This is to advise I will be organising THE 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES which will be held on the Hibiscus Coast between 5-9 February 2004 (including Waitangi Day's long weekend).

We are in the extremely early stages of planning this national event - open to all kiters.

Subject to local council permission, the three possible venues will be Shakespear Bay, Orewa and Muriwai beaches - all part of the Rodney District, just north of Auckland.

The first official part of the competition will take place on Thursday night 5th of September, 2004 at a venue to be announced. Part of this function will be registration of competitors and their participation in a completely random draw which will determine their starting position in the first round of heats.

Subsequent rounds will be seeded based on performance in the preceding round/s.

Winners of the freestyle discipline will be awarded 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES in the following divisions; Women, Master Mens, Open Mens, Junior. Other disciplines including Hang Time, Best Trick and Long Distance may be run at the organiser's discretion and may have prizes etc awarded, but will not be counted in the main freestyle event.

Possible contest days will be Friday 6th, Saturday 7th, Sunday 8th and Monday 9th.

Ahead of us is a massive organisational mission but we will prevail. I am currently recruiting volunteers and paid workers to run aspects of the event and will advise the first planning meeting shortly and other details as they firm up. Please contact me directly if you are interested in being involved in any capacity.

In the meantime, keep these dates free and train hard!

Shaan Miller > 027 226 3203

You must have too much time on your hands to be making up jokes like this one!
January/February is the lightest wind month in Auckland when kiters regularly sit on the beach or grovel around on massive kites/boards in a vain attempt to get planning and maybe a foot of air if your lucky.

Have you actually asked those that said they were organising the 2004 nationals if they would like you to take over?
Admittedly they appear to have done sweet FA so far and it is a fairly large and thankless task but for you to suddenly announce yourself as the organiser, announce dates and format apparently without consultation with anyone is ludicrous.
If you want to put the time and effort in, I'm all for it, but how about an announcement here saying that you are prepared to be largely envolved and that you would like to set up a meeting of interested parties to form an organising committee to decide on such important things as dates,format,location etc.
As far as I can tell you apparently woke up this morning and decided you wanted to be a Dick tator.
Committees/democracies can be a time waster but dictators usually end up being dissented and overthrown.
signed Gavin Broadbent

ok - you do it. would your ego allow you to serve others and not compete for glory yourself?

your points one by one:

no i don't have much time on my hands - but if we have to have the nationals in auckland, i want to see them done right.

february is not the lightest wind month in auckland and traditionally scores good thermal sea breezes on either coast - most days. you may recall i have been kiting here longer than you and windsurfing for five years before that. i am certainly open to debate on the perfect time that might suit your royal highness but february or march seem the best time of year to do it for a multitude of reasons and waitangi day is a convenient long weekend.

you say: "when kiters regularly sit on the beach or grovel around on massive kites/boards in a vain attempt to get planing and maybe a foot of air if they're lucky". whilst i disagree with the generalisation of that statement what you are describing is exactly what every other nationals i've been to was like so the worst case scenario is we will be no worse off - except people like you who can expect to sell a bunch of big kites and boards right at the tail end of the summer season.

"Have you actually asked those that said they were organising the 2004 nationals if they would like you to take over?" i am one of those people and was asked to come up with dates to work in with existing calendars etc. hence - getting the ball rolling.

"Admittedly they appear to have done sweet FA so far and it is a fairly large and thankless task but for you to suddenly announce yourself as the organiser, announce dates and format apparently without consultation with anyone is ludicrous." would you sooner i did it really slowly and shoddily? whichever way it's done - some precious prat gets their nose out of joint - take the neil vs lee saga last year when neil gave reasonable notice of his upcoming event and lee was aggrieved because no-one had personally consulted him.

i'm not interested in committees - if i was i'd join the girl guides. i will simply put on the best kiting nationals ever. you're welcome to support me in that and compete in them or run your own event or bitch about everything like you've done in the past (especially the first red bull you entered in when you refused to sign the standard conditions of entry that everyone else had no problem with, last year's nationals when you bitched about the result despite having every opportunity to resolve it, the one before that when you bitched about the draw etc.)

your last paragraph pretty much describes what i am doing. i am giving massive advance notice of the event and beginning the tasks of consultation, recruitment, sponsorship and 10,000 other things that you probably won't notice. instead of starting from nothing, i prefer to start with a clear direction.

thanks for your input - your negative energy is noted but won't be dwelled on for too long.

good luck in maui! i wish you and aaron all the best and hope you guys represent us well, in the manner that your prize was intended.

p.s. happy 39th birthday for yesterday you old buzzard!

OK I suggest that we set up a meeting for about 3 weeks time. so we can get the word out to interested people that are willing to put the time and effort in to organise the official 2004 kiteboard nationals.
How about October 22nd 7.30pm Prendos boardroom.. Takapuna(to be confirmed as I need to check that the room is free)
all welcome.
Of course maybe its just me maybe everyone else would just like Shaan to tell you the way it is.
If so just ignore my posts and we'll let Shaan get on with it

I suppose Gavin's right...but then again so too might be Shaan: but are they still allies in sin united under a common banner? Whatever the case, I'm really really keen to offer my services as a judge, free of expense... at least in a monetary sense.

Hey man it's gonna be a kickass event.... as for the winds... well there is a high chance of a NE storm happening at that time of year - especially if La Nina is in business.... lookin forward to it.

whats with dk and k9 putting these massive in ya face avatars?
is it a competition between these to boys to see who has the biggest.

woe!! Shaan, kei te pai bro for willing to walk the walk ,the way i see it, there are quite a few kiteshops around in our country now who have team riders, maybe a selected representative from each one could be a national commitee member to help organise future national events this way there is no bais and every region is well represented. Just a thought!!

Shaan put the massive orange pic as my avatar.
Is a bit much.
-kane

gavin: back to your earlier call about february - last night i was harking back to last feb when i scored a hell of a lot of kiting especially at orewa and shakers. you may recall there was a big yacht race in town and those fools were all planning for light 10 knot days if they were lucky. what actually happened was several race days were postponed due to too much wind, there were a couple of classic 15 knot nor'easters and then there was the February morning when you and i sped out to the course in your thundercat and watched a $100million black yacht get dis-masted in the 30knot easterly, after which time we tearfully drove to orewa and joined 30 other people for a hell of a session.

i'm not promising anything like that will ever happen again - i've lived in auckland way too long and been to way too many kiting events. actually all i can promise is the five days BEFORE the event will be a helluva windy whenever it is, and that's when i'll go riding - as i am offering to take a year off competition myself to run this event.

of course like you, i would much rather have nothing to do with it and snipe at those who do, and just show up on the day and win some prizes.

nevertheless, thanks for your offer of the venue. i'll be there and that'll make two of us! will prendos supply a dispute resolution professional?

kane: thanks for your kind offer also. if i get my way, you and all other workers will get paid handsomely for your efforts. this will be a big budget extravaganza with dancing girls and lolly scrambles for all.

guest: committees don't work in this sport - no two riders can agree on anything. that's why we don't have an association or even agree if we need an association or if two lines beat four, or danglers are better than kite loopers, or if we should have a vote on voting, and if so, who should count the votes and what should they do with them and will anyone listen? the only events that have worked so far have been autocratic one-off gigs where someone has grabbed the bull by the horns and said: this is the way - walk ye in it or forever talk the talk. once someone has done that, it is easier for those mysteriously selected reps to rally around the flag and make it happen because we suddely have momentum.

catch you all later - i'm off to the naki to score the first walls of spring...

Hi Shaan,



Surely Gavin is entitled to an opinion as is anyone.
Or is this not a forum where debate can be open.
So what is with the knee gavin in the balls type of response?

He has raised some good points worthy of debate.

Gav could have posted as a Guest and then he wouldn't have copped a personal....i've been doing it longer than you type of response from you.
Bitchy Bitchy.
.....................................................................

Now let the online hippy solve all your worries.......

How about a group hug now everyone.
go on, lean forward and wrap your arms around your PC where ever you are, right now. Feel the warmth and love of the kiteboarding community.

Ahh....now that is better.

peace and love.

Heres my 2c...
I'd make sure you have an industrial strength disclaimer covering your arse given the recent history of event organisers getting in the poo for 'accidents' that happened during their events.
There's plenty of potential for disaster when a bunch of frenzied kite looping nutters get into a competitive environment, and it would suck for any lawyers to be the winners on the day (unless they're competing of course..)

hug it: yes, of course gavin is entitled to an opinion and he has clearly communicated it - exactly the point of this forum.

you are correct - he has raised some good points worthy of debate and that's exactly what we're doing.

there's nothing personal or bitchy about a point of fact, that he is well aware of. you may not realise we're best buddies and have been kiting together most days for quite a few years now, including this very afternoon if i can swing it at meola on my way out of town.

i like your group hug idea - except i don't hug pcs (macintosh thoroughbred i'm afraid) - prefer to watch the evil microsoft machines burn while enjoying a nice merlot.

Shaan,

Did you even read what you had written before you posted it?

Good one girls, (my kite widow thinks us boys lack communication skills??) couldn't really give a feck about the pros and cons, just great to have an event happen so close to home, about bloddy time!

Can't wait to see our cream in action and if the wind does bomb then it'll be great to party with the crowd and talk shite and yes look at all those end of season big kites/boards!

Full marks to you Shaan for fronting up and I'm sure Gav will do his best to keep it honest? (p.s. good luck at the Redbull & kick some ass)

Perhaps K should start a course of vitC. & garlic now so he's in better health to judge this time round, by the way must thanku for the inspiration I got from 'Stomp'.
Winter on the Island has never seemed quite so cold since I saw that clip of your weties coverd in snow.

So which of our retail outlets are going to front up with some spot prizes so I can win something??
Has anyone talked to the breweries/wine estates yet????
God please save me from red shite and vodka in the sun!

Let us all know when and what you need, or at least when we can all get together to bitch about it over some refreshments.

Can we confirm that Kane is to be a judge, so we can begin to co-ordinate our outfits now?

do it ,ill help out as much as i can,

Ha ha... mystery chch style freak. If you are who I think you might be then you lose... I'm sure I saw you out riding in winter wearing a 'Grubby' brown woolen hat complete with ear flaps and a pom pom.
No chance of me judging anyhow... surely someone's going to tell me to 'stick my judging...' anytime now, jeez I thought I'd earned it.

That's unfair - the pom pom fell off due to maltreatment - but the go-go gadget earflaps happily survived the winter and have now been retired in favour of the shiny new blue helmet. I feel strangly naked without them.

remember folks - to have your say at the 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES strategic planning conference hosted by the one and only gavin broadbent (kindly suppying beer, wine and hard liquor and snacks) you must show up tomorrow night @ prendos takapuna (barry's point road) @ 7.30pm.

it promises to be a great night of grandstanding, extremism, tangent shooting, exclaiming bullshit with underlying currents of political subterfuge, and interjecting - all washed down with general muttering and drinking of hard liquor while yabbering about kit'n. and it'll be even better if someone else shows up!

my main fear is gavin has forgotten about the whole thing and i'll turn up with my lectern, pointer, multi-media audio visual presentation, and magic trick assistant only to find a deserted carpark - and see colourful kites dancing just over the horizon at shoal bay.

i'll keep you posted.

Dont worry Shaan I will be there to pick up my beers...
After a session at Taka.

eight people showed up for the meeting and vigorously debated several issues for several hours.

gavin's main bone of contention was the much talked about need for a kiteboarding association in new zealand, who's logical job it would be to run and / or sanction national events. this was heartily agreed on by all present.

windsurfing new zealand has claimed representation of kiting by default for the last few years but has recently parted company, citing the obvious differences in the sports. there has never been any official collective association of kiters in new zealand. despite this groups or individuals have run so called 'national' events (at least 5 not counting the red bull contests), with some success.

i made it clear that my proposed event, the 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES never has nor never will make any claim to be 'the nationals' - as i recognise there is no official body to sanction it. it is simply a one-off event open to all national riders, and to the winners will be awarded titles - for what they're worth.

in the absence of an association and an official 'nationals' - i have no doubt the proposed independent event in a year when there is no other similar event , will be known as the 'kiting nationals' even though as i've always maintained, it is not.

debate raged on forming an association for an hour and it was finally agreed that gavin, perrin and aimee should pursue this further by all means. gavin tabled the constitution for wakeboarding new zealand, which he said could serve as a simple starting point for a kiting association. the responsibility of communicating, and consulting with the wider kiting community was accepted by the trio.

finally, we were able to seperate the two issues and focus on an event this summer - an equally complicated logistical task to forming an association. we recognised that by attempting both in one hit, we would probably achieve neither.

therefore all present agreed to support the proposed 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES as long as it made no 'nationals' claims - in the interests of having an event.

it was accepted that to some extent, one person had to make this happen with a team they can work with and get it done. various suggestions were made which were taken on board.

in essence the basic formula for the event was agreed on as reasonable; a random draw followed by P.K.R.A style double elimination rounds of freestyle, judged as fairly as possible within the constraints of a subjective sport. possible hang time, expression sessions as conditions allow.

the proposed dates and locations were also discussed - everyone agreeing the former wasn't so bad after all. this may still have to be changed given the amount of time that has already been lost getting to this stage, and subject to council approval etc. likewise the three locations.

my next step is to negotiate with the rodney district council and DOC on these issues. after some satisfactory deal is struck we will confirm the details and work toward staging the 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES.

in the meantime, those interested in actually DOING something about forming an association should contact gavin or perrin, if you don't hear from them first.

Hey guys,

Long time no see.

Lovin it!!! All the gossip and abuse in one place, my lonely nights will never be without humor again.

BTW, nice site Shaan.

I was sitting here in Hong Kong and saw a posting on www.kiteforum.com , thought I would drop in and see what was happening in the Land of the long white cloud. So Glad I did!! Laughing..

To know that nothing changes gives me a warm feeling in my hart.Smiles.

Good luck with the Not Nationals, dont forget to talk to Humphrey as he has the most experience out of anyone, would be mad not to gain from his knowledge.

Hope you have a great summer of strong winds ahead of you. Make sure you guys rip it up in Taranaki. I would hate to think that all those thousands of hours of wind blown, cross-off shore, mast high sets are going unridden at Kina Rd.

If you pay for a return flight from HK (joke), I will be more than happy to judge, drink as much of the free piss as possible, watch Andy climb the rafters naked, laugh at Kanes dry wit a repartee, watch DK plug his boards, listen to Steve say Yeeeehhhh..Naaaahhhh with his Southern draw, listen to Trumpet Trumpet, watch Shane Bright abuse the judges, wait for wind, yet again-see Cookie get nude and generally enjoy the many different personalities that come together to make the great thing that IS Kiwi kiteboarding.

Life would just not be the same if we did not have this fantastic extension of our body that propels us across the water, through he air, along the face of a wave, takes us to new locations, introduces us to new interesting people and into the heights of ecstasy that others just dream of.

Kia Ora,

Mike.

Good now that's all out of the way we can start bitching Best to start now so we're all on different pages once the event acyaully starts and the real bitching begins.

Gosh that "random draw" could be exciting. Imagine having the top four in the first heat. Maybe I could even get past a second round! This gives me new hope for entering competitions, fingers crossed it come out my way.

Chris

Gee that means we may even win.... arrrrgh then we go to Maui! One more thing... what happens if the wind plays up and we get about 8 knots?? Does the person with the biggest C Quad and the Mal surfboard get direct entry into the Maui king of the air??? :twisted: :twisted:

That's what usually happens....

it seems that this contest subject is here to stay and no-one is going to miraculously forget that i brought it up, so i will answer the latest questions as best i can.

mike: good to have you on board finally. yes, adrian has had considerable input already - it was him who put me up to it in the first place - not the wake up one morning whim "how can i make my life more chaotic, expose myself to years of litigation, and lose my friends in one hit" as has been alleged.

yes, it would be great to have you involved in judging if you're up for it. besides the well-qualified and experienced kane, the only kiwis who have had sufficient international experience to know what the hell kiteboarding is, are in my opinion; gavin, cindy, andy, mike holland and yourself - all of whom may or may not be involved in competing in the event themselves. there are also a handful of others who have the experience but would probably be the first to admit they are not judging material for various reasons.

blown away: if there's no wind - there's no wind. i'm sure we can come up with a few other entertaining activities, like listening to you spout on about kiting in sewerage ponds.

chris: as you well know, every previous event in nz has had a pre-rigged draw, engineered by usually one person's opinion of who's who and what's what - with the clear intent of channelling four riders into a final at the expense of the cannon fodder. this event will treat every rider exactly the same and whilst the first draw may well be unfair - at least it won't be unfair by design with others deciding your destiny. everyone will be involved in deciding their own destiny. as in any draw, the very best riders will rise above the rest - but they will have no special treatment.

if there is no double elimination, there is no result, so everyone gets a second chance - another first for this country.

subsequent rounds, if they take place will be seeded from the first round's results.

in my opinion, this process will eliminate at least the perception of one of the two unfair components at kiting events. the second is obviously the judging, which we can only strive to make as objective as possible - firstly by employing qualified professionals as per above.

no-one should be getting too excited though - at this stage all i've done is design a logo and started working through the council's paperwork. the smart money says the event will take place later in the year than originally planned.

Shaan,

What are the age limits on the juniors if any? No smart arse comments dude, I am still only 16ish give or take a decade

The Shredmaster

Mmmmmmmmmmm sewerage ponds have mere mmmmmmm :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Ummm Shaan, as you may have been able to glean from my overtly cunning and ever so pedantically subtle postings above, and most assuredly following last years Nationals debacle... I am not availing myself in a judging capacity, and in fact didn't assume I'd be welcome to do so. I might, if time and finances permit, like to compete. Depending of course upon my rehabilitative progress in nailing these kite loop thingys by then.

I recon you can call it a Nationals if you want, don't need a "formal national sanctioning body" to do so. We're all effectively a happy informal national community anyway at this early and exceedingly apathetic stage - no need to listen to some trumped up git blowin' hot air rantin' about how wakeboarding's like this or that. It's all just fun anyhow... a person like that would be welcome to return to wakeboarding if they need the comforting hierarchical structures to ratify their conquests.

Believe me I've been pretty vocal about the "seeding" issue in the past (just ask Kane about the trip back from Tauranga), and most people know who did it. I really am serious that random draws for round one is the best chance I have in a comp. However if I actualy had a top four chance I'd be pretty pissed to have the other top 3 in the first heat. It might be double elim but fighting your way though at least eight heats in a row to make the final ain't the same as cruising though the top half of the draw. Having said that I'm not sure what a fair seeding would be. Secret ballot? Top eight from last year then a random draw? Last person standing knock down fight on the first night? Nicest pants?

Chris

the whole point of a random draw is to completely obliterate anyone's influence.

the whole point of a contest is to see who rips on the day or days in the available conditions - not who did something flash a year ago, or who's got the most mates, or the sexiest girlfriend or the loudest trumpet.

no-one can possibly know who has done the most work between contests, and some worthy finalists may have never competed before at all, and be largely unknown - the kind that are usually put in an unwinnable first heat and no-one notices their potential, while last year's has-beens get a free ride to the semis.

it's called the equal chance concept. this is why we have contests - not to see a pre-written script unfold - it's sport!

as for the chances of the mysterious top four being in the first heat together - these are remote indeed - but it sure would make for an interesting comp. i suspect you are a bit of a mathematician so i would encourage you to do a little, fun experiment on my behalf:

carefully cut out, say 72 pieces of paper and number them 1 - 72. place them in a hat and blindfold yourself. this could be lot of fun if you have a buddy - get him to spin you round a couple of times, then randomly draw groups of four numbers. keep doing this until all the numbers are used up - then repeat the whole process. keep doing this until you draw the numbers 1,2,3 & 4 in the same group of 4.

this game may get a little old after a while but if anyone can pull it off and have it recorded on video - i will personally send you a cheque for $5000! (special conditions apply)

i would be interested if anyone could work out the odds - i rate them as about the same as the chances of the sky opening up and elvis pressley returning in a cloud of glory and announcing his intention to ride peter lynn kites.

Tell me more about these conditions. I could really do with a bit of extra cash at the moment, and a couple of days playing with bits of paper sounds just the ticket!

72x71x70x69 = 24,690,960

About one chance in 25M that the first 4 numbers draw will be 1,2,3,4 odds start to get much worse as you keep drawing numbers as one of these 4 numbers might have already been draw out.

I'm sure Pete or Chris will come up with much better math to prove this.

Hey I'm all up for a random draw, as long as I don't get into a first heat with Shaan. He managed to knock me out of every first round heat of every comp I entered last year.

Dave Kay

PS - Shaan, Jim Banks is no relation of mine - good thing too

well there you go - 1 in a quarter of an english billion is good enough for me. i feel confident about even removing the special conditions of my challenge.

i should have known there would be rocket scientists lurking in chch who would have the skills to actually work out the formula. i gave it a whirl myself but couldn't get past 72 divided by 4 = 18 , limited as i am by an IQ of 127, with a strong leaning toward word and literal problems, and almost as strong an aversion to mathematical minutae.

i hope this clears this matter up and i don't want to hear any more bitch'n about random draws.

the chances of getting a valid cheque for $5000 out of Shaan is about as likely as the top four seads ending up in the same heat.

Shann ... on a courious note, how are the plans for this event comming, i hope the submissions to the local bodies that (i guess) would be required have not met with any major hickups or anything, as i'm really looking forward to this event!!.
:?:

the odds of drawing 1, 2, 3, 4 in the first heat would be....

4/72 of drawing 1-4 as first entrant
3/71 of drawing one of remaining 3 required entrants as second entrant
2/70 of drawing one of remaining 2 required entrants as third entrant
1/69 of drawing final required entrant as fourth entrant

so to get all of the 4 above events occuring one afte the other, multiply all that together

0.000001 chance of that occuring

call me blond, but I say that's pretty bloody random!

what age group is juniors???

plans have ground to a halt as insurance issues are worked out. some entity has to insure the event to satisfy council requirements.

i am simply too busy at the moment to devote any time to this project and am hoping for some breathing space over the festive season. the event certainly won't be in february, but later in the year.

if anyone has a problem with this - i will gladly stand down and pass over all info to them, and support their efforts - otherwise stand-by for developments, pathetically slow as they may be.

simpl: whatever the junior age has been in the past will be the go (i think it's 16 but wouldn't have a clue - maybe someone else can answer this).

so oldest 16?

hey Shaan its your comp so you make the rules don't you

Last Nationals it was Under 17 but only 3 people in it .
raising the age to under 19 would have ment there were 5.
But 3 of them would have gone in the main event aswel.
It might be worth waiting until the entrys are in so you can
adjust the age as to get a decent number of compeditors.

interesting logic previous guest. so if there's not enough competitors maybe the age should be 25. not many in masters either so we can drop that to 25 and just have jnrs and masters.not many in womens so well open that up to anyone who kites in a G-string

I'm new to this sport so excuse my ignorance, however, if there is a Nationals then one presumes there must be a National organisation or body which governs such things as age divisions and other important things like format and rules etc. yes?

Hahaha.
Hell no!

these arn't the nationals - theres no date, no venue,
isn't this just someone saying lets have an event? and it has kinda fallen over?

to reiterate once again:

i made it clear that my proposed event, the 2004 NEW ZEALAND KITEBOARDING TITLES never has nor never will make any claim to be 'the nationals' - as i recognise there is no official body to sanction it. it is simply a one-off event open to all national riders, and to the winners will be awarded titles - for what they're worth.

in the absence of an association and an official 'nationals' - i have no doubt the proposed independent event in a year when there is no other similar event , will be known as the 'kiting nationals' even though as i've always maintained, it is not.

jack: if you could read, and operate a mouse, you would find there is in fact three venues, and a proposed date (the latter of which may well be changed or may remain).

Bugger Me, this is all getting too confusing. Why don't we all turn up at the beach when its goin off and just have a good time of it - doesn't need to be an organised event - would save Shaan some headaches. Last kite flying wins...