Carolina Open (3)

One of the reasons of its success, although the brand new club had never organized anything like this before: simplicity and organization.
Gary, organizer extraordinaire, was determined to:
(a) have all teams play 6 games before 5pm
(b) stick to the times on the program
(c) waste no time during the day, so he could play uninterrupted himself.

Some of the details:

Instead of the usual numbers, he used Scrabble letters and a hat to "number" the teams. That took a couple of minutes, if that much. We knew there would be less than 27 teams, but even so he had a back up plan with AA, AB, etc...


Each team received scorecards, stating the opponent teams for all games and the court number for the first game. After each game these were to be deposited into a box. No need to "man" (or "woman") the tournament table. Subsequent games could be played on any court, as they became available.


To avoid the usual and distracting "Does anybody have a ruler?!?", each court came with a measuring tape.
But also a scoreboard, which he had picked up at this favorite hangout - the Dollar Store -, ànd a 50cm players' ring made from irrigation tubing and a connector.

The tournament ran itself, so to speak. Teams hardly had to wait between games. And after the 6 rounds, Gary sat down at the table for 10 minutes (he's an accountant by trade, which helps!) to calculate standings and to announce the playoff teams. By 8pm everything was wrapped up, and we were ready to celebrate & party.
Obviously Gary had been tinkering and preparing for weeks. Countless hours to make it happen. He (and Shirley!) won the tournament in more ways than one.

Also, as most teams had never met each other, and to reduce the shouting and to save time, Bob hooked up a simple PA system for announcements. Incidentally, Carolina Petanque loves to play with music in the background as well.