Larry has graciously invited me to write a blog entry describing my experiences in hosting a U-FLI tournament and compare them to the experience of hosting a NAFA tournament. It is my hope that by pointing out some of the problems my team experienced in hosting a U-FLI tournament, they can be addressed and corrected by U-FLI.
My team had hosted our first NAFA tournament back in 2003. While we had been to plenty of tournaments and had put on a couple of fun matches, we were a little nervous about hosting our first tournament. However, our fun matches had gone well due to lots of planning and organization. So, we put the same skills to work and took the plunge into our first tournament. While it was not without stress, it was nothing that we could not handle. We kept things running smoothly, and based on the feedback we got from the teams who attended, everyone had a good time. The paperwork and fees were straightforward and we had no issues with seeding or scheduling.
Three years later, we had moved to Georgia and had been asked by a local kennel club to put on a flyball tournament as part of an AKC responsible dog ownership program. So we thought, let’s try a U-FLI tournament this time. We had been to one of the first U-FLI tournaments in the summer of 2006 and really liked it. We were warned by another team in a neighboring state about how much difficulty they had encountered in hosting a U-FLI tournament, particularly with the mountain of paperwork required. We did not think it would be such a big deal.
Since we were basically a brand new team, we figured that we were going to have to bend over backwards to get folks to attend our tournament. After all, first tournaments do traditionally have low attendance. So, we decided to offer singles and pairs, in addition to standard and variety racing. We asked a team in a neighboring state to lend their names as co-hosts so that we might spark some interest in their region. We got a lot of response. Initially, we had about 42 teams enter, plus quite a few pairs and singles. Our building only had room for one ring. The only way to accommodate all of this was to run some of the singles and pairs on Friday night and to start insanely early. I’m talking 5:30 am for singles and pairs. While I am not the morning person my husband Howard is, you do what you have to do to put on a successful tournament. We finished on Friday and Saturday somewhere between 7 and 8 pm. We finished up on Sunday around 5 pm, due in large part to having the judges very strictly enforce warm-up times which dwindled to 30 seconds after the mid-way point. Once again, we got a lot of positive feedback from attending clubs with a request to host it again next year. The only negative remarks I remember were that the a/c was not cold enough. As this was something over which we had no control, we were not put out by these comments at all.
Most folks were unaware of the turmoil going on behind the scenes. Actually, I’m betting there were about 4 or 5 teams in one particular division that had a clue about it. The source of this turmoil was a combination of the U-FLI seeding and scheduling system, and one particular club.
When you submit a list of entries to U-FLI, they put them through their seeding and scheduling applications and send you back a seeding chart, a racing schedule, and an invoice. This sounds really great. They even send you a file that is pre-formatted for the labels that most folks use to post race results. Everything would have run smoothly, except that one club that had 4 teams plus several singles and pairs entries contacted us a couple of weeks before the tournament and said that due to family medical problems, they would not be able to attend. Fair enough, we’ve all been there. Send the changes back to U-FLI and get new paperwork. Yes and No. You get a new seeding chart and racing schedule, but not a new invoice. Ok. We’ll talk to someone and work this out. Except a week later, the team called back and said they were back in. Now, at this point, we probably should have said no. However, what tournament director of a first tournament wants to do that? We have since learned that this particular club does this dropping in/out/in/out of tournaments quite a bit. In fact, the club owner told us that this is common practice in other regions. Perhaps some folks outside of NAFA Region 14 can comment on this, but it seems highly unlikely to me. If you are ever in this situation and it is a U-FLI tournament, I highly recommend that you do say no. Unfortunately for us, we wanted to be nice, so we said yes. Contact U-FLI again to get them to redo the schedule, seeding, chart, and labels again. Oops, except that two days before the tournament, the club called us back and said that no, they would not be able to attend. If this were a small tournament, I guess you could have run 4 divisions worth of byes, but as it was quite large, we had to contact U-FLI again to get the seeding chart, schedule, and labels redone.
None of this contacting U-FLI and getting stuff back happened overnight. The folks we worked with were very understanding about the changes, so I am not criticizing them. The problem was, we didn’t have the finalized seeding chart, schedules, and labels until Friday afternoon, after we had stated setup and just a few hours before racing. I was literally printing labels and filling out singles and pairs entry forms by hand to get them ready in time for Friday night racing.
We got home around 10 pm and stayed up literally all night printing labels. Howard had to get to Kinko’s at 3:30 am to get schedules copied and get to the building by 5 am. Plus, we still had Sunday labels to do. This was not poor organization on our part as we had already done all of this paperwork prior to the last schedule change. Saturday night we were again up all night printing labels. Sunday morning, during singles and pairs racing, I was still printing labels when I noticed the schedule was bad for one division. So, I had to redo the entire schedule for that division. The teams were very patient about it, and I applaud them for their good sportsmanship, as things could have gotten pretty ugly.
Could this have been avoided? Absolutely. While I think it is commendable that the sanctioning organization has programs to create seeding charts and schedules, it is deplorable that the tournament directors do not have access to the programs. Make them available to clubs, either by download, or by web-based application if the code is proprietary. That way, host clubs don’t have to continually pester U-FLI for the paperwork they need. If a team drops out, the TD can make the changes and move on. At the time we hosted this tournament, we were not given the option of changing the schedule ourselves.
Another issue we had was with the U-FLI racing and entry paperwork itself. Friday evening, a U-FLI representative told me explicitly that I absolutely had to have a signed entry form for each and every team and singles/pairs entry. There is a release of liability statement on these forms for those of you who are not familiar with them.
I had to beg and cajole every team captain to get these forms signed both days. Sunday afternoon, the “official” U-FLI representative handed all of these signed papers back to me, saying that she didn’t need them. Adding “nobody sends paper entries anymore.” In a state of quietly controlled rage, I informed her of what the other U-FLI representative had told me. She asked me if I needed her to take the paperwork anyway. I think it must have been the murderous look on my face. I told her “Yes, I really never want to see that set of paperwork ever again.”
Here’s a couple of ways to avoid this problem and any future attempted homicides it might incur. How about having good communication among the U-FLI representatives, including having them all on the same page? An even better solution would be to put the liability statement on the actual race results form if it is legally required. There is plenty of room on the singles and pairs forms for this. On the standard team racing forms, you might have to leave one race off the form. I guess you could put it on the back, but not everybody has access to a duplex printer. By including the liability statement on the racing form, you meet the legal requirements, cut the paperwork in half, save a lot of trees and tournament secretary’s nerves.
While I am on the subject of paperwork problems, I have to point out those abysmal singles/pairs results forms. They are the most confusing forms I have ever seen. I am not the only one who has had this reaction. Every time I’ve been to a U-FLI tournament I’ve heard line judges asking how to read them. The fix is simple in my opinion. Just make them look like a regular racing form. You can combine the singles and pairs record into one. Put a place on top for 2 dogs and their RUN numbers then just list two races in the results section. This makes it look like every other tournament scoring sheet and helps speed along the tournament because the line judges and table workers won’t asking how to score them.
We had one final headache from hosting a U-FLI tournament, and that was that pesky invoice. It was unchanged from the initial one we received when we first sent the list of entries to U-FLI. At the end of the weekend, we spoke to the U-FLI representative about it, since we were being charged for 4 teams entries for the two one-day tournaments, plus a handful of singles and pairs entries for both days. It was quite a chunk of change. The U-FLI representative told us to contact a particular individual to have those charges removed. Well, as you might have guessed, the charges never were removed and we were forced to pay them anyway, while we were still trying to collect from the club.
NAFA does this right folks. Just let the Tournament Director send in the appropriate fees for the racing sheets they send in. If you have to provide an invoice, do it at the end of the tournament based on the scoring sheets turned in. Make it simple and easy on the host club if you want them to continue putting on U-FLI tournaments.
Now, I’m quite sure that many clubs have hosted U-FLI tournaments without a hitch. I think that is great and it is probably the norm. However, it is not until you encounter problems that you can reveal flaws in the system. One U-FLI representative looked at me at the end of racing on Sunday and said, “You look like I did the first time I hosted a U-FLI tournament. The next one will be easier.” This struck me as strangely humorous. Didn’t this person help design their tournament system? He shouldn’t have looked the way I did. I certainly didn’t look or feel this way after hosting my first flyball tournament, which just happened to be a NAFA tournament. If U-FLI were to correct the problems that I have pointed out here, I would personally be willing to host a U-FLI tournament again. Until then, I’ll go to U-FLI tournaments, but when it comes to hosting, I’m sticking with NAFA.
Thanks again to Larry, for maintaining this blog and inviting me to write about this subject.
Danie Arnt
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19 comments ↓
Danie, I think your club was very gracious, perhaps to the extreme.
When we enter a tournament, we email our entry, and drop our paperwork in the mail with a check on the same day. I can’t imagine any other way to do it. But I’ve heard of people that expect to pay at the tournament. Payment is due at the tournament closing date. An entry without payment, is not a valid entry.
It is funny how there always seems to be a “in our region” excuse? Makes you wonder? I mean, seriously, is there a region out there that allows you to enter teams and pull them at will, and decide whether you want to pay when you show up on the day of racing? If so, please speak up, in the meantime, I’ll continue to believe that it was total BS.
U-Fli has helped tournament hosting immensely by tackling the seeding and scheduling. I think the next step would be for them to provide a web site to allow us to enter tournaments and pay via credit card or PayPal. Collecting entries would then be one less thing for the host club to worry about.
Robbie
This story does seem to indicate some issues with the U-fli system, but with respect to that I think you would have likely had a very smooth tournament(time and the confusion on the singles/pairs forms not withstanding) had you not had the team in/out/in/out.
If anything this shows that there needs to be some rule on pulling from tournaments, and not necessarily a need for a change in control that U-fli has over tournament seeding and schedule. The seeding and schedule are two of the biggest headaches in hosting a NAFA tournament. Having a single person in charge instead of having to go between TD/RD with multiple changes, last minute changes can cause a lot of heart ache. With U-fli being in charge of scheduling there can be a lot less he-said/she-said, though when last minute changes are needed this does prove troublesome, but in addition to the “u-fli issues” I hope you also learned that if you only had room for one ring you may have wanted to limit your tournament to allow for that and that now you know how much trouble being too “nice” can get you into!
As far as receiving payment, here in Region 19, we have a very relaxed tournament atmospheres. So we are often very relaxed on receiving payment. As long as we have payment before racing begins we are usually happy, we try to be more prompt, but we are still a young region and base a lot on trust and no one has yet broken that trust. I think there is a lot of regional differences all throughout NAFA that people don’t want to believe exists, it certainly does both in protocols and even in racing mentality from region to region.
If this story proves anything it certainly proves the team in question should never have an accepted entry without payment first! And certainly U-fli should right up their invoice at the end of racing and not before.
And of course with everything there is a learning curve. I’m sure this isn’t the norm, but certainly is an example of crazy things that can happen and people involved (host clubs and U-fli) should take notice.
Oh I should of said this reminds me I’m supposed to write a check to RUFF for an upcoming tournament. I’m writing it and getting it in the mail right now
Stuart said “If this story proves anything it certainly proves the team in question should never have an accepted entry without payment first! And certainly U-fli should right up their invoice at the end of racing and not before.”
Considering that the U-FLI representative’s team did not pay us until Sunday afternoon, along with at least one other team whose owner is also a U-FLI owner, I don’t think that this is the issue.
Robbie said: “U-Fli has helped tournament hosting immensely by tackling the seeding and scheduling. I think the next step would be for them to provide a web site to allow us to enter tournaments and pay via credit card or PayPal. Collecting entries would then be one less thing for the host club to worry about.”
Yes, I totally agree. Let us enter the seed times online and accept payments by paypal. That would be great.
As far as limiting a tournament, if we had done that, no one would have come. I have heard too many club owners say that they will not enter a limited tournament.
I believe in Region 15 the RD has taken it upon himself to actually do the racing schedule. I think one person in each region should do the schedule and life would be easier.
Danie, I made the comment that a lesson learned about the team is that one should not accept their entry without payment because they broke your trust. They were in/out/in/out. In the end they cost you money. You extended trust and they broke it. To me I would never be burned by this team again and never allow them entry into one of my tournaments without payment up front. If they already had money invested they might think twice about being wishy washy. I understand that sometimes things are out of a teams/clubs control, but what you describe about this team is ridiculous. Even with money up front you could always be gracious and refund in true circumstances. Sure the U-Fli people should have changed the invoice, but a lot of your tournament heart ache would have been avoided had it not been for this in/out team.
We can give leway to teams on payment ahead of time who keep the faith and don’t abuse trust given out by the host clubs, those who break it don’t deserve any special treatment. you went through a lot of hoops to try to accommodate this team and in the end it failed you.
When I entered my first USDAA tournament, I didn’t understand which box to check for which game, etc. I think the confusion with singles and pairs is just unfamiliarity with UFLi.
While we haven’t hosted UFLI tournaments, I do know hosting NAFA the first time was somewhat confusing.
Stuart said “We can give leway to teams on payment ahead of time who keep the faith and don’t abuse trust given out by the host clubs, those who break it don’t deserve any special treatment. you went through a lot of hoops to try to accommodate this team and in the end it failed you.”
I agree with you. However, this was the first time we had ever dealt with this team, so we didn’t know. This team pulled a similar trick when the team we are running with now (out of another state) hosted a tournament last spring. The TD told them repeatedly that their entries would not be accepted without payment up front. They finally agreed, but were not happy about it and and gave the same story about how paying at the tournament is normal in other regions. We learned our lesson and were not about to be burned again.
And, I also agree, they were the primary cause of the chaos. However, it did kind of shed some light on things that could be better. The fact that one division’s schedule was wrong and had to be manually reworked does concern me though. It leads me to believe that either the scheduling is done by hand by U-FLI, or that a scheduling program has a bug. I’m talking about a division in which the schedule did not show a full round robin! I’m sure Larry recalls this incident, because one of his teams was in that division and he was one of the folks waiting patiently while I fixed it.
I’m quite sure that many folks have nightmare stories like this one regarding a NAFA tournament. We just haven’t had that problem. Even if the schedule is computer generated, it probably still needs a human to double-check it.
As for the invoice, since it is not due until the tournament is over, why not wait until then to deliver it to the host club. There is always a UFLI rep on hand.
But I agree, if this team had not kept yo-yo-ing, it would have been pretty smooth. However, I still think the forms need improvement, and all the UFLI reps need to be on the same page about them. That was really aggravating because none of the captains wanted to have to fill those out.
Sonya said ”
When I entered my first USDAA tournament, I didn’t understand which box to check for which game, etc. I think the confusion with singles and pairs is just unfamiliarity with UFLi.
While we haven’t hosted UFLI tournaments, I do know hosting NAFA the first time was somewhat confusing.”
How many UFLI tournaments do you have to line judge at with those forms until they become familiar though? Because I was still confused by them and I had been to 3 or 4 tournaments. Why not just make them look like a normal form that everyone is familiar with. It saves time, and UFLI tournaments do run notoriously long (at least the ones I’ve been to have).
As for being confused with NAFA the first time you hosted a tournament, this wasn’t the experience we had. Our tournament was quite smooth, but I’m sure other folks share your experience.
My point in writing about our experience was not to bad-mouth UFLI nor hold up NAFA. My previous comments on Larry’s blog should bear that out. I just wanted to point out some areas that I think could use some improvement. I certainly think NAFA needs improvement in many areas that Larry has already discussed here. I’m not calling for a boycott of UFLI tournaments until they are fixed either. All I meant to do here was point out what I thought were problems for which I could see a easy solution. Clubs can and should host whatever type of tournament they choose. Hopefully, the pitfalls we experienced will provide them with a heads up so that they can be better prepared to deal with them.
Danie said;
“How many UFLI tournaments do you have to line judge at with those forms until they become familiar though?…….Why not just make them look like a normal form that everyone is familiar with?”
Since U-FLI was the first organization to introduce sinlges and pairs racing, how could you make a brand new form look like a normal form since there was never one to begin with? I’ve never seen it look any other way so it seems normal to me.
Elizabeth said “Since U-FLI was the first organization to introduce sinlges and pairs racing, how could you make a brand new form look like a normal form since there was never one to begin with? I’ve never seen it look any other way so it seems normal to me.”
I think you misunderstood. Just use a normal team racing form and modify it. Have the two races listed one below the other, rather than side by side. Rather than having 1 to 6 dog numbers to circle, you just have one or two. Instead of 6 dogs names, breeds, run numbers, just have a place for one or two. One if you use a separate form for pairs and singles. List two, and you could use the exact same form for both pairs and singles. Just check a box for pairs or singles. You only have to circle the one or two numbers for the dogs racing, and you only have two races in the results scoring area. The paperwork can be pre-marked to list left or right lane.
The Regular and Standard racing sheets from both organizations look pretty much the same. Granted, there are some minor differences but if you’ve seen the NAFA sheets a few times figuring out the U-FLI sheets is not a problem. So, the only thing Danie is saying is that the singles and pairs sheets should somewhat resemble the Regular and Standard sheets to make them less confusing.
Danie,
Most of the problem you had seemed to be because you let the team pull/enter/pull. I know that you were trying to be a good host but it is hard to redo schedules and seedings when changes keep getting made. Maybe it was easy when you did the NAFA one but did you have team(s) pull/enter/pull on you then? If so you would have had to reseed send to the RD for approval, then reschedule and resend to the RD (oh but then your husband was the RD so that probably wasn’t that much of a problem). We have hosted both NAFA and U-Fli tournaments. Some of the paperwork is the same but some is different. But then it is two different organizations that you are dealing with. I am sure that there is different paperwork required between and AKC event and a UKC event.
In the long run with the errant team and your large entry (which you didn’t have in the NAFA tournament you hosted, from what I am gathering) things seemed to be somewhat overwhelming to you. Giving it a second try with maybe limiting your entries or just doing regular racing and taking “day of” singles and pairs if your entries are low might be a better way of handling things. But then this is JMO. We will be hosting 2 U-Fli this next year.
Judy said “If so you would have had to reseed send to the RD for approval, then reschedule and resend to the RD (oh but then your husband was the RD so that probably wasn’t that much of a problem).”
Nope. I guess you are not very familiar the NAFA rules. You can NOT be an RD for a tournament you are hosting. The Executive Director appoints a temporary RD when the current RD’s team is hosting a tournament.
Judy was RD for Reg 3 for YEARS…and a NAFA approved judge and a U-FLI approved judge.
For whatever it is worth Danie - as much headache as you had - your team did an awesome job! And we had a blast, despite the heat!
Jackie
Dani,
You CAN NOT be TD (tournament director) and RD (Regional Director) at the same time. But you can host the tournament and be the RD….you just make someone else on your team TD. And yes I am familiar with the rules.
Judy
Robbie said, “U-Fli has helped tournament hosting immensely by tackling the seeding and scheduling. I think the next step would be for them to provide a web site to allow us to enter tournaments and pay via credit card or PayPal. Collecting entries would then be one less thing for the host club to worry about.”
Has anyone checked on Dog Events Online? We use them for our agility trials and I think I’ve seen them list flyball tournaments. We’ve had some bumps with them now and then getting our info out there, but usually it works pretty well for us. I really like how I can print out entries already filled out if I’m entering a trial.
Beth
Ah, I just went out and looked and they only take “some NAFA” tournies right now. Might be worth checking to see if they’d set up a template for U-fli.
Beth
Howard was the TD for the NAFA tourney and not the RD. The ED appointed an RD. Yes, we did have to get the RD to approve, and the RD’s response was a quick as UFLI’s. Considering that everyone in both organizations does have lives outside of flyball, the responses were pretty quick. Having an online entry system, preferably with paypal, would be a boon to both groups. Add on seeding and scheduling program and it’s even better.
Does anyone happen to know if UFLI uses a program for their scheduling? Or is it done manually? At first, I thought it was a program, but when we found that error in the one division where it was an incomplete round robin, I began to think the schedule was done manually. Either way, it is always a good idea to have another person or persons review it–no matter who is sanctioning your tournament.
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