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Lycos |
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Post subject: The History of the World Cup bid process
 Posted: Jan 01, 2014 - 10:51 AM
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Former President
Joined: Aug 22, 2003
Undisclosed
Posts: 1532
Location: Undisclosed
Status: Offline
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The Road to Lucca 2015
This post is to give the membership some history and understanding about how we, the NAF, came to a decision over the hosting of the World Cup in 2015.
To start with we should cover some history as not all the previous facts will be known to everyone. I wanted this post to not only inform but also explain some of the previous processes that show there has been a thoughtful evolution in the way decisions get made.
In 2005 there was an idea that we, the NAF, could hold an event of our own that would be bigger than anything seen before. There had been European events of just under 100 coaches but by far the biggest event was the Grand Tournament, or The Blood Bowl GT as many called it. This is run by Games Workshop in the UK headquarters called Warhammer World (WW) and in the years of 2004 to 2006 the NAF didn’t have much involvement. (This was soon to change).
It was decided that in 2007 the NAF would hold an event for the members and it was called the World Cup. Venues were discussed but this is something of an unknown territory. Forum talk is all well and good but how many would come? It is easy to say in hindsight, but at the time many posted in forums this would never happen and even if it did, it would fail.
After discussion at committee, we approached GW to ask if we could hire WW. This was going to be a very significant step for all parties. We felt that if we were to ask members to fly from other continents we had to offer more than just 6 games so we agreed on a 3 day, 9 game event in teams of 6. This meant that GW would need to feed and host the players on a Friday which I believe was a first for GW.
We had thought that we could get 200. We dreamed anyway, but as the numbers grew we realised that more wanted to come so we hired the local pub to get another 60 players in. In all, we had 272 players and it was an incredible success.
In the months that followed, a certain few of us on the committee, particularly the then Treasure Jim Lanier (OMM) and myself, had realised not only was this was going to happen again but we had learned a lot in the process of doing it.
It was soon agreed to set a date four years in advance. We discussed a 3 year cycle but if members were to save money for such a big trip we needed to allow a sensible time between events. We then put posts up to ask if other countries wanted to hold it, inspired by the way the Olympics and football world cups worked.
For 2011 we had to think about what sort of numbers we could expect. We knew what our active membership was, what the growth in tournament play had been and so the NAF put out a figure of about 400 as this was a 50% increase. At the time forum posters had suggested this was optimistic, after all, it had only been run once before.
We had 3 bids from France, Netherlands and Italy. We had been in discussion as a committee how we handled this as we had learned a few things from 2007. It was agreed that just a couple of us on the committee shouldn’t make this decision on our own. But we also couldn’t put it out to a global vote as this was too open for manipulation and maintaining control of the process would be difficult. We realised that in order to make such a decision, what we needed were a select group who fitted any or all of 3 set criteria;
#They had previous travelled outside of their own country. This meant they understood the need for transport links, hotels such like.
#They had run a large event themselves. This was quite important to me – if you are hosting a huge event, what better people to ask that those who had run some of the biggest.
#They would be a known figure in your community and the game, trusted by those around you.
It was fairly easy to find members who fitted at least two and often all 3 of these criteria. I realised that as a WC we needed a truly global team as well so I asked 18 people to vote and if there was tie, I would have a casting 19th vote.
There has since been discussion that I should have made these names public. That may be so, but when I asked the 18 I gave my word that I would not publish the names but they were free to “out themselves†if they so wished. It is because I gave my word when I asked them the names have never been published but I realised this would have to change next time.
So Amsterdam won the bid, we would see more interest than expected and this time we had 480 coaches take part in what can only be described as an amazing 3 days. The Dutch organising committee were incredible and it was so successful that we didn’t really have any decisions to make regarding a next one. It would be in four years’ time, 2015.
So we come to now, January 1st 2014 and we have run a bidding process similar to the WC2. This time we had 5 countries bidding. They were Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Spain. We again felt the process of selection had to be controlled in a professional manner so we increased the voting count to 30 but this time I made sure the voters knew that I would be publishing the team. But not who they voted for as that would be unfair.
The 5 bid teams each submitted a proposal and we built this with some work from ManticoreRich in the graphics dept, in to one big document which is found here in a hidden part of the site.
http://www.thenaf.net/downloads/private/bid.htm Please be aware this is a big document and I know some have trouble loading it.
The voting team had several weeks to read over the information and they needed that time too. The bids were exceptionally good, a lot of time and effort had been taken by all the teams and it was clear that some perfectly good bids would have to be unsuccessful – only one bid could win.
My thanks to the voting team – a couple of which could not reply or open the document so I had a couple of reserves that I was able to pull in. However, there was a landslide winner in Italy. They claimed 19 votes with the next placed gaining four, and third place claimed 3. As you can see, there was a popular consensus.
Team; DutchDave, Geggster, Pippy, Valdric, Dwarfunner, NotoriousJTB, GeneralJason, Xtreme, JonnyP, FatherGalius, Thomsy, Darquebus, Reaper, Sandune, RabidBogscum, DaImp, Oventa, Sputnik, Planlos, Kfoged, Beppe, Mur, Joemanji, PrinceLucy, Jokaero, Bucks, Nathaniel, Deathwing, OMM, Mago, Purplegoo.
Some of these names had to come in later than planned as I had to pull out intended voters who were then involved with one of the bids. I know that if anyone wanted to challenge me on any name there I had a solid sound reason for their inclusion.
In summary, that is how we have got to here in time. I hope some find the detailing of the history useful as I don’t think many know all of it.
Dave Downes
Lycos
NAF President |
Last edited by Lycos on Jan 01, 2014 - 12:12 PM; edited 1 time in total
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sann0638 |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 01, 2014 - 11:03 AM
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President
Joined: Jul 03, 2006
England
Posts: 1114
Location: England
Status: Offline
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Good work  |
_________________
NAF President 2016-17
Founder of SAWBBL, Wiltshire's BB League @ sawbbl.co.uk
Last edited by sann0638 on Jan 01, 2014 - 12:15 PM; edited 1 time in total
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 01, 2014 - 11:22 AM
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Joined: Feb 10, 2003
Undisclosed
Posts: 2696
Location: Undisclosed
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| Cheers Dave. |
_________________
_____ and rankings - that is all
#27 of the "24 club" (due to some dodgy accounting)
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Loki |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 01, 2014 - 04:50 PM
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Joined: Feb 17, 2003
England
Posts: 58
Location: England
Status: Offline
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| Thank you for all the time and effort in getting the explanation up. |
_________________
Time flies like an arrow,
Fruit flies like a banana.
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jrock56 |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 01, 2014 - 09:15 PM
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Joined: Jan 28, 2008
Canada
Posts: 893
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
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| Thank you Dave! Great to have this info available. Very informative and good for teams that would have interest in submitting bids for future editions of the World Cup and the process behind how the selections are made. |
_________________
2008 Bongo Champ,2008 Deathbowl Champ,2011 & 2012 Sweetbun Champ,2014 Warpstone Cup Champ,2015 Q'ermitt Champ,2016 Daggerbowl Champ
http://nafcanada.ca/tournaments/deathbowl/information/
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Rabid_Bogscum |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 02, 2014 - 04:41 PM
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Joined: Sep 23, 2004
Australia
Posts: 255
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
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| Are we able to know which bids the votes went to, as in which polled the votes ? |
_________________
NC Australia
Ex-NAF Vice President 2020-24
T/O Eucalyptus Bowl
Sydney, NSW - 13th-14th July
Australasia's Major
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D_Arquebus |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 02, 2014 - 06:35 PM
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Joined: Jul 28, 2006
Australia
Posts: 27
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
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Cheers Dave and everyone involved in the process.
Planning has already begun to attend my 3rd NAF World Cup  |
_________________
NAF Regional Tourney Organiser (Australia/ New Zealand)
13th to 24 Teams
www.ausbowl.com - Home of Australian Blood Bowl
http://nzbbn.com- Home of New Zealand Blood Bowl
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SinisterDexter |
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Post subject: RE: The NAF World Cup 2015 ;history and the decision process
Posted: Jan 03, 2014 - 04:05 PM
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Joined: Dec 08, 2007
Adelaide - South Australia
Posts: 7
Location: Adelaide - South Australia
Status: Offline
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| Thanks all. This is a tough process to go through, but I think the process itself and the communication around it (which has been a point of contention for the NAF) was approached and executed very well. |
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