let's re-think
Comments about this discussion:
Started
Hello all,
After I failed organising ECU2019 (again, sorry for that but this was the only option at that moment) I am trying to get up again. And I want to keep on going to do the best for the european unicycling community. After talking with some people I am ready to present an idea. It's an idea, please read before jump into conclusions.
1. make a website (www.europeunicycling.eu for example)
2. organise in 2021 different ECU's at differents moments in different places during the whole year.
Why this idea? Organising an ECU is a hard job. You need a locale and international team from around 15 people to work on it for about a year. Then you also need a place where everything can be organised. Since a ECU can have between 600 and 1200 competitors, it's more or less the same organisation as an Unicon.
Spliting the different disciplines can give some breathing space for organisers and makes it 'easy' to organise a ECU. I think about this bigger groups:
a. track (including slow, slalom, jumps on track, ...)
b. road
c. freestyle
d. muni
e. urban (allready exists with EUC)
f. basket and hockey (maybe toghetter, maybe also split up)
So that means: every two years the whole community toghetter at unicon, the other year different European competitions during the year.
What has to be done before we can take this step:
* work this idea out with maximum 5 people
What also have to be done:
* create a european part of IUF (so not this board, because that doesn't work) with active people in it with a chosen leader who takes the lead
Let me know what you think.
Let's make Europe great again (or let me take the other one: yes, we can)
Kind regards,
Alwin
Comment
Great idea Alwin.
There was already a discussion in Muni Rulebook Commitee to make separate European or World Muni Championships every second year between Unicons. Also, there was an idea to separate Muni from Unicon if it does not provide good Muni courses, which certainly is not a case with Unicon20, but can be good point when for example Netherlands or Denmark would like to be a host.
Personally I prefer joined events like Unicon or ECU but I understand organizational problems and limitations for good Muni.
I would suggest to set official deadline for proposal of joined events. In case of no proposals or objections to the quality of event, particular discipline committee may decide to allow for separate event.
Disciplines should be grouped and within group not separated between several events. For example - all Muni disciplines should be run during one event. It should be preferred that events combine many groups if possible but the groups should be complete.
It was the case in 2017 when ECU organized XC race but didn't organize DH, while it could be organized all together in Poland. In this particular case, it was not worth organizational effort to organize single DH race.
I suggest to start with creating European committees for each discipline group.
I like the idea with web page. Who will be responsible to run it? What about financial support etc. It would be much easier if things can be run under IUF by european division.
I propose Alwin for a leader of IUF European Division.
Kind regards
Maksym
Comment
Personally, I like the big conventions such as traditional Unicons or ECUs, where all disciplines are held at a single convention. This ensures cross-fertilisation between riders (and styles) who would perhaps not meet when separate discipline conventions are held at various times and locations. Also, for riders who participate in more than one discipline (which is probably the majority of riders), they don't have to travel to different locations all the time, with the associated time and money.
On the other hand, I appreciate that it is getting more and more difficult to find a host who is willing and capable to organise an all-in-one event. So I like Maksym's suggestion to set a deadline for proposing all-in-one events. We should accompany this by stimulating/lobbying. If there is no acceptable host after the deadline, indeed we should go ahead and 'allow' separate events.
Comment
Hi together,
Thank you Alwin for your thoughts and ideas! Personally, I support this idea. Organizing a complete ECU requires as many resources as organizing a Unicon. I think it's unrealistic to find an organizer for an ECU or Unicon every year.
With the division of the ECU in different sub-events, the effort is more manageable. Further, each unicycle disciplines group might be organized by people who understand and like these disciplines. Another important point: with the splitting in sub-events, we could reduce gym/hall availability problems.
Example: The past unicycle hockey European Championship event in Biberist (replacement event for Netherland, but only for hockey players) was very well organized. Why: Organized by hockey players for hockey players and we had a gym for the whole event.
Even we separate ECU's, we still have a larger meeting with all disciplines every second year thanks to the Unicon's. So for me this make sense even from the perspective of convention and meeting friends.
So far, this opinion is not representative for all Swiss unicycle riders. However, I've already discussed this with a few colleagues from the Swiss unicycle association.
Two additional remarks:
- Even Hockey and Basketball are both team sports, in my eyes it does not make sense to organize these disciplines together in one event.
- We could also think about organizing indoor-disciplines in winter, spring or autumn instead of summer.
I will try to find more opinions in Switzerland.
Comment
Hi to Everybody,
Here my point of view:
In the last 10 years the skill level in all disciplines has relevantly grown up. This is great but makes each race much more specialized than in the past. This increases also the level of professional skills, venues, equipment (and therefore time and financial resources), that are needed in order to run a professional /well-organized championship. The split into separate events (after having grouped the different disciplines) enables the host to focalize more into all organizational aspects in order to keep offering a high-level event.
I understand Maksym's proposal, however, I fear it could be difficult to manage the whole if we have to set each time a deadline for proposals of all-in-one events and only at the end we would know if we have to go in this or in that direction. I think we should now gather all replies (Alwin did you put a deadline?), understand in which directions are going the 90% of them, and then decide how to proceed, taking perhaps the risk, to decide for something new.
Since many years in Italy, we have chosen the approach of “single competitions”. We have dedicated championships, i.e. the Freestyle, the Muni (made out of 3 stages in three different locations), and the Urban one.
So, my preferences go into this direction, but I would recommend having in each championship the standard and the expert category. This would help to :
a) enlarge the number of competitors for each event
b) make it possible also for "NON-expert" to try to be part of a European Championship.
Regards Marco Vitale
However, we should not forget the spirit of aggregation and the cross-fertilization that Klaas and Maksym correctly remembered us. This is the strength of our sport and should absolutely not disappear. This is the reason why I would also like to have a European Convention every 2 years where all unicycle riders could meet, learn while joining workshops (perhaps held by the really best ones), enjoy staying together. This convention should be European also from the organizational point of view. I’m not bringing to your attention a real proposal, but I would like that we could think together of something new.
I imagine a Convention, which should be more easy to organize, mostly focused on the “teaching” and “cross-fertilization” rather than on high-level races. We could perhaps think of “team competitions” where only the “captain” is an Expert Rider.... I’ve not a precise idea, this is only a personal thought that perhaps could be interesting to go deep into it.
I fully agree with the realization of a European website. Maksym has put the firsts important questions.
I agree with Christian Peyer's remarks, i.e.:
- it's unrealistic to find an organizer for an ECU or Unicon every year **
- Even Hockey and Basketball are both team sports, in my eyes, it does not make sense to organize these disciplines together in one event.
- We could also think about organizing indoor-disciplines in winter, spring or autumn instead of summer.
** I go even a step forward. I would like to consider UNICON as our "Olympic games" and the Olympics take place every four years and not every two years.......
But, let’s go step by step.
Comment
sorry, I'm not a good typer ;-)
Comment
Hi all,
thanks to Alwin for opening an important discussion about how European unicycling, especially ECU, will go on in the near future. Having read all comments so far I appreciate all of your carefully chosen arguments and agree to most of them. In my mind's eye Marco pretty much sums it up best.
So these are my thought concerning ECU:
I find it very hard to organize an event that offers competitions in all unicycle sub-disciplines on various levels, allowing high level riders to have best possible preconditions as well as giving less ambitious riders or youngsters the chance to take part. All unicycling sectors have developed so enormously in the last few years that you need people who really know what's going on in e v e r y sector if you want to attract people for that event. That makes a good "all-in-one" event nearly impossible. So we need to split the very big event into smaller ones. (If that is true for ECU it will also be very hard to maintain UNICONS as they are now in future...)
In short: I'd prefer a division in different sub-events for ECU.
I strongly support the idea of an own website. But as Maksym said before, who will run it and where will money come from?
So let us give it a try to put into practice the changes for ECU. We may lose some of the convention character, but will probably gain possibilities to find organizers for single ECU events and leave the all-in-one event to UNICON every two years.
Cheers,
Rosi Bongers
Comment
Hey all,
Thanks for the quick answers. I think we are on the same track.
To clarify some things:
* about the website: I guess we can find someone who can make a good website. There are enough people in the uni-world who can do it. To keep it online and keep it up to date, I guess we need about a €500 to €1000 a year. Divided into the different ECU's it's max €200 per ECU. So I think we have to ask the organisers of an official ECU-event to pay a price to the European board so we can keep the website up and running. To start up, we have to ask IUF to give us the money.
* I agree that hockey and basket doesn't have to be in the same weekend.
* I don't think we need European commintees for each discipline-group. That's something IUF has. We can work for each event with the IUF-rulebook for the discipline.
* What I do think is that we need a group of max 5 people who are in charge for setting up the guidelines for organising a ECU-sub-event. What's minimum needed? When this is done we again need (the same) 5 people who search for hosts and do folow-up.
* Someone also wrote that it's important to keep an eye on the levels of the competitors: not only the best. That's a good thing to think about.
I will wait another week to jump into colclusions. Meanwhile I hope others will answer too (but I am verry happy with that much answers untill now)
Alwin
Comment
Alwin, about your third bullet: I don't think that is correct. The IUF Rulebook committee and the various discipline subcommittees exist only for a limited amount of time (normally maximum half a year) to consider and possibly revise the IUF Competition Rulebook. E.g. at this point in time, there is no rulebook committee. What the IUF /does/ maintain is a list of suitable people to ask for the committees.
I would really regret it if ECU loses its convention character. Especially for younger or less experienced riders who are not yet focused on one or a few disciplines. It is an eye-opener for them to see all the disciplines at a high level.
But then again, if it is not possible anymore (but that's a big if!) we may need to split it up. I would consider this only as an emergency exit.
Comment
Hello Europe,
No more answers so far.
Meanwhile I did two things:
1. talked with IUF (Olaf) about unicycling in Europe and the ECU-chalenges.
2. searched for places/ideas about ECU2021.
After my chat with Olaf he had a meeting with the IUF-board. They gave me the permission to create a working European team.
My next goal: create that team who wants to work actively on unicycling in Europe. If you know people (or you or that person yourself) who have to be in this team, please let me know. I have some names in my mind and will ask them but for sure I don't know all unicyclists. I want a coreteam from about 5 people. For me representation of each country is subordinated on the quality and the will to be active.
Meanwhile: I hope to get a positive answer from Poland/Maksym about ECU2021.
Alwin
Comment
Hello everyone,
I have not commented so far, but I have read carefully the discussions and exchange. I agree with your conclusions, and I am happy to see this european committee starting. I am very strongly in favor of "the will to be active" mentioned by Alwin ! :) Which is why I will not be a part of this committee ;) !
Thanks for the work,
François
Comment
Hi Alwin
thanks for the update.
Great idea to build an European Working Team.
If you think I can contribute, I would be pleased to join the Team and help in bringing the approved projects forwards.
I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers Marco
Comment
Hi Alwin
A few month ago you have written: "My next goal: create that team who wants to work actively on unicycling in Europe. If you know people (or you or that person yourself) who have to be in this team, please let me know."
--> I have asked Mirjam Lips, and she is willing to help. For further details its' best to contact her directly.
Cheers, Christian