Board Talk January 1992 - eShuffleboard.com

1992 National Tour - Southern
California Added
The success of the 1991 Grand Slam National Tour, highlighted
by the best tournament we have ever promoted, the
North American Championships in Reno, has us more excited
about the prospects for the future than we have ever been at
the beginning of a new year.
The 1992 Tour kicks off in the Los Angeles area, March 3-
8, with the West Coast Classic. Greg McFarland and Joan
Swenson are the Tournament Directors for this event which is
being held at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, California. In
addition to having a first class facility, the Bicycle Club is
also the world's largest card room.
The rest of the schedule remains pretty much the same,
with the Michigan Open on Memorial weekend, May 20-25;
The Board Talk Shufflers Reunion returns to the Holiday Inn,
Kulpsville in the Philadelphia area, July 1-5; following that is
the U.S. Open which also returns to last year's site, the
Howard Johnson South Plaza Hotel in Austin, Texas; the 1992
tour will once again finish at the Sands Regency Hotel &
Casino in Reno with the North American Championships,
NOV. 9-15.
Several new classes of competition will make their debut
on the 1992 Tour -- events for Division 11 and Division 111
players. This year's first event, the West Coast Classic, will
feature a new format -- frames as opposed to points -- in the
Division I, II and 111 and Team events, which will allow these
events to be played two out of three instead of single game.
Frames is not actually a new idea. It is actually back to the
future. The frames format was the most common method of
play in the country from 1947 until about 1960, according to
Sol Lipkin of American Shuffleboard.
Because it is our desire to promote tournaments of the
highest possible quality, a couple of changes in policy will be
in place for our 1992 events. It has been obvious to us in
reviewing the financial side of tournament promotion that although
we are closer to breaking even than we were in years
past, there are going to have to be changes for us to continue
this area of our business.
We have agonized over whether to increase the registration
fee and have mixed feelings about doing so. There are many
players who play only in the N.A.S.L. Team and we didn't
think it was fair to them to pay the same registration fees as
the person who is participating in three or four events. Keeping
that in mind, we think that we have come up with a fair
idea and have made the following changes, effective immediately.
There will be a $10.00 per player registration fee for the
team event. The players who want to participate in the
tournament's other events will be charged an additional
$10.00, making the maximum registration fee $20.00.
This change will allow us to continue to improve the
quality of our tournaments by enabling us to provide you with
the type of high quality tournament staff that we received so
many compliments on at our tournament in Reno.
Also, the burden put on our staff to process incomplete or
incorrect entry forms grew to the extent that it became a fulltime
job. For the Reno tournament alone, we issued $1845 in
checks to people who had overpaid. This is nothing compared
to the number of letters, phone calls, and stamps we used
trying to collect the balance owed by people who underpaid.
Therefore, effective immediately, our policy is that any
entry form that is incomplete or incorrect shall be returned to
the person who sent it. We will not hold a spot in the tournament
for anyone without a properly filled out entry form. If
you have any questions when you are filling out your entry
form, please call us; we will be happy to assist you.
Qualifiers
We want to reiterate what we said in the September issue
of The Board Talk in relation to this subject. Because of some
of the problems last year -- qualifiers run for events that were
already full, schedule conflicts with other tournaments, etc.,
spots in our tournaments will not be given to any winner of a
qualifying tournament unless prior written approval has been
provided by The Shuffleboard Federation, Inc.
We are very interested in helping anyone who wants to run
a qualifier in their area. If you would like to run a qualifier in
your bar for any of our 1992 events, please contact us as soon
as possible.
While we are on this subject, we would like to recognize
the excellent work of Tulsa Shuffleboard Association
founders Cliff Goff and E.R. Smith. Through the use of a
series of qualifiers, two six-person teams from the Tulsa area
were able to win a trip -- including air fare, room, and entry
fee -- to the Reno tournament.
This is the type of promotions we would like to see every
league involved in. We are looking forward to the day when
regional and national competitions for N.A.S.L. league
players will be a reality.
We would love to help you promote these types of ideas in
your area. For more information on the N.A.S.L. program,
qualifiers, having a sanctioned tournament in your area, or
how to purchase any of our world class shuffleboard products,
call The Shuffleboard Federation, Inc. at 313-380-9300.
"FRIENDSHIP THROUGH COMPETITION"