9-Ball
Topic: British pool federation membership 2016

Thank you for your mature and reasoned response Richard, I would sincerely like to hear what you think I have said out of place or without grounding?

I refer to your own personal statement put out when the BPF was first formed in 2012 (http://www.gb9balltour.com/2016-event-schedule)

Quote...

"We believe that a rock solid foundation is the key to success in all areas, not only will the youth, amateurs, women and wheelchair players reap the benefits but also the professional players too, basically the more players at the bottom of the ladder the stronger our game will be all the way through.

Of course this will take some time and we are under no illusions as to how hard it will be, which is why we need every player, whether it be amateur or pro pulling in the right direction, for now we have set ourselves some goals to achieve in the next couple of years.

Our first goal is send players to the European Championships each year, also we intend to organise every year a UK championships, this will allow us to fund players attending the Euros.

Another goal that we have set is to get more youngsters involved with the game, as we said before the more players playing our game the brighter our future will be; we plan to visit schools up and down the nation in a bid to encourage the youth and hopefully find the next generation of American pool players.
I would like to say a big thank you to GB9 who have been able to lend their support to the federation.

Best regards,

Richard Jones
President
British Pool Federation"

I can understand that not a lot happened initially with the newly formed BPF but can only assume that Kurt was brought in in 2013 to make some of this happen?

So please update your players and of course members Richard on what the BPF have done over the past three years to further the sport of American pool in the UK, and of course what you aim to achieve in say the next 12 months that your fee paying members can judge you on?


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Andy Warden, GB9 - Authorised Pro9 forum advertiser/sponsor √

Could it have been the following that upset Richard ?

First and foremost I would suggest the BPF board sack their current President who has clearly done absolutely nothing in three years and install someone who is actually willing and able to further UK pool.

to be fair to Andy I dont see anything wrong with the above quote.

It might well be harsh but going with what we know it seems accurate to me

Yes thats exactly what struck a nerve especially when he knows sweet nothing, how about make the gb9 a bit bigger and better first or just take a look at the swedish fedetation or indeed even kurts CV oh might put him to shame thats why!!

Is kurt there president as well rich

Yes he is

A good CV gets you the job, but you are judged by what you achieve when you get the job. I'm a bit tired of asking this but once again, please tell me what the BPF have achieved (or tried to achieve) since being formed three years ago except to take UK players money and pass on to the EPBF?

Yes Kurt has been and continues to be very active with running the Swedish Federation, but not with the UK federation. Perhaps the board should now realise that they needed somebody dedicated to the role of President of BPF rather than somebody who is going to be pulled between three different roles one of which is with the EPBF which immediately created a conflict of interest?

Regarding your point that GB9 should concentrate on making our tour bigger and better first... We try our very best to deliver the most professional National tour that we can, with the player base we have. To my recollection you have never been to a GB9 event since moving to hotel venues so not sure what experience your view is based on, but it is certainly not one shared by the vast majority of players that actually support the tour.

One of the main roles of a National federation is to grow the sport, especially with junior players and the grass roots, perhaps if BPF actually did their job the sport might benefit and the player base for GB9 would be expanded?


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Andy Warden, GB9 - Authorised Pro9 forum advertiser/sponsor √

actually i have played a gb9 event in a hotel, for starters we as in mark, myself, iman, chris, phil and daryl should be congratuated for actually forming the BPF instead of being critisized, in my view its still very early stages and im sure its the bigger picture which is the most important thing here

We are not going to make massive strides with no funding, hence why we cant send players to EC, the £150 is mainly because we have to pay a yearly membership fee to EPBF, if we do get funding im sure this membership will drop by some way

Your personal opinion on these matters are very silly and are not called for, i mean telling the BPF to sack Kurt is just laughable

Picture this, the BPF does manage to get funding, all your hateful words might come back to haunt you!!!!!

Richard

When you say funding sources, can you give us an idea of what has been done so far to try to obtain funding ?, attract sponsors etc, maybe that would gives potential layers a flavour of what has in fact been done in the first early years of BPF.

Lets be brutally honest here. Nothing will be done without funding and it is very unlikely that a sponsor or the government are going to come along and put a lot of money into our sport. It is even more unlikely if we don't try (which I suspect is the case)

I understand the guys at the BPF getting their backs up however the fact of the matter is all that they do (or seem to do) is collect money to pay the epbf fees. That is an important role though as it is a requirement. Until the BPF come and tell us what else they actually do then what is everyone meant to think?

I am not criticising them for not doing anything else as they have an almost impossible task but I don't see the need to pretend all these good things are going on if they really aren't. The exist because there was a requirement to exist and pay the fees. Growing the game is great but what has been done? It doesnt take a lot of money to get a few 'Pro's to do some sessions with juniors at their local clubs or exhibitions for starters.

If they have 8 gb players who are at that level they have to pay 1200/8 so 150 each so nothing left to grow the game unless more than 8 players of course,as 1200 a year has to go to epbf

We don't want to be in a situation like Ireland with no federation and players who can't compete at et/epc/wchamps etc

I just want to congratulate Andy on, yet again, doing an amazing job to bring us another season of top quality GB9 pool. Over 100 players entered event 1!

I know he was fully supportive of BPF at its inception as were the rest of the GB9 Committee and I'm not surprised he is frustrated to see it seems to have fallen back into what we had in the old days, which was essentially paying a bribery fee to the EPBF for the benefit of a few elite players.

Unlike GB9 under Andy's excellant leadership, the BPF lead by Kurt have delivered nothing since they were set up. And Andy hasn't just come on here to bad mouth them..... this was a last resort after multiple unsuccessful attempts to resolve the situation by email. Kurt's attitude that he will not enter into a discussion unless it's face to face (meaning substantial additional travel cost to UK players) is laughable.

So I for one completely support everything Andy has said.

On 2016-01-20 13:24 , tigger147 Wrote:

Yeah and that is fair enough but just be transparent if that is all their function is just now (even if it is because of financial constraints)

If that is the only function I would have thought 1 person could co-ordinate it.

Thanks for support Riggers and Panther.

They only need 8 players to pay £150 to cover the £1200 to EPBF, 6 of the players are on the BPF board (gray, majid, peach, jones, melling, burford) so they only need 2 more. Income for all the others players forced to pay is extra.


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Andy Warden, GB9 - Authorised Pro9 forum advertiser/sponsor √

So who are the BPF sending to the European Championships this year, I understand the deadline has passed for nomination?

Perhaps the official UK numbers 1-4 have been asked?

1. Craig Osborne
2. Michael Rhodes
3, Benji Buckley
4, Darryn Walker

http://www.gb9balltour.com/documents/rankings/Rankings2015Main.pdf

I think the deadline was 25/1 Andy

Just send me and Ben Buckley what could go wrong

On 2016-02-05 04:15 , tigger147 Wrote:

Yes Tony, it's all gone very quiet!


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Andy Warden, GB9 - Authorised Pro9 forum advertiser/sponsor √

prob as there is no point now as deadline missed I guess no men going then

What's the script with the BPF these days? I've lost the plot with it all.... Lol thought it was just formed so that we could play on the Eurotour etc?? Now we are not even getting invites to euro champs?