GOLD COAST SHOOTOUT-report

Gold Coast Shootout I Post Tournament Report

I would like to start off by thanking all of you that worked so hard to make this event a reality. Joe Gosser, Clem Watts, Diana Needham, Jay Carson, Denny Gosser, Matt Lowes, Bob and Rosie Cobb, Dave Allen, Larry Gee, Mick Farrell, Simon McDade, Sara and Terry Fitch, Doug Peterson, Jan Kid, Anne Kramer, Tony Arnold, Aaron Arnold, Joey Burt, Phil O’Neil, Kelly Tracy, and Nancy Johnson. Your hard work and dedication was very evident in the presentation of the event and I commend you all for a job well done.

The event really started for most of us on Friday at about 09:00am as we arrived on scene with truck loads of materials to be set up. For the most part set up went smooth, but ran until about 8:00PM. We arrived back on site Saturday morning at about 08:30am, and finished getting things ready. The dart players started to show up shortly after, and around 11:00 am we were off and running with the first event. Things went smoothly at first, but by the time we got to the second event, Men’s singles 501, my luck had run out and we were hit with our first major setback. I won’t go into all of the details, but suffice it to say we managed, with the help of Denny Gosser, and Sean Downs to get the mess sorted out and were going once again. Now about an hour behind schedule. Then again in the Open Singles Chicago we were hit with yet another set back. We managed to finish the day up about an hour and a half behind schedule.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to the following people as they were significantly affected by the two major mistakes we had the first day. Bill Neel, Dario Meza, Pat Keith and Kenneth Keith. I appreciate that you all took things in stride and were understanding about the problems we had, and I want to assure you all that these problems were worked on extensively Sat evening between Joe and I, and we do not expect them to happen in the future. Thank you for your understanding and patience with us as we got through first time tournament jitters. Also a big thank you to Denny Gosser, and Sean Downs for taking the time to get us through those problems. Your help was much appreciated.

Day two was a different story we began the day on time and everything was running like a well oiled machine, we went through all of our matches and managed to finish the day slightly ahead of schedule, and most important we did not have any major set backs.

Surprisingly we had a very low turn out of Ventura County dart players, and a low turn out all around due to a couple of conflicting events. Of particular concern was the low turn out for the Women’s events. However the show went on and in the end we felt we had done a good job. I hope to see many more VCDA members at next years event, as you can see by looking at the stats the VCDA members present were right in the running for some of these events, so for those that don’t think they can compete at this level I think you should reevaluate that line of thinking. Although there were some excellent darts thrown during the course of two days, there were not any runaway winners.

In addition to the tournament we ran the iPod shoot, which drew over 200 entries, and surprisingly like last year, the final winner was almost the last throw of the event (only 3 more attempet to win after her throw). Congratulations to Betsy Daugherty for a final throw of Triple 16, Double Bull, and Single 19, for a total of 117 points.

Now with the tournament behind us we can relax and reflect on what happened, why it happened and how to make sure next years event is error free. As we already have the dates we will be getting ready for next years event within the next month, so keep your calendar open for Oct 10^th – 11^th 2009 for Gold Coast Shootout II, There will be many changes / additions to next years event as we try to make the event fun for all players, and at the same time give people other things to do than just shoot in the tournament.

Thanks

Bryan

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