IS IT TIME TO IMPROVE STANDARDS OF COMP DATE FIXING SO WE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING FOR THE WHOLE YEAR?

One major issue that must be addressed in order for our sport to prosper is the haphazard and totally disorganised approch towards planning and date fixing for comps,which i and many others find a logistical nightmare as it is impossible to plan anything without fear of clashing with other events,as other sports do this much better and have a complete programme of events for the WHOLE YEAR ( not just organise something here and there with only a few weeks notice as happens at present) as this is a recipe for disaster that will do nothing to encourage others into our sport. Even at the top of our sport the BAF is just as guilty of this shortcoming as although we know what events will happen and where they will happen but we still do not know the actual dates of the BAF events which should be set out for the ENTIRE YEAR IN JANUARY.(If this happened in Football there would be an outcry.) Even other countries like poland do it better than we do! What we must do is plan a year in advance so we know what is happening when and where without fail as we are at present in a black hole with nothing happening in the near future and this need not happen if all of us got our act together and made things happen as happens in other countries.I myself have not pulled competetively since Judgement Day in feburary,and cant wait to do it again! I am sure many others feel the same as i do that we must do better and rectify this disorganised chaos into something more constructive and take comp date fixing more seriously and aim for a complete programme of events for the whole year like other sports do.

Andrew, you have been in this sport for just over 6 months now so i will forgive your lack of insight into the workings of comp organisation, and just let you know a few things,

1, the BAF, or Neil as it is otherwise known, does post all competitions that he has information on at the start of the year, also, he is extremely busy, with armwars, the BAF, his full time job, family and a whole bunch of other stuff you have no idea about.

2, armwrestling is an amateur sport, run by people who have full time jobs (none of us are paid to organise comps/ training days), famillies etc so the priorities are not going to be biased towards armwrestling, we all organise what we can when we can depending on our own work/ life schedules. The BAF does not mandate clubs to organise events for specific dates. Oh yes, the funding for a comp comes out of the pockets of those hosting it.

3, the finaincial strain of putting on a comp that may or may not be well attended is huge, trophies, venue hire, time away from work etc are all prohibitive factors, I myself would love to run regular comps, as would most of the club presidents, however, with feeding your family and keeping a roof over your head being more important than making sure someone has a comp to attend every 4 weeks armwrestling takes a back seat.

4, comparing armwrestling a distinctly niche, mostly undergound, amateur sport to football, the biggest professionally organised sport in the world is pointless, we are talking about a sport where the organisation barely breaks even at the flagship national comp to a several billion pound giant where a home game at Man U raises about £8 million in revenue from gate receipts, tv rights, merchandise/ food sales and pitch side sponsorship. Just imagine what we could do for the sport with the equivelant of just one weeks sallary from John Terry as annual revenue for the BAF!!

5, the funding available in eastern European countries is considerably higher, they have federations run by members who do nothing else but armwrestling, it is their job to run and organise events, however, here, whilst armwrestling is recognised by sport England they have no listing for a governing body and no paid committee running the day to day affairs of a sport that barely 0.001% of the population takes part in.
http://www.sportengland.org/about_us/recognised_sports.aspx
which means no funding from the UK government, despite the legacy of the 2012 games.

There is nothing chaotic about the way things are run and if you want to try and put together a callender of events, then you need to have deep pockets to help subsidise the clubs that will host them, don't forget also that there are maybe 100-150 active armwrestlers in the UK, not all of them will turn up to all the events because of injuries/ holidays/ work/ money/ family/ distance to travel and so on, leaving some comps woefully under attended and frankly not worth the time, money or effort of running them.
Growing the sport at club level is a bigger priority than putting on comps for maybe 25 people to turn up to, so maybe with Jeromes help, you should be out and about trying to increase your club membership.

Thank you for giving me an insight into this aspect of our sport this has really made me aware of the situation.Of course we all want to pull to win and i agree that all of us have other priorities to contend with myself included.Unfortunately there are times like at present when nothing is happening on the comp front and we should use this opportunity to train hard for the time when something is about to take place,and at present i am pleased that there are some training days taking place,and i am really looking foward to our one off special on easter monday which will be a chance to pull with some of the big names of our sport and i am more than ready for this! And when the time comes to compete i will be better prepared.