Tims manifesto

I would like would like to put myself forward to be captain for the 2017/18 season.



Firstly, I want to thank Bernard for his leadership over the years and the current and past team members, my team mates, for their support and friendship. I've thoroughly enjoyed my 3 years playing for Scotland and I've seen the team grow into a force to be reckoned with at the ETC. In a nutshell, if I am elected captain, I would build on that success.

So, why should you vote for me? Well, for 2 reasons - first my experience and second my vision for the team.

I've represented Scotland for 3 years now. I have a thorough understanding of the event and how it works. Importantly though, I know all the other team captains and most of the other teams. I think I'm on good terms with them all and indeed count many of them as friends. This may seem irrelevant, but good personal relationships with your opponents is key to a smooth event and always help in difficult discussions.

My vision for the team has 2 parts - internal and external.

Internally, I want the team to work together, with most of the decisions made by the team rather than by me personally. I plan to delegate areas of team management to other members. For example, I might delegate match up pairings to more experienced team members or I might lock the "list wizards" in a darkened room and ask them to come up with new lists ideas. I don’t have all the best ideas, the team will have 8 experienced players. We need to tap into everybody's knowledge.

Externally, I would like the team to be seen as an ambassador for the hobby in Scotland. The team should keep its competitive focus and aim to do as well as possible at the ETC, but we can do so much more. If the team is to succeed in the years to come, we need to lift the whole competitive scene across the country. If I'm elected captain, I will reach out to all the clubs, personally visiting as many as I can throughout the year. I plan to be the "face" of team Scotland, encouraging people to play competitively, coaching new players if necessary and explaining the ETC and team tournaments to anybody who'll listen.

I will work with everybody and anybody to increase the player base, and its skill level.

Finally, team selection. I know this is a sensitive topic, which blew up again last year. The system needs to be transparent, inclusive, and effective (i.e. the "best" 8 represent their country), but it also needs to balance my desire to build the wider Scottish 40k community.

In my opinion we're almost there. The ranking system is transparent and anybody can apply to have their name included. It is effective, in that it ranks players objectively depending on their tournament performance. Where I think it falls down is that it's seen as insufficiently "Scottish", and by that I mean it doesn't matter whether the players are based in Scotland or active in the Scottish community. Some felt that, if the team is to be a tool to build the community, it should emphasise participation in that community. The problem of course is whether to sacrifice effectiveness to that goal - i.e. is it more important to build the community or is it more important to field the most effective team available.

As with most things, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I don't propose a huge change to the selection process. In fact it would remain largely the same, however, I would like to review the ranking system to place a weighting on success in Scottish tournaments. In addition, I propose that the 7th and 8th players are chosen, first From people active in the Scottish tournament scene. Obviously if nobody that fits this description is available, we can widen the pool.

So, that's it - my vision for the team and the way forward.