MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS

As promised, here is a full list of those who are now members for 2008/09. This includes those who have renewed and those recently joined. The list is correct to Thursday 16th October 2008. I will continue to update this list over the coming weeks. If you have sent in your renewal, would have expected it to arrive by the above date and yet your name does not appear here, please contact me as a matter of urgency.

Keith Alldritt, Ashley Allen, Graham Baker, Ian Ball, Robert Banks, Robert Benton, Andrew Binns, Bernard Bradley, Adrian Briggs, Jim Briggs, Stuart Briggs, Simon Buckett, Leigh Butler, Mike Cavanagh, Lee Clissett, Graham Coleman, Phil Cottier, Ashley Davidson, Ian Davies, Alex De Val, Charles Dean-Young, Mike Fenton, Robert Friel, Cameron Gibson, Martin Gibson, Murray Gibson, Ray Grace, Ben Griffiths, Graham Hedges, Chris Jarvis, Donald Laisure, Ralph Lenoire, Andrew Lovell, Julian Mallia, Gordon McJannett, Lee Mills, Russell Newton, Tim Ockendon, Colin O’Connor, David Parsons, Peter Parsons, Richard Prattley, Matthew Price, Henry Richardson, Andrew Robson, Simon Ryan, Norval Scott, Peter Scott, Ian Sneddon, Mark Snow, Lee Sowden, Paul Sutton, Anthony Tagg, Pete Thom, Steve Tonkinson, Ronald Vale, Richard Vernon, Tim Vickers, Ian Wainwright, Keith Wickham, Mark Wilson, Stephen Wilson, Dean Wright, Brian Yates.

Renewal fees go up on 1st November, so it pays to get your renewal in before then.

Paul Sutton

secretary@bafra.org

BAFL PLANS FOR 2009

BAFL have revealed their plans for the 2009 season. Their primary aim is to get the season down to 14 weeks – the present 20-week season is too long for most teams, a majority of which experience a significant drop off in attendances at training and subsequent games if the gap between games is too great. There are also issues about attracting spectators to games if there are too many weeks between fixtures.

In the past, the 20-week season has been there to help enable all games to have neutral officials, but with the league expanding faster than BAFRA, and any increase in double-headers and Saturday games possibly leading to official burn-out, BAFL feel they need to find a more radical solution to their demand for officials.

Therefore, their plan for 2009 is for BAFRA crews to cover all Premier and Division1 games, but only one or two homes games for each Division 2 and youth team. The remaining games will be covered by team judges, and each club will be required to appoint three, with two from each team officiating each game BAFRA is not.

The BAFRA Board has carefully considered the league's proposals, which mean, for example, that only 49% of regular season contact games will have neutral officials (in 2008 we covered 92%). We are concerned that BAFL may encounter problems recruiting the 150+ team judges the plan requires. There may be issues about the quality of officiating provided by the team judges. These are obviously risks that could have major consequences across the sport. We made a counter-proposal to phase in the 14-week season over three years and couple it with an aggressive recruitment campaign for new officials, but that proposal was declined.

Notwithstanding our reservations, BAFRA is committed to working in the best interests of British American football and we have pledged to work with the league to sort out the precise details of how scheduling will work next season. We will also provide some rudimentary training to the team judges – it is obviously in everyone's interest for those people to go on the field as well prepared as possible in the time available. However, there are no plans to schedule BAFRA officials alongside team judges.

Of course, we must not sit back while this is going on. We need to continue to recruit new officials, both for the forthcoming BUAFL season and for 2009, to ensure that we can continue to maintain our expected levels of game coverage. The BAFL plan requires us to cover an average of 12 games per weekend, but that was a figure we weren't able to reach on 7 weekends in 2008, so there are no grounds for BAFRA members to believe that they will be sitting at home while games are played without refs, or that in 2009 they don't need to make themselves available as often.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please let me know.

Jim Briggs
president@bafra.org

DIRECTOR AWAY

Director of Training, Davie Parsons, will be away for the next two weeks. The email address training@bafra.org will still be monitored, please direct any enquiries to myself.

Ben Griffiths

recruitment@bafra.org

BAFRA WORKSHOP

University of Teeside (Cougars) would like a referee to attend one of their training sessions to hold a BAFRA workshop with them. They train at 7-9 on a Tuesday and 12-4 on a Sunday.

Could I also remind you that Northumbria Mustangs would like someone to hold a BAFRA workshop with them .

They have asked for one of the following dates:

• Thursday 30th October from 6pm till 7/8pm

• Thursday 6th November from 6pm till 7/8pm

Northumbria have full classroom facilities with projector, DVD player and microphone at their disposal.

Is there anyone who would be available to pay either team a visit on any of the days shown above, could you please email or call me as soon as possible.

BAFRA consistently asks teams to take up the offer of rules workshops. It would be a shame if we had to let these teams down.

Pete Johnson

operations@bafra.org

SOUTHERN TRAINING DAY

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Southern Training Day lasts Sunday. Especially those who gave a presentation for the first time. Your names are duly noted for the Convention.

Also, many thanks to Steve Tonkinson for doing most of the work in getting the day arranged and for being my chauffeur for the day.

Davie Parsons

training@bafra.org

DISCIPLINARY CASES

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