Team England Committee Election 2023 *CONGRATS TO NEW COMMITTEE*

[Pipey]

Dear English NAF coaches

Please find details below of the upcoming Team England Committee Election. This is for the Eurobowl cycle beginning with Eurobowl XIV in Greece 2024 and ending with Eurobowl XVI in 2026 (location tbc).

edit 19/5/23: THERE WAS NO VOTING AS ONLY FOUR CANDIDATES CAME FORWARD

As a reminder, the community voted to have a committee in 2018 and voted for the Team England Charter in 2019. The Charter can be downloaded here.

Here’s how it all works (summarised from the Charter):

-The committee has five members: four regular members and the Team England Captain (separately elected – more on that later in the year).

-The outgoing committee (2020-2022 cycle) are:
Leipziger
Mubo
Pipey
Speedingbullet
With PeteW as the 5th member (Team England captain)

-The four regular committee members stand for a 4-year tenure, presiding over a single Eurobowl cycle.

-Any English NAF member may stand as a regular committee member.

-Regular committee members are elected by community vote. Voters must be English NAF members and must have played a NAF tournament in the 12 months prior to voting.

-The elected committee’s job is to lead a process of community consensus around how Team England works. This is in accordance with NAF Tournament Approval guidelines relating to tournaments where players are selected to represent nations.

-The committee also upholds the Charter and reviews/updates it where appropriate. The process of making changes to the Charter is set out in the Charter document.


At this point it’s important to say that this election should have happened last year before Eurobowl Malta. We are a few months late and the committee would be in place for nearer 3 years (than the documented 4). The previous few years have of course been quite unusual with two cancelled Eurobowls in 2020 and 2021. It has taken us a little longer to get back into the planned routine. We hope the community understands.

The election will be administrated through this thread as per the timeline set out below. All discussions are welcome here including questions for the current committee or any other discussions.


Successful candidates for Team England Committee Election May 2023:

Deeferdan
Purplegoo
Speedingbullet
Wobert

===================


Statements from each of the new committee members:

Deeferdan
I'm interested in the TE committee role because I’m really keen to help BB thrive in England. We have had a pretty amazing decade of dominance within the eurobowl BB scene thanks to a really strong group of players to whom we are indebted for repping us so effectively at the eurobowl.

However, we are in a period of distinct change within the BB scene as a few of those experienced players move on and the game continues to evolve. It’s also fair to say the community as a whole is very healthy and there is a huge pot of good blood bowl players in England whom we need to encourage to put themselves forward for TE.

I’m not seeking to change anything re the England team or selection approach - merely to be part of the group that helps find the best players for the team. I think my position as midlands RTO really helps with this, along with my role as part of the organising team for the NAF champs. Both these things mean I have a good understanding of who is playing and playing well - and also aids me in developing contacts and encouraging players to be confident enough to put their names forward for involvement - with self selected shortlisting being the the single (and by no means big) problem with the TE selection process.

Purplegoo
For those that don't know me, I'm Phil and I've been playing in NAF tournaments since 2008. In that time I've done various things / held various posts, including being the NAF TD, a recurring TO and the England captain for two Eurobowls. I've been playing for Team England since 2010 and I'm passionate about the team, the Eurobowl / Eur Open and the approach of the English community to the tournament.

While I probably seem a bit 'establishment', I have a pretty consistent record of actioning / voting for change over the years. I hope that those that remember my captaincy will agree I'm keen on engagement with the wider community and trying to share the passion of Eurobowl with others, and I still think that's where we can make the biggest gains. More generally, Team England business is usually pretty quiet with a couple of large spikes, so I hope to help keep the machinery moving in the background with a minimum of fuss and bureaucracy and then deal with the spikes when they occur.

Looking forward to Greece and beyond; hopefully we can return to winning ways!

Speedingbullet
My name is Jim and I’ve played Blood Bowl for just over 20 years. My local league is the Shropshire Blood Bowl League and you’ll also typically see me at various events including the NAFC and UKTC.

I’ve been on the Team England Committee since 2018 and look forward to continuing for another term. The previous committee encouraged significant community debate on the selection process for Team England, culminating in the current Charter which sets out how Team England operates.

The Charter could do with a tidy up to reflect some changes, for example to dates and to include some detail on how the Europen Team is chosen. I believe the Europen team should aim to be both competitive and a route for a wider group of players to be part of Team England with an eye to the future and to the development of talent.

Wobert
My NAF name is Wobert (20177) and I have been on the tournament scene for about 10 years now (attended 103 tournaments including 2 world cups and played 408 games as at time of writing). In terms of my background, I have been playing Nuffle’s great game since the second edition in the 1980s. Like many I did take a break as real life took me away but I then gravitated back to the game about 15 years ago and well, it’s been pretty expensive since then!
I am an active member of the Blood Bowl Community. I have set up 2 leagues, one in Gloucestershire where I used to live (and it’s still going strong) and one in my new home of Nottinghamshire. In addition, I am an overly enthusiastic TO. It started with 16 people in my house and an event called Auld World Masters and now I run 40 coach events a couple of times a year which seem to be very popular as they sell out quickly. I have run 34 tournaments in a number of different game formats including regular BB, BB7s and Dungeon Bowl.

I also write monthly fluff articles which appear on the NAF site – the Gridiron Gazette. That was the net result of a fluff lockdown passion project for me which I thoroughly loved doing. The story of the game holds just as much a part of heart as the actual game itself and hopefully that will be obvious to how its folded into my tournaments which always have some flavour to them.

I am excited by the possibility of joining the committee for Team England and being involved through the next cycle of tournaments. With a long and successful history at Euro-Bowl its important that Team England maintain its place at the higher echelons of the events, challenging for the big prizes. I am keen to look at the role of the Eur-Open team more and now it can be used as a genuine stepping stone into the full England team. I hope we can look at more proactive ways of getting people involved and give them their chance to cut their teeth in an England shirt.

[Pipey]

Please can this be made an announcement/sticky to bring it to the top of the forum. Thanks

[howlinggriffon]

Who are the members of the current committee?

[Pipey]

Sorry I should have provided that information.

They are:
Leipziger
Mubo
Pipey
Speedingbullet

PeteW is the 5th member as Team England captain.

I've updated the title thread.

Note: there is no restriction on standing again, or for consecutive tenures.

To be clear on my position: I will be stepping down, happy for others to have a bash! I certainly have plenty of BB community activity to keep me busy with tournament organisation.

It would be useful for the other committee members to state whether they will be standing again or not, if they have decided yet.

[speedingbullet]

I believe that evolution is generally better than revolution. I'm happy to stand again and if re-elected would aim to provide some continuity between the current committee and the next committee.

[Pipey]

Mubo does not wish to stand again for the committee (asked me to update).

[deeferdan]

Hi,

Few questions.

What is the expected commitment for committee members? How often do they meet etc.

Has this info/is there intention to share this info on any other channels? With the best will in the world the reach of this site is limited. I’m happy to help share it, on NAFC FB page for example, but just wonder if this being based here is an obstruction to the process?
Not trying to reinvent anything at this stage, just flagging that I haven’t spotted anything and without Pete’s message at the weekend I wouldn’t be aware of this

Thanks

[Pipey]

We have now shared across platforms. Any more publicity and sharing would be very much welcome thanks Dan.

Regarding the level of commitment required - I suppose that's difficult to answer because a large chunk of the 2020-2023 cycle was lost to the pandemic, with very little to do or discuss (x2 cancelled events). Thus far the committee have got together periodically to discuss specific issues on an "as required" basis. More structure and more regular and accessible lines of communication may be things the committee wants to look at, guess that may come out in the Q&A and discussion.

[deeferdan]

Hi guys -

Happy to put my name forward for this.

Best

D

[Wobert]

I'll put my name forward too.

[Pipey]

I've updated the title thread with a running list of candidates

Thanks all!

[Pipey]

For info: Leipziger will not be standing again, asked me to make it known.

[Purplegoo]

Put me down please, Bren.

[Pipey]

Will do
Updated candidates above

[Pipey]

So we find ourselves in a situation where there were only four candidates and therefore there will he no election.

Your Team England Committee for the next Eurobowl cycle will be:

Deeferdan
Purplegoo
Speedingbullet
Wobert

They are installed immediately and will join PeteW as Eurobowl captain. A Eurobowl captaincy election will take place later this year.

I thought it would be a good idea to ask each successful candidate to tell us a little about themselves and still open up a Q&A process in case anyone has any questions.

Please ask away. See title post for statements from each committee member.