yes another c-up by the competitions management !

i notice from the RCCC website that on Friday that 6 teams were to qualify directly to the finals from the minitour and by Monday it had risen to 7 !

They have to state at the outset (back in June) the number of teams that are to qualify through the minitour - it was the same last year when it was intimated that it would be 3 teams and it ended up 7 or 8 teams. they seem to make it up as they go along !

No wonder that a board / asc member now has to be present when the draws are made.

This year must be one of the most shambolic Scottish Championships on record, and it has'nt even started yet!  The rules of mini-tour states that "at the moment the top 6 ranked" teams will qualify for the Scottish", how come today they have 8 listed as qualifying? 3 sections of 5 in the pre-qualifying, 3 to come out of Section A and 2 from B & C, level playing field? Who dreams this stuff up? Scottish finals, play round robin, then if you make last 4 just come back 5 weeks later for the page playoff!! allegedly to satisfy TV, tell TV that if all they can give us is a Tues and Wed night at midnight to take a running jump. Do they pay us or vice-versa? could someone expand on this?   Whatever teams win the junior championships cannot play the latter stages of the Scottish if they get there because World finals clash, fair chance of this happening given the number of juniors playing esp in the girls. If this happens will they have their entry fee and all their expenses refunded? Will they take the teams who finish 5th if this happens? even tho the rules state top 4.

Thats the point - what do they need "wiggle" room for?

To make it easy for organisers to have a draw that suits them ? To make sure certain teams dont have the ignominy of having to play pre-qualifiers?  To make sure that the minitour gets entries?

and they still cock it up!

Should be simple -
1)top 4 "qualifying" teams (ie meet the scottish mens criteria) get to go straight to mens qualifier  from the minitour.
2)Rest will have to go through pre-qualifier.
3)This is stated categorically at time of issue of entry forms for both the mini tour and scottish mens.

How difficult is this?
None of this - well it might be 3 , it might be 6 , but actually we will take 8 teams - what a farce!

You will not see my name in the draw this year - competed for god knows how long and have to admit to being pretty disillousioned with it and thus didnt enter.

I concur with Gordy completely - the thing is so broken up before and after xmas with loads on before xmas if you wanted to play them all. really all that is on after perth masters is one weekend of mens qualifiers and the (split) finals.

i know the Olympics come into play - but there are the rest of the teams to think about. It actually might have been an opportunity to give somebody else a shot if murdoch et al were tied up with the Olympics.

i can also understand DA's frustration with the minitour - I looked up last years scottish mens entry form and it was stated that 3 teams would qualify out of the minitour - and they ended up taking 7 i think. It was fairly obvious this was done last year to give equal sections and an easy to work draw at the pre-qualifiers. The issue with Logan Gray & Pete also didnt help with the other competitors - many comments by them on that one.

the same debacle that happened in this years womens qualifiers  also happened 3 or 4 years ago in the mens at Pitlochry - A weekends curling to kick out a couple of teams - you would think RCCC would learn.

At the time of the last "consultation" on the structure of the mens 2 or 3 years ago - i suggested to CH to hold a skips meeting at one of the qualifiers in Perth when all sections were playing there. this would have been an open discussion with the twenty odd skips present - he never bothered and after some emailed ideas did his own thing anyway.

 There needs to be some changes made, as patently the thing isnt working as it is.

From the last Board minutes

One matter raised at ASC relating to event draws has been dealt with at the
subsequent Events meeting, the idea of have a member of the committee
supporting Colin Hamilton at each event was thought to have merit .

RCCC have changed their minds again - now just two from each section - guess that makes it easier. Just to have a team less going through to the Districts.

Make the rules up as they go along - watch this space it is all bound to change again !

so if one team less to districts that means there will be a section of 9 and a section of 10 - another rammy to come i fear.

Why does it take the punters (us) to point out the shortcomings - i thought the (allegedly) clever people at cairnie got paid to run the game properly these days?