We are so, SO excited to host you all! A few l last items:
Please find me (Josh) to say hi in person this weekend if you can. I LOVE being able to meet all of you face to face.
PLEASE drive 10mpg on Island Rd., the last road leading into the Oxbow.
Make sure you are deeply familiar with the schedule. Same with the program. (There are no paper copies of the program this year.)
6:45 to 7:25am: Check in for all teams that are playing during the 1st round
8:10 to 8:55am: Check in for all teams that have a 1st round bye
During check in (at the tournament central tent) all teams need to show us their permission to treat (medical authorization) forms. You can show us digital copies. Teams will also get their dinner tickets and spirit score sheets (one for each day).
We’re looking for a team to play Blaze (Ottawa) in the Open C division at 9:30am on Saturday. Anyone up for a SUPER fun game against a SUPER fun team? Please let me know ASAP.
Just yesterday afternoon one team from the Open C division (Cerebes) had an insurmountable issue come up which means they can’t attend. We look forward to welcoming them to the PVI next year!
I’m looking to see if any teams would like to take any of their game Saturday slots and play a team or two in the Open C division. Their Saturday games slots are at 9:30, 12:30, and 3:30 all on field 5, arguably the nicest field at the entire Oxbow. The other teams in their pool are SUPER fun — Albany (NY), Amherst JVB (MA), and Blaze (ON).
These games would be totally just for fun and wouldn’t count in rankings for Sunday. You could combine with another team to play in one or more of the game slots. I’m open to ideas. I’m trying as hard as I can to get these three amazing teams a third game each on Saturday. (We tried to find a team to replace Cerebes but it didn’t pan out.)
Please let me know ASAP if you’d like to snag one of the spots! (josh@pvinvite.org).
Added bonus — If you take one of the game slots, I’ll make it a priority to come by and cheer at at least one of your games this weekend with my unreal adorably cute son Wilson and bring Buffy the Golden as well 🙂
Final division assignments won’t be made until tomorrow at the earliest since…
The 17 teams listed below are NOT cleared to play. Reasons you could NOT be cleared to play include:
No chaperone on your roster.
Not enough cleared players on your roster (You need at least 10)
Missing a payment: Bid fee, housing, and/or dinner fee.
You can check the reason for your team not being cleared by looking over the team status page. Scroll to the right on the spreadsheet to see all the columns. Everything we are tracking is on that sheet. Please let us know if you see any issues with your team’s row.
Please keep in mind that the USA Ultimate online rostering system is going to be locked very soon, almost certainly in the next 24 hours.
We are finalizing our dinner order tomorrow (5/8) @ Noon. If you do not pay for your dinner tickets by then, you won’t be able to get food at the dinner social on Saturday night. These teams have asked for dinner tickets but have not yet paid for them:
Team
Division
Forest City
Female-Matching
Forest City
Open
Albany
Open
Newton
Female-Matching
Stuyvesant
Open
Have not yet paid for dinner.
Dinner tickets cost $14 per person. At this point you must pay digitally. You can find out how to do that here. Please remember to forward me (josh@pvinvite.org) your dinner PayPal payment receipt. If we don’t get your dinner payment by tomorrow (5/8) at Noon we won’t be able to get you dinner tickets.
I have made a first draft of division assignments.
You can view them in the column “Division – Draft 1”right here.
Rankings inside each division have not yet been drafted.
Please reply to this email immediately if you see any issues or have a good reason for wanting to change divisions from what’s drafted. (josh@pvinvite.org). Division change request will be accepted for the next 24 hours.
Also, while you’re looking at that sheet, please look over your team’s whole row to see if there is anything else you need to work on.
I am hoping to finalize everyone’s division AND ranking by this Sunday night. If all goes to plan, I’ll be able to release a finalized schedule by Monday night.
– Josh
ps. At this point, please DO NOT mail checks for housing or dinner payments. Send your payment in via PayPal. Info on how to do that is right here.
I made a typo in the overall game schedule I sent out on 4/28. Last games on Sunday have a hard cap at 4:40pm. Key game-related timing info:
Saturday and Sunday: Half of all teams will start their first game at 8am. The other half will start play at 9:30am.
Saturday and Sunday: Half of all teams will have a last game that ends at 3:10. The other half will end play at 4:40pm. These times are the hard cap times. (Games could certainly go a few minutes past hard cap.)
Teams are doing a great job at rostering! All teams should look over their row on this spreadsheet and let me know immediately if they see anything that looks off.
Please make sure you post ALL of your game scores to scorereport.net.
Dinner payments and housing payments are due immediately. You cannot purchase food at the dinner. It must be paid for in the next couple days. Dinner costs $14 per person. Housing costs $52 per team. Info on how to make your payment is here. You can check the status of your dinner and housing payments on the team status sheet.
And now an important message about stewardship:
We are making extra efforts this year towards minimizing waste and environmental impact at the Pioneer Valley Invitational. We will be sending around environmental ambassadors during the tournament to meet with your captains, coaches, and chaperones to support these efforts.Â
We will be giving a Green Disc Award at the tournament’s end to the team who best exemplifies these goals:
FOOD: Please bring as little individually packaged food as possible. Beyond what we are offering at the main tent for free, please bring big bags and boxes to share, (especially without plastic packaging if possible). Please empty your pizza boxes in the compost bins and recycle the cardboard, etc..Â
DRINKS: Please refrain from the use of single use bottles and cases of gatorade or water, whenever possible. We will have plenty of water in coolers at the fields, and cold gatorade available continuously at tourney central. We will also have reusable PVI water bottles for sale at the merch tent. We hope to cut down on single use bottles at the tournament.Â
TRASH/RECYCLING: Please do a trash sweep of your sideline each time you switch fields during the day. At the end of each day, please bring trash/recycling bags to the dumpsters next to the main tent. Please do not leave anything on the fields, including windblown tents.
COMPOST: Please put compostable food products in the green bags we will be distributing, or in the compost bins at tourney central (not in the trash). This will save our volunteers from having to sort trash at the end of the tournament.
CARPOOLING: If you can drive together, please do. The fewer cars and fuel, the better.
Together we can make PVI an example of how large youth sporting events can minimize waste and protect our environment for the benefit of our community and all living things. Thanks for your support and efforts towards this goal.
