Bankstown Open - Nsw Tour - Cancelled

[Bert]

NSW TOUR

Earlier this year AMF-NSW Region was forced to cancel the remainder of the Grand Prix series due to a lack of entries that were required to make the tournaments viable.

When withdrawn, a series of public outrage was expressed by bowlers far and wide accusing AMF of having no regards for the tournament bowler.

In May 2005, AMF-NSW Region announced the launch of the new 2005-2006 Tour Series. When first posted, comments from bowlers who viewed the post (815 views) were positive.

In late May, the first of the four tournaments (Bankstown Open) was announced and entry forms were distributed to all AMF Centres and available from the Total Bowling Forum.

Despite the early interest, only 20 entries have been received for the Bankstown Open.

It is for this reason that AMF-NSW Region is left with no alternative but to cancel the Bankstown Open and the remainder of the 4 tournaments that represented the 2005-2006 Series.

This decision, whilst regrettable, is necessary, and based purely on the lack of interest/entries from bowlers.

For the remainder of 2005 and the for-seeable future, no Tour Series will be organized through AMF-NSW Region. Individual centre based tournaments may be scheduled, but no set dates, venues or formats have been organised.

We would like to thank those few who did nominate for the first tournament, and you will all be contacted personally during the week. No transactions against Credit Cards have been processed and any cheques mailed to the tournament director will be returned.

Regards


Brad Menachemson
Regional Manager


Lloyd Klaman
Regional Manager

 

[Leggi_23]

Well this doesn’t surprise me at all…..
If you out an event on when it clashes with other this that have been going for years what do you expect. No help was given even when asked.. there would have been more entries......

Now lets see what support that AMF gets from the everyday bowlers…. You know, the ones that keep you business going….

Just something else that AMF are trying to blame the bowlers for.

 

[willey]

The unfortunate thing about he Bankstown Open is I work in a Bowling Centre and I never seen an entry form on any other litrature on it, maybe thier's a correlation there.

willey.

 

[HomerJay]

When our Classic tour was running we also had the problem that entry forms were never put on display at Forest Hill AMF.

On all three occassions I was able to get entry forms from the independantly owned centre I bowl at, Ed Fleming Lanes. I thought it was ironic that another centre is promoting a competitors tournaments, go figure.

Jayson Bundy

 

[DIECAST NUT]

I see entry forms only went to amf center, why was there no forms sent to private centers????

No wonder they had to cancel it.

 

[FLOWER]

Surely with 851 views on the announcement of this NSW Tour, the bowlers obviously knew it was going ahead - hard copies of Entry Forms are almost becoming a thing of the past.....getting Entry Forms to bowlers who almost never look in the advertising racks (if there are any!) at centres is an ongoing problem......word of mouth and keeping up with tournament dates etc. is nowdays easily accessible on both the Total Bowling and TBA sites.

Bowlers who are attracted to Open events should surely take some responsibility about approaching newer bowlers re the tournament scene....bowling centre staff should not bear the brunt of advertising tournaments in other centres - yes! I know the sport here is at stake but bowlers must accept some of the blame for not promoting their own sport.

Take a few moments to contact interested bowlers if you know tournaments are on - make enquires yourselves - don't wait to be contacted personally (it will not happen!!) - you never know, you just might get the tournament scene back on track yourselves - it will not happen if you do not support!!!
We have all been guilty of finding reasons not to bowl - let us be honest if we don't want to bowl but don't blame AMF, bowling staff, lane conditions, private centres, no promotion, too hot, too cold, no XXXX, sore thumb, arthritis etc.

Flower

 

[Gary]

Why not give Victorian bowler's a chance at a grand prix series you would get a hell off a lot more bowler's than 20.

If you go by the amount of post's on this site the interest in talking ( posting ) about bowling is about 7 ( Victoria ) to 1 ( NSW ).

I know that's not a perfect way of gauging number's but a dam good indication of interest so com on AMF have a go it could all be worth it.

Just my 2 cent's worth.

Gary..........

 

[Leggi_23]

So the youth series is going ahead,
So AMF are pushing out the adult people to give the juniors what they want.
So it's basically giving up.........

Is Roy going to answer the call from the bowlers, I mean Roy promissed that he would have an ID Division One compertition up and running after ten weeks, here we are in week 17 and we haven't heard a thing.............

Do AMF ever intend to keep there promises.......... Or just willing to lose bowlers to independant centers

 

[Resurrection]

Can AMF see the problem here, the bowlers are finally boycotting the AMF way and its about time.

Matthew

 

[ilive2bowl]

It is easy to be a lounge chair critic of AMF and their efforts to improve Tournaments for all levels of bowlers. It is disappointing to read the vindictive posts relating to AMF's sincere efforts to re-establish a viable Tournament scene in Australia but we will not be undeterred. We have been consistent in our approach - Tournaments must be viable both from a sponsorship and bowler support point of view - much the same as in relation to any other Sport. If either of these two elements are missing - we should not expect growth in Bowling as a legitimate sport.
We do not resile from the fact that 'marketing' support for the promotion of social play is strong and will continue to be so ......but then it has to be to maintain our commitment to a strong league base and indeed a viable Tournament programme........... but we will not run Tournaments for their own sake!
Finally to the post that indicated that I had broken an undertaking in regard to ID open.....speak to your organising committee and see who pulled the plug and why.

 

[Ash]

The main problem is that many bowlers were eager to support the new tour, itching to in fact, then when it was scheduled on the same weekend as the final round of roll-offs for the ECCC state team. our efforts to have the tour stop re-scheduled were basically ignored, with a "why should we move it, tough luck" attitude.

This does not really foster warm fuzzy feelings. All we were asking was a delay of the final by a few hours, not a lot to ask if you ask me.

This inflexibility, was a major cause of the poor number of entries, as many bowlers were already committed to something else that was not a secret, and furthermore, AMF were warned in advance of this conflict, and chose to do nothing about it.

how do you expect us to react?

I thought the tour idea was a brilliant one, and would have been totally behind it 100% and promoted to all I came in contact with, had the first stop been scheduled better, or had the tournament organisers been willing to bend a tiny bit to make it possible for ECCC bowlers to attend.

Also, why cancel the entire tour? As far as I know, the Mt. Druitt stop (next on the calendar by memory) was not in conflict with anything else, so why not run it to see if that was the case, I can bet that if it was still on, entries for this event would be better, even perhaps higher than your projections.

My suggestion would be to continue the tour as scheduled, and re-schedule the Bankstown Open. But I doubt that will happen now.

No one wants any of this stuff to be going on. But we expect the same level of support and co-operation that AMF does from us.

If I'm wrong, tell me so.

 

[Susanne]

Dear ilive2bowl

In reply to your post with regards to I.D. and being a member of the I.D. Committee I would like to answer your implication that the committee "pulled the plug".

The ID Chairman, Brian Hird, contacted Brad Menachenson on many occasions, being promised that he would call back as he was busy at the time. Phone messages where left for Brad and Brian is still waiting for a reply. The promises of extra teams cost the ID competition this year a number of teams as some of Division 1 teams were going to change their line up to comply with the average cut off for Division 2, but with the promise of a Division 1 decided to wait.

 

[GBS]

Hi

Hi Roy I know you watch Total Bowling so I will direct personally to you.

I feel the lack of entries was due to just two issues

1. The format - stop start, stop start, stop start qualifying is a recipe for injury particularly if the facility has synthetic approaches. I don't think I need to expand on synthetic approaches and every reason in between. It also makes a very very long day out of qualifying.

2. The Format - the finals the next day, many bowlers are going to be short changed after the first or second game of day two.

Thank you for listening Roy, we have always had a good relationship in the past and this is just my view and thoughts as expressed to me by some bowlers who get in my ear.

Cheers mate

 

[ilive2bowl]

Thanks to all who posted on this subject. Your comments are most welcome and helpful. We are taking them on board and will relook at this series with a view to reinstating it.

Regards,
Roy M.