I just wanted to fill everyone in on the latest details on the Team Tournament coming up after this session (Rounds 1&2, begin the week of April 28, the Finals well be held on Saturday, May 3).

Right out of the gate I should mention that only one bar has returned the lottery tickets. Please check with your Bar owner and let them know of this great opportunity to host rounds 1 and 2 of this event. If they have not seen the tickets and the cover letter, please let me know and I will E-mail them to either the captain of the team or anyone they designate and/or the Bar Owner itself.

Some people have raised some questions about how I will run the drawing. Hopefully this will help clarify the process:

The cut-off date to mail in the tickets is Saturday, April 11th, 2008. If you can not get them postmarked by Saturday the 11th, please hand deliver them with the money to Panera Bread (5090 Tiedeman Rd, Brooklyn) on the 16th between 5:30 and 6:00 pm. The lottery drawing will begin at 6 pm. Please make sure the tickets are completely filled out, and are accompanied by a check, payble to "The Cleveland Darter Club."

I have made up small paper bags with each division and team listed on the outside of the bag. As I collect tickets and money, I put the tickets in the corresponding bag that the Bar has requested. (Some bars have multiple teams and want the tickets dispersed evenly.)

At 6:00pm I will take Monday Gold 1's bag and someone will pull a ticket out of the bag. I will write down the corresponding Bar on the sheet of paper under the line of GOLD 1. I will continue going in order of all Monday teams, then the Tuesday teams and then all the Thursday teams, in order from Gold to Bronze. After that is complete all losing tickets will go into 1 Large bag and any division that failed to have any bars send in lottery ticket will have one ticket pulled from the non-winning tickets and that is where that division will go. I will return to the top of the list and start over and go straight through in the same order as the first draw. Any bar deemed to have too many teams at their bar for one evening as specified in the rules, will be returned to the bag and another bar will be drawn. For example, BAR A, which purchases several tickets and has one board in their establishment, wins the division that they purchased for but the other tickets in the bag go into the "losers Bag", then they subsequently win another division that plays on the same evening that the team that already won plays on. This would be deemed as a conflict and the bars ticket will be returned to the bag, as they could win a division on another evening, and another ticket will be drawn. We will continue this process until all divisions have locations for the First Round of the Team Tournament. I know that this is a lot of information so if you need any clarification or If anyone has questions about this please remit the questions to the League Director at leaguedirector@darter.org .

The Finals are being held at THE DIAMOND MINE (formerly "BJ's Diamond Mine") at 16700 Lorain Ave., Cleveland. For additonal information on Rounds 1&2, as well as the Finals, CLICK HERE.

The prize payout that will be determined after all of the lottery tickets have been turned in. All money from the lottery tickets goes into the prize pool. There will be 3 separate pots, one for each division. The Diamond Mine has agreed to add $100 into each prize pot, A portion of the proceeds from the Spaghetti Dinner on March 30th will be added to the prize pot, (evenly distributed between each division) and the BOD has approved adding in a total of $450 (of League generated money), which will also be distributed evenly between each division. Once the lottery ticket revenue is known, and announcement will be made with respect to the payouts for the Team Tournaments.

Money received from bars will go into that bars teams pot. For example, if you play in a Bronze division and your bar spends $100 on tickets, all $100 goes into the Bronze Prize Pool. In the case where a bar has teams in multiple divisions the tickets purchased money will go into the prize pool for those teams divisions. For Example:
"BAR A" has 3 teams and 1 is in Gold, 1 is in Silver and 1 is in Bronze. They purchase 3 tickets for each team, ($25 x 3=$75) so $25 goes into each prize pool.

If you have any questions E-mail me at the above address.

It s very important to note that the BOD did approve an allocation of league-generated money into this league tournament. It is my hope that the BOD, as the result of continuing to cut costs of running our leagues, will continue to take steps to providing more attractive payouts. The BOD is committed to improving this club in every aspect and this is just the beginning. Please check here for answers to questions and clarification of anything people find confusing. I reserve the right to edit this post as deemed necessary by the BOD or the Forum Administrators.

I would like to thank all of the darters for their continued support and their continued loyalty to the Cleveland Darter Club.

Your League Director,
Jon London