how the NAH get created.
I'm lost.
About rules for WHBPC and disscussion with nah comitee. I don't know alos. Logically we should put an european association and comitee before going into this, to be on an egal level as NA is. But it looks really tight to do that in a short period of time.
So maybe the idea of France is a good one, but how to manage the weight of every body in this? 2 rep per country? 2 rep for big country and 1 for smaller?
And what i think, for me the primary question is HOW TO ALLOW SPOTS. Because we can talk about rules during year without having good refs to enforce it, and for me the essential part of this job is procedure: restarting, time out, ball out of bounds, time keeping, etc... and some major fouls has mallets unders wheel who make a team loose the ball etc... No really need about a huge arguments on every points. Also clarify 1 or 2 rules who aren't international has the Ball joint question.
But select a number of spot per country gonna be a real huge question for the next EHBPC,
1. Source reps for each country (almost done).
2. Write a constitution and pass it around for approval.
3. Vote on the initial structure/process.
4. Communicate the formation of the EHBPA to the rest of Europe.
5. Start work on the EHBPA's aims and objectives for the year (rules, Euro spots allocation, sharing of ideas, etc).
We've almost completed phase 1 (and should give the remaining countries a deadline, otherwise they may be excluded from the initial EHBPA formation, etc).
Phase 2 is pretty hard, I can write the first draft for you if you want (based on the London constitution)?
It's not that difficult, yell if you need help.
Writing a constitution for a community that has most of its interaction face to face, in the same city, and in the same language is a lot easier than creating an international organization mostly based on virtual interactions, in multiple languages, and dependent on some kind of representative democracy (in the proposed format) for it to work. Just sayin! I haven't seen the London constitution, and while i imagine most of it would be applicable and really helpful, the parts that wouldn't are apply wlll be the hardest part.
See your point. The london constitution is a great work for a physical and local association (how many members by the way? and active members?). But it need some big changes to make it an International association.
My questions:
As we can't make a big AMG ( or AG in fench) Who's gonna ask for, write and make modifications on the constitution? Would be great if you could put on a first try on it, but after that? If there is some points to change what's the process gonna be?
Who gonna be members and people with the right to vote on the constitution, reps? every european player?
Thanks for enlightenment and help. I really think that's a great first step but as i said i have some questions and small doubts about it and im pretty busy with WHBPC right now, so your help is priceless. By the way i just saw yesterday the sheet you share with me about european people who travel on this board, didn't check my google docs often since im internet free most of the time. This doc is great and gonna be really helpful to pass the words around.
70+ LHBPA members currently: http://www.lhbpa.org/membership/
We opted to have a nominal annual membership fee of £5 and have all the technical gumpf in place that we need: http://www.lhbpa.org/resources/LHBPA_Constitution.pdf
I agree with Kev that it will be difficult to write the Euro association (in-person majority votes and meetings will have to make way for online interaction, well-thought out quorum numbers on meetings will be vital), but I'm pretty confident we can pull a first draft together and go from there (it's not brain surgery)?
Once the first draft's done, we translate it into local languages (London will obviously be no good at this, we are one language simpletons for the most part).
You can amend a constitution at any time, but again it requires due process.
Because an european association can't be for the moment an european federation of national associations which requires constitued members, national or local associations, which we don't have, except few examples, and which will take more time, we have to found a association and by consequence, to give it a law personality, to decide about his structure and the localisation.
This constitution could be a good starting point for our discussion and the founding of a new association, thanks, Jono and lhbpa. And problems like online interaction, languages and so on are there to be solved.
For our brainstorming to determine all this and to learn from other examples, an interesting law article about European Sports Federations and associations: "A Critical Review of the Options for Incorporation"
(Not so bad written, I think it's comprehensible also for non-law spezialised persons..)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/eslj/issues/volume2/number2/bu...
By the way, we founded here in Brussels also a local association (ASBL) with a constitution and so on, so I know about this part of the article about belgians ASBL and AISBL, which could be an interesting option for our EHBPA, quite well, just saying.
More specific thread about international rulesting:
http://leagueofbikepolo.com/forum/organizing-polo/2012/02/11/na-and-euro...
Just to let u know that we are here :)
Maybe not writing as much, but watching polo news...
Regards from Croatia,
Matej
Sorry guys for bringing this message out of the blue but i would like to say that this shouldnt happen in regards to picking slots for the EUORS:
"Here is the slots distribution for the EHBPC 2012.
France : 8 (3 slots in the wildcard tournament)
UK + Ireland : 7 (3)
Germany : 7 (3)
Switzerland : 6 (2)
Spain + Portugal : 5 (2)
Italy : 5 (2)
Beneligue : 3 (1)
Poland/Austria/Croatia/Hungary/Czech Rep : 3 (3)
Wild Card : 3
For Organising, because people working on it want to be part of it => Paris : 1 (Rouen 1)"
The Euopean Association should have a say about this!
Sorry guys for bringing this message out of the blue but i would like to say that this shouldnt happen in regards to picking slots for the EUORS:
"Here is the slots distribution for the EHBPC 2012.
France : 8 (3 slots in the wildcard tournament)
UK + Ireland : 7 (3)
Germany : 7 (3)
Switzerland : 6 (2)
Spain + Portugal : 5 (2)
Italy : 5 (2)
Beneligue : 3 (1)
Poland/Austria/Croatia/Hungary/Czech Rep : 3 (3)
Wild Card : 3
For Organising, because people working on it want to be part of it => Paris : 1 (Rouen 1)"
The Euopean Association should have a say about this!
There is no European association at the moment and most of the key individuals involved are busy organising tournaments...
Clement has the most recent data (I shared all my data with him).
Right now we need to write a constitution, which I said I'd be able to pull together (the first draft, based off of the LHBPA fundamentals with meetings/voting amends, etc). However all my free time right now is spent filling in forms (and trying to secure sponsors) for the London Open 2012.
If anyone has experience with constitutions/due process/legal documents, then maybe they could write the first draft instead?
ok. cool
I know that it late for this but i would like to be a rep for poland since i can see that nothing has been sent to you guys.
Should i just contact Clement?
To work, in my opinion a European Comittee should be elected, by the european community OR with national election then we take one or two rep by country. To have a legitimity.
See my message above, in France we did like that to take decisions concerning bike polo in our country.
So Sabicat, be elected in Poland, or let's find a way to have a European election.
But you're true, it's way to late for this year, and EHBPC 2012 organisation begun so we have to deal with it I think.
HI,
i have founded the Polish polo association and have made it the main polo voice for all cities.
I have 10 cities playing polo and i have eleceted a rep for each city.
They all have their own bike polo email address and that is the way i communicate with them all.
So i will email clement in regards with the names then.
Cheers for the information.
You're probably fine, I'm only picking up on the people that come back to this thread to state they've sent the info.
Austria - Sent
Belgium - Sent
Croatia
Czech Republic - Sent
Denmark
France - Sent
Germany - Sent
Hungary -Sent
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland - Sent
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain - Sent
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
sorry about that...
Im fuckin' lost in my billion of mails, and i think im not the guy to handle this kind of work, not organized enough...I have internet 3 days a week and that's not enough to handle this shit.
For now i have a sheet with mail from severals counitres, and im completly sad to have fucked up this work like this. There's nothing moving really well. If somebody can unlock the situation im all for it. ...
Sorry again, i assume that most part of the non-existence of an EHBPA core is due to my own laziness.
Sorry again, i assume that most part of the non-existence of an EHBPA core is due to my own laziness.
i can't tell if you're joking about the last part here clément. EHBPC 2010, WHBPC 2012? Lazy?
Whether you're joking or not, way to admit that you're overburdened. Miss you.
Im the only one who know the way i work and worked for all this, most of the time that's all Last minute work, extra stamina and a lot of work, nothing compare to a compilation and long time job.
Miss Toronto...
Sorry again, i assume that most part of the non-existence of an EHBPA core is due to my own laziness.
Clement, I am sure that no-one apart from you thinks that. The rest of the European community is as much to blame. For instance, this is the first time I have looked at this thread...
Sabrina, Poland has already sent Clement our list months ago already. But please feel free to take over from here, my personal situation has changed so you might have more time for this now.
Clement, c'est la vie, see you in GVA.
Austria - Sent
Belgium - Sent
Croatia - Sent
Czech Republic - Sent
Denmark
France - Sent
Germany - Sent
Hungary -Sent
Ireland
Italy - Sent
Netherlands
Norway
Poland - Sent
Portugal
Russia (by proximity)
Spain - Sent
Sweden
Switzerland - Sent
Ukraine - Sent
United Kingdom - Sent
I fucked up the mail compilation and get a who messy mailbox with 1500 unread stuff. So i dont have all the reps from every coutrny, or if i have it, that's lost somewehre.
The simpliest thing right now is that you John H be the main contact for gettin all this stuff together.
sorry for the time lost.
There are too few volunteers in Europe, the reason the European body stalled last time was because the people trying to drive it forward were the same people that were organising major tournaments.
John, your energy is boundless, but in my opinion it wouldn't be appropriate for you to take a leading role now (Magic bike polo). (Edit: this goes for other bike polo business owners too.)
There isn't much to do really: nail down some new volunteers as the core organising committee, write a constitution, communicate/source approval from the country reps, tell the world, start making decisions.
hi!
there are only 10-20 people playing polo in Ukraine at the moment (most of them are in Kriviy Rih city). i think polo will be pretty much popular this summer. but since it's only very first steps of bike polo here we can't organize any kind of big movement or play on tournaments yet :)
but anyways let me know if european hardcourt polo organization will be launched.
thanks