Help us British cubers!

Should there be more British competitions?


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Unless your actually gonna give up your job and do that then yes it was.

i also haven't constantly said the same thing, i think i've said it twice and it's a pretty good reason as i work a lot and cant take much holiday so having to stay overnight doesn't really work and i'm not the only one. Also saying its only £100 when including food and entry can easily be £150 which is really hard to save up for a lot of people, i'm not saying hey you do more comps i'm just saying it would be cool if the uk had more and they were more spread out. and i'm also not telling you to do it so i don't really see your problem with me saying it..

Many people who go to competitions or even organise competitions have fulltime jobs or are fulltime students, so that's not really an excuse. GBP 100 is probably the upper limit you would need to spend, and there are lots of ways to cut costs. Book train tickets in advance, share hotel rooms, have sandwiches from Tesco for dinner instead of eating out. And if you insist on eating out, McDonalds won't exactly empty your bank account. I live in The Netherlands and went to Edinburgh Open in January. I paid about 150 Euros for the whole thing, including travel, hotel, food and competition fee. And that's travelling from a different country.

Yes, it's not unreasonable to want a competition close to your home. We all would want that. But it is unreasonably to demand and expect one, but not want to put the effort in it. You're not telling Chris or Daniel to organise every competition in the UK, but you do expect someone other than you to organise one near you. That's not going to happen. People who organise competitions in certain places because they live there. If you want to have a competition near you, organise one yourself. You might not be able to do organise an official competition straight away (depends on Daniel) but you can organise a cube meet, like the ones in London by BillyRain. There you can meet other cubers and that could me a way to make yourself known to the cubing community. And make an effort to go to a competition. Even if you can't stay overnight, you can still attend one day. There'll be a comp in Guildford in the summer so try and go there for one day. Just travel, no hotel costs.
 
There's something quite broken about the logic behind saying 'I can't travel to one or two comps per year, so it would be nice if the UK delegate did this more often for me'...
I have mad appreciation for Dan and everyone who's helped the UK community flourish in the time I've been attending competitions. There will already be twice as many competitions this year as there was last year, a considerable growth, don't you think?

OP: Right now, I think more than one comp every 2-3 months is superfluous.

(casual reminder that cubing and the UK community isn't just about comps)
 
Many people who go to competitions or even organise competitions have fulltime jobs or are fulltime students, so that's not really an excuse. GBP 100 is probably the upper limit you would need to spend, and there are lots of ways to cut costs. Book train tickets in advance, share hotel rooms, have sandwiches from Tesco for dinner instead of eating out. And if you insist on eating out, McDonalds won't exactly empty your bank account. I live in The Netherlands and went to Edinburgh Open in January. I paid about 150 Euros for the whole thing, including travel, hotel, food and competition fee. And that's travelling from a different country.

Yes, it's not unreasonable to want a competition close to your home. We all would want that. But it is unreasonably to demand and expect one, but not want to put the effort in it. You're not telling Chris or Daniel to organise every competition in the UK, but you do expect someone other than you to organise one near you. That's not going to happen. People who organise competitions in certain places because they live there. If you want to have a competition near you, organise one yourself. You might not be able to do organise an official competition straight away (depends on Daniel) but you can organise a cube meet, like the ones in London by BillyRain. There you can meet other cubers and that could me a way to make yourself known to the cubing community. And make an effort to go to a competition. Even if you can't stay overnight, you can still attend one day. There'll be a comp in Guildford in the summer so try and go there for one day. Just travel, no hotel costs.

I do not expect anyone to organise the competition as long as it's not me, i have no idea why you think that, i am currently looking into how to organise one and would like to organise one, in the mean time i have organised a cube meet.

I simply said it would be nice to have more in the south or just more spread around, i wasn't rude when i said this or even unreasonable and as it's a thread asking opinion i gave mine.
I have no idea why people are taking offence to this as they shouldn't.

In my honest opinion the people organising the UK competitions are doing an amazing job and i have never said otherwise. I never said they weren't and haven't told them to organise any more and nor do i expect anyone else to, it would just be nice to have them. Is it now unacceptable to say what would be nice?
 
I do not expect anyone to organise the competition as long as it's not me, i have no idea why you think that, i am currently looking into how to organise one and would like to organise one, in the mean time i have organised a cube meet.

I simply said it would be nice to have more in the south or just more spread around, i wasn't rude when i said this or even unreasonable and as it's a thread asking opinion i gave mine.
I have no idea why people are taking offence to this as they shouldn't.

In my honest opinion the people organising the UK competitions are doing an amazing job and i have never said otherwise. I never said they weren't and haven't told them to organise any more and nor do i expect anyone else to, it would just be nice to have them. Is it now unacceptable to say what would be nice?

OK, in that case I apologise and take back what I've said. Great that your organising a cube meet and I hope it goes well. And good luck with trying to organise a competition. I used to live in Brighton and still have friends there, so it would be great if I could combine a visit to them with a cubing comp.
 
OK, in that case I apologise and take back what I've said. Great that your organising a cube meet and I hope it goes well. And good luck with trying to organise a competition. I used to live in Brighton and still have friends there, so it would be great if I could combine a visit to them with a cubing comp.

thanks :p
nice to see someone not giving me sh*t on this thread for no reason haha

@MaeLSTRoM
just realised when looking through this thread that i accidentally quoted the wrong comment, sorry about that, was supposed to quote kinch2002 and then got mixed up, sorry about that :/
 
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My last post was probably not directly helpful. However, it does set me up for this more-useful post.

My post was not an attack on any particular person. Neither was it only a result of this thread. I do not dislike any of you, and would love to have a good relationship with every single UK cuber. It was very sarcastic and I apologise if I caused anyone serious offence. I felt the need to express how frustrating my job becomes at times.

I know that people's posts are generally not intended to be a direct complaint/attack on the organisers in this country. However, by ommitting any sort of recognition of their current efforts it does read that way. Organisers are not doing their job for the recognition, but that doesn't mean we don't want to know when people appreciate our work. Encouragement from peers is the best motivation anyone can get. For example, if you had a good time then a simple email to the organisers, or a 1-line post on a comp thread means a lot to the people who have put the effort in for no personal gain. Thank you to those who do so - it means a lot.

Criticism is accepted and considered carefully if it is offered in a suitable tone of voice. Suggestions are listened to. Demands are not. It's simply a case of showing respect to other people. I could go through some posts pointing out how to rephrase them but I won't insult your intelligence by doing so.

One post in this thread says that all the competitions are in the South. Another says that there are no competitions in the South. Although the definition of South may be vague, there must be at least one person who isn't thinking carefully enough. Please stop assuming that everywhere is far away in such a tiny country.

If you've never been to a competition, I will not let you organise one. I do not believe it is possible for someone to do so successfully without essentially handing the job off to someone else. I will listen to people who think a particular area is short of comps but bear in mind there were max 3 comps a year until this year, so I'm not sure how to justify whether somewhere is short of comps yet. I will not seriously consider requests even from experienced cubers until they have found a suitable venue that is bookable for whole weekends at a reasonable price and they are willing to work hard as an organiser.

Thank you for listening to me, and hope this post is helpful for everyone.
 
My last post was probably not directly helpful. However, it does set me up for this more-useful post.

My post was not an attack on any particular person. Neither was it only a result of this thread. I do not dislike any of you, and would love to have a good relationship with every single UK cuber. It was very sarcastic and I apologise if I caused anyone serious offence. I felt the need to express how frustrating my job becomes at times.

I know that people's posts are generally not intended to be a direct complaint/attack on the organisers in this country. However, by ommitting any sort of recognition of their current efforts it does read that way. Organisers are not doing their job for the recognition, but that doesn't mean we don't want to know when people appreciate our work. Encouragement from peers is the best motivation anyone can get. For example, if you had a good time then a simple email to the organisers, or a 1-line post on a comp thread means a lot to the people who have put the effort in for no personal gain. Thank you to those who do so - it means a lot.

Criticism is accepted and considered carefully if it is offered in a suitable tone of voice. Suggestions are listened to. Demands are not. It's simply a case of showing respect to other people. I could go through some posts pointing out how to rephrase them but I won't insult your intelligence by doing so.

One post in this thread says that all the competitions are in the South. Another says that there are no competitions in the South. Although the definition of South may be vague, there must be at least one person who isn't thinking carefully enough. Please stop assuming that everywhere is far away in such a tiny country.

If you've never been to a competition, I will not let you organise one. I do not believe it is possible for someone to do so successfully without essentially handing the job off to someone else. I will listen to people who think a particular area is short of comps but bear in mind there were max 3 comps a year until this year, so I'm not sure how to justify whether somewhere is short of comps yet. I will not seriously consider requests even from experienced cubers until they have found a suitable venue that is bookable for whole weekends at a reasonable price and they are willing to work hard as an organiser.

Thank you for listening to me, and hope this post is helpful for everyone.

We understand it must be hard being the only delegate, thus if anyone wants a competition then it needs to go through you. And especially due to the increase in demand for competitions it's going to stress you out somewhat with a full-time jobs and other commitments etc.

Could the problem be helped by getting another UK delegate?
 
We understand it must be hard being the only delegate, thus if anyone wants a competition then it needs to go through you. And especially due to the increase in demand for competitions it's going to stress you out somewhat with a full-time jobs and other commitments etc.

Could the problem be helped by getting another UK delegate?

I second this, although asking for someone to become a delegate is quite hard as they would then have to give up considerable amount of their time for this. I would love to become one, but I an underage and quite busy as a student and I'm not sure if I qualify
 
Could the problem be helped by getting another UK delegate?
Not at the moment. I haven't had to turn down any serious potential competition requests yet so I am not looking to get another delegate currently. If things continue to grow then in the next 12 months or so the time may come for it.

The factor that is holding things back is the number of people organising. I have heard tens of people say that they will organise, or they will look into it. Some of these people were experienced enough competitors. Some of those people have tried and fallen by the wayside venue-wise. It's not easy to find a venue, but sometimes I feel that people don't try hard enough to find one.
 
not everyone has the money to pay for £50 train travel across the country or £50 worth of fuel if they drive and £100 if they book a hotel room if its a 2 day event so to be honest, no we shouldnt have more competitions but instead we should have less and put them in parts of england where nobody can get to or lives there THAT was sarcasm by the way, i was just imitating how some of you responding. there should be comps in major cities like london, birmingham, cabridge, manchester etc etc.
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the post should be "would you like more competitions in UK?" because lots of people are saying how hard it is to set up one and ... blah blah blah, but of course everyone "wants" a competition. however tht seems not to be the case with some people who look like they are against competitions INSERT NAMES HERE
 
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there should be comps in major cities like london, birmingham, cabridge, manchester etc etc.

First of all, I agree with what you said, I would just like to address one point.

Having a competition in London is unfeasible due to venue costs. Birmingham/Manchester would be good but very few people live there. We need people in places to organise.
Cambridge isn't really a major town in my opinion, and it quite out of the way for most people.

As it stands, we are having competitions in Nottingham/Leicester which are pretty big cities and are quite central, so its about the same for everyone in terms of travel.

Although I agree, I just can't see it changing, at least not for a while.
 
I think that UKCA is doing a great job lately, you can see the increase of competitions over the last year or so and that makes me really happy. When it comes to location and distance it will always be hard to pick a location that satisfies everyone, but seeing as competition dates are known for a couple of months before, shouldn't that be enough time to organise yourself with the travel/save up money? Sure a weekend trip to a place 300 miles away will cost you, but planned earlier in advance it shouldn't be so bad. I personally like the idea of competing in a completely different place simply because i get to travel and discover new fantastic places and people. I remember when i made my parents take me to UK Open in 2009 to Manchester and we had to leave at 3am to get there on time (i live in Cambridge), but it was completely worth it and made the whole adventure even better!

I say, stop moaning, relax, plan in advance and notice that there is being more and more competitions in UK being organized, in new locations as well, thanks to UKCA and others (:
 
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