Wisconsin Pinball

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Have you ever participated in any league of any sort in the past? I have never seen one league where they just completely randomize who may or may not get entry year after year. An important aspect of any league is it's core. Randomizing entrants every single year would quite possibly be the worst league in existence. No relationships, no consistency, no history, that sounds very sterile.

If you have problems with freeloading league members just call them out and say what you have to say (make sure you name them and their behavior). You have a lot of accusation in your tone (whether intentional or not) and you need to be VERY CLEAR what you are trying to say.

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This is going to be one of those topics where you will not please everyone all of the time. That being said, here is my input on league and membership.

Host are what make the league possible. Without the hosts we would all be sitting at Rossi's or at Pooley's playing (which is fun, but that is not the point of this league).

I wish i had the opportunity to play in multiple leagues (i am on two different bowling leagues, so i do enjoy the company of people playing with their balls, bowling or pinball), but for me Madison is the closest, so that is the one that i am in. since there is a limit on the number of members we can have (based upon how many people can fit comfortably into a house) i would like to see people choose one league to be in. This will also open up spaces in either the madison, milwuakee, or fox valley league and get more people into pinball and make our statewide community larger and more successful.

As far as introducing new members, i will have to look into some of the other leagues and see how they handle this. I certainly do not want to discourage ANYONE from playing in a league.

the easiest solution is to find 20 different hosts and start two leagues... someday we can get there. Then we can have an inter-league playoff and a World Series/Superbowl/Championship night too. until that happens we have to have a system in place to accommodate current and potentially new players. some people are going to get left out, that is the way it is, what we have to decide is how to make it less painful.

Going to someone's house to play is the easy part and takes nothing more than having the night free and driving a little. the difficult part of this league is the hosting (which is not all that difficult). getting your machines ready (i started 2 months before and still had a couple of issue on league night), making sure you have enough food (again, started the night beforehand), enough drinks (stocked my soda machine up a week ahead of time), being a good host, and then cleaning up afterwards. Hosts are what make this possible and therefore should be given preference.

we have 13 hosts now (i do not count the multiple family members as hosts because it is the same collection). i do believe that we should draw the remaining 7 names from a pool of non hosting players (ian, brodde, heidi are considered in by me as they are associated and live with a host).

membership priority

1) current committed hosts
2) hosts family members (limit 1)
3) new members (pool based on luck of the draw)

this is my 2 cents

will this make everyone happy, no. there will unlikely ever be anything that will do that. will this help make the majority happy? possibly.

Kingpin

I wish i was better at saying things. very nicely put Kingpin and thanks for sharing!

I agree with your model.

Hilton-
Thanks for the kind words.
This league is amazing and one of the few things I look forward to. I recognize I missed (I believe) 3 nights this year but I hope to make all of them in 2015.
And if things work out I should have 4 pins within the next two months so I can be a potential host. It most likely won't be a fancy pin, but a pin nonetheless. But if there are guys looking to join the league that can help make it even better I would open up my spot with the hopes that I can at least attend the league nights to play some games with everyone. I love the competition and opportunity to gain IFPA points but appreciate the camaraderie more.
Maybe with all the new interest we will have an opportunity to run two leagues in Madison in 2015.

Since it sounds like Ran is committed to getting a 4th game and hosting this next year I just wanted to say that I'll help out by supplying one of my games for his league night to help out and offer more variety. That would give him either 4 or 5 pins and make him eligible to host. Ran has helped me out on numerous occasions in the past with my pins and also donated parts and expertise in helping me with my Whirlwind restoration. He also was one of the few friends that helped me move last fall as well. I would really like to see Ran in the league again this next year and donating a pin is the least I can do to return the favor for all the times he's helped me out in the short time I've known him.

That is a nice offer Mike, and one I was going to make myself. Not just for Ran, but for Ryan and Ken (and anyone else that is currently in the league) as well. As far as I am concerned all of us currently in the league have enough pins to host....

That's not a bad idea Tim and I would extend the same offer as well for others that would like to host but don't have the required number of machines. I'm sure as a group we could make it work for any of the members.

Maybe we could lock in the members based on who hosted this past year as well as those who sign up to host in the new season as well?

Garrett also offered to loan me a pin to host as well.
This is the camaraderie I appreciate so much in this league.
I am helping a neighbor clean out his mother in laws house in the next month or two and should hopefully be acquiring a Bally mr and mrs pacman out of the deal so I should have 4 soon.

Ran wrote:Garrett also offered to loan me a pin to host as well.
This is the camaraderie I appreciate so much in this league.
I am helping a neighbor clean out his mother in laws house in the next month or two and should hopefully be acquiring a Bally mr and mrs pacman out of the deal so I should have 4 soon.

That game wont count, it isn't very fun... LOL.... Congrats on your new pickup (hope I didnt just jinx it)....

ralphwiggum wrote:

Ran wrote:Garrett also offered to loan me a pin to host as well.
This is the camaraderie I appreciate so much in this league.
I am helping a neighbor clean out his mother in laws house in the next month or two and should hopefully be acquiring a Bally mr and mrs pacman out of the deal so I should have 4 soon.

That game wont count, it isn't very fun... LOL.... Congrats on your new pickup (hope I didnt just jinx it)....

That's what I've heard/read but if it's free for helping clear out a house who could say no.
Doubt you jinxed it. I haven't seen it yet so hopefully it's in decent shape.
There's also an old EM we're moving that may go to one of the mother's other sons or I will help them sell it.
Again, haven't seen it so I don't know condition.

Just busting balls.... If it is a Pinball it is fun... Unless it is Star Wars trilogy....

What's stopping us from having a 2nd league? I'm in for that. Maybe we can have a fantasy draft, i'll pick first, Hilton picks 2nd. You have 8-10 guys waiting to jump out of the woodwork, right, Hilton? THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

Dave,

I think this is a great idea. After thinking about it a little more i think that we can do 2 leagues with 16 hosts. we just need a couple of volunteers that wouldn't mind hosting twice (until we get enough hosts that we don't need to double up).

I would be excited to host twice, so you already have my vote for this.

2 leagues means 40-50 people.

let get this ironed out before the end of this season (10/2014). I would like to get all the current members and as many of the new possibly members together in one location to work out some final details. I would like to see this possibly happen at MRP (if that is okay with Hilton) since a lot of us will be there already.

if anyone would like to get together before that please contact me so we can set up a meeting.

Christopher
King Pin
608-393-2299 cell