Preparing for the Cosburn tournament season

Pre-season planning

District 10 Fall Meeting (November)

The tournament year begins with the District 10 Fall Meeting, where the tournament schedule for the coming year is mapped out. For the most part, the lineup is carried over from the previous year: if you had a tournament on the first Saturday in June last year, you’ll have that day again this year—unless District and Provincial tournaments are on the same days as your club’s tournaments.

Before this meeting, ask the District 10 Chair for a list of District and Provincial tournaments. If a District tournament conflicts with one of your tournaments, find a new date for your tournament; if a Provincial tournament conflicts, you can still host yours, but expect to lose some entries.

Come to the meeting with a list of your tournament dates. Other clubs may change or drop their tournament dates, so be prepared to grab a better date for a Cosburn tournament should it become available.

After the District 10 Fall Meeting

Once the tournament schedule is set, email the tournament dates to the other Cosburn Board members, so that they can prepare as well.

Contact the Communications Chair, verify that you have access to the WordPress (WP) system, and go over what information needs to be listed on the website prior to opening registration on Jan 1. The Communications Chair will need to know the format, start time, entry fee, and any team restrictions (must include one novice, for example).

Because our end rinks (especially 8 and 16) are not currently in top condition, limit entries to 28 teams (12 for a combo fours). This will allow you to avoid the rough rinks—unless a team shows up with an entry and is not on your list (technology and humans aren’t infallible). Reserving those two rinks gives you flexibility to add a team to the tournament.

You should also discuss promotion strategy with the Communications Chair—are there tournaments that need a boost because they’re new or not well attended? Maybe there’s an exciting story that can be promoted, such as a format change, a returning champion who also won a major Provincial title, or new sponsor prizes. The Communications Chair will also prepare a tournament advertisement (to be placed in the OLBA Annual) and convert it into a pdf file that can be emailed to Tournament Chairs at other clubs in the province. The Annual’s deadline is usually the end of January.

Before the season starts, arrange for all trophies to be engraved with the previous season winners. Currently, we use D & G Trophies, 123 Sunrise Avenue, Toronto. Drop the trophies off at the shop; pick them up 1-2 weeks later.

During the season

Processing registrations

Most members register for tournaments on Cosburn’s website. Registration opens January 1; expect a flurry of registrations for a week or two in January and then a steady trickle until the season starts. Online registration closes a week before the tournament; after that, teams sometimes try to register by contacting you directly. If you need to balance teams or want to fill a tournament, you can choose to accept the registrations.

When bowlers register for a tournament on our website, an automatic email goes to the entrant, and another goes to cosburntourneys@gmail.com. Open the email, verify that the information provided is complete and accurate.

In addition to the on-line registration, prepare a hard copy for entries that come in (names and phone numbers), as a back-up to the WP system. The hard copy list can be used on the day of the tournament to check in teams.

Managing the waiting list

Once a tournament is full, teams may email you directly to be added to the waiting list. Keep a record of who is on the waiting list and the date they emailed you. If a registered team pulls out, cancel the entry on WP, contact the first team on the waiting list, confirm they still wish to enter, then go on WP and manually register them. The team member who you registered as the main contact will receive an email confirmation.

In general, 14 spots out of 28 are reserved for Cosburn teams (teams with only Cosburn members).

Because spots for non-Cosburn teams (any team with a player who is not a Cosburn member) are limited, those teams will get a “Sold Out” message if all the non-Cosburn spots are filled. That can happen even if spots are still available for Cosburn teams.

These teams may also email you to be added to the waiting list. When registration closes, you may offer spots to those teams if there are empty Cosburn spots.

Final tournament prep

One week before the tournament:

• Tell the Premises Chair and the Social Chair how many teams will be attending, so that they can prepare the greens and staff the kitchen.
• Ask the Sponsorship Chair whether or not the sponsor will be attending and will welcome players before the tournament, speak during lunch, or hand out prizes at the end. You may have to adjust the game timing to accommodate sponsor recognition.
• Go on WordPress to the specific tournament page and click on the email tab. This allows you to send a general email to all the people who registered a team. In the body of the email, let the recipients know that their entries are confirmed, remind them of the tournament date and start time, and give them your phone number for last-minute questions or cancellations.

One day before the tournament:

• Prepare the tournament scoring cards for each team, listing the entry name and club affiliation.
• Prepare the game scoring cards for the first game. You’ll need two cards for each green being used.
• Make a list of all clubs attending, the prize payout for the day, and a list of the rules for the tournament.
• Print a list of the teams entering.

Familiarize yourself with the Cosburn, Provincial and National rules. There will always be some joker who thinks you aren’t doing things the way they ought to be done or the way they were done in the distant past. Being able to quote chapter and verse will get you over some rough spots.