Hey Bruno.
Yeah, let's take over the Forum with English.
First of all, thanks for organising the competition - I realise that it involved a lot of work, both in planning and on the day - I hope everyone respects the effort you put into everything.
I know that our team on Saturday (and I think the guys who came on Sunday did too, but haven't spoken to them yet) enjoyed ourselves, and we will support your competitions in the future, nonetheless there is room for improvement...and I am happy you are asking for critisism and ideas to better the competion next time around.
So, here goes
Referees.
You did not have enough refs to cover the event, at least on Saturday this was the case. Once Oli left, I think Para reffed the rest of the fights himself - which meant that one mat was empty from 15:00 onwards. This although Vince (who is one of the best refs I know) offered his services. I think referees make or break a competition and the more (competant) Refs you have, the better. I have not problem with the quality of the reffing at the competition, there were a few questionable calls but thatis normal, just the fact that there were too few of them.
Weigh-ins.
I don't know where to start here
On Saturday, I saw no-one being weighed in - no-one.
Although I am used to, and actually like the IBJJF way of weighing in before the first fight, I understand doing a mass weigh-in before the Comp starts, this tends to speed things up and allow organisors of smaller competitions to move people around the brackets if they don't make weight (I don't agree with this practice, as far as I am concerned if you don't make weight, tough luck, go home, but that is another matter). However, to weigh no-one really is unacceptable. Next time, make the manpower available to do it, please
Rules meeting.
If there is the time, it can be nice to have these..especially if there is a large white belt division. Although, once again, I think it is everyone's personal responsibility (and their coaches) to know the rules...it doesn't hurt to explain a few things (reaping the knee, the legality of footlocks, etc)
First Aid.
Was there a first aid crew present at the comp? I didn't see one (and as you know, could have maybe used one
) This should really be a no-brainer. Have trained people there in case of an emergency - also for your own liablility.
Bracket making.
Use a bracket making software to generate the brackets. Don't allow team members to fight until last possibly time, which should be the final (and Teamcoaches - there is a reason the IBJJF only allow two fighters per Team in a bracket, if you want to field more fighters in a bracket, enter them as team a and team b, or something)
Starttime - Endtime
Try and post a general idea of when brackets are likely to start. I know on Saturday there was some confusion as to which belts / weights were planned to fight when. There are ways to estimate the approx. time brackets take to run. Publish these, and don't start a bracket before the published time.
Crowd control
Either let everyone get close to the mats, or let no-one (apart from maybe one coach per fighter). I know that I am also one of the worse examples of this :-)
There is nothing worse than adhering to the request of the organisors and staying away from the mats, only to have my view blocked by the people ignoring the request. I do like to get close to the mats during smaller competitions and like the atmosphere for everyone the closer the crowd is....but as I said, try to make a rule, then enforce it :-)
Medal Presentations
Allow for medal presentations to be made as soon as possible after the bracket hs finished. It doesn't matter how many medals you have won, it is still nice to stand there with the other medal winners and have your photo taken - either for your own reasons or for team advertisment. I didn't like that people were being handed their medals separatly upon request on Saturday, but can understand not everyone being able to wait until the end of the competiton. At the Gracies Invatitional this year, medals were handed our by the Refs directly as the bracket finals were finished - I didn't really like this, but was another way of doing it.
Warm Up area.
The size of the warm up area was ok, but alway, the bigger the better. I feel it should have been placed away from the competition mats to allow people to warm up as-and-when they needed (us old guys need a really long time to get warm
)
Competition T-Shirts
Man, who doesn't love a nice competiton T-Shirt?
Final annouchments
Let the public know when there is a final about to take place and who is fighting. It gets the crowd behind the fighters
Well, that is it for now :-)
I understand that a lot of this couldn't be done because of manpower issues, or becasue it just purely wasn't though of, but have brought it up so you can address it for next time.
Once again....I (and the rest of my teammates) really appriciate al the work you put into this competiton. Thanks and well done!
Matt