We're proud to be starting up a series of articles geared towards Tournament Directors. The articles will start next week, so we figured we'd tell you a little bit about it first.

The goal of the articles

These articles are meant to provide clear, concrete advice for Tournament Directors. Instead of simply giving general advice, each article will focus on a single discrete aspect of managing a tournament. Examples of topics include: "getting teams to come", "finding trainers", and "canceling a tournament". We hope these articles will lessen the learning curve for new Tournament Directors as well as provide useful insights to experienced TDs.

Who the writers are

These articles are written by Tournament Directors who are generously offering their time to share their expertise. We ask each of the writers to share advice in an area where they believe they are particularly knowledgeable. You can look forward to articles from a number of the most experienced TDs in the world including:

• Klaus Auracher (Australian Nationals)
• Dave Branick (Chesapeake Open)
• Caleb Edwards (CCC)
• Steven Giguere (UK tournaments, Owner of Lookfly)
• Benji Heywood (UK tournaments)
• Danny Karlinsky (Labor Day)
• Adam Levy (Chicago Sandblast)
• James Melzack (UK tournaments)
• Joe Mulder (Colorado Cup)
• Michelle Ng (tons of Without Limits events)
• Chris Olig (Nationals, Wisconsin Swiss)
• Skip Sewell (ECC, tons of others)
• Ryan Thompson (Stanford Invite)
• Elliot Trotter (Cultimate)
• Melvin Wang (Houston Ultimate)

We are looking for more contributors, so if you or anyone you know has advice pertaining to one or more aspects of tournament directing, we would love to hear your thoughts!

When and where articles will be posted

These articles will be sent out via email to all Tournament Directors on our Leaguevine TD list. To add yourself to the list, please just go to our blog and enter your email into the TD List box on the right hand side. By adding yourself to the TD list, you will have an article sent to you every Tuesday and we may contact you about other things you'd find useful. You can of course unsubscribe at any time.

In addition to email distribution, these articles will be posted to our blog each Tuesday, and to Skyd Magazine the following Friday.

This series will continue each week until we have run out of articles to post.

What we need from you

We'd like to keep this going for a long time, and to facilitate that, you can help in three ways:

1. Go to our blog to comment on the articles. Say what advice you agree or disagree with and provide any additional insights you can.
2. Forward these articles on to your friends, share them on Facebook/Twitter, and bring as many TDs into the conversation as possible.
3. Contribute an article. Yes, this is a bit of work, but if you've been a TD for a while, there is probably a ridiculous amount of information cooped up in your head that aspiring young TDs out there wish they had access to. We encourage you to put on your teacher hat and write articles on as many different topics as you can. Even if someone has written about a topic you'd like to write about, we still want to hear your insights. Having multiple perspectives on the same topic is a good thing. To get started, email mark@leaguevine.com.

We fully realize that Tournament Directors are the driving force behind the sport of Ultimate. It is incredible that so many people are willing to give up their nights and weekends to put on amazing events without earning a dime. We hope these articles lessen the burden and help TDs feel like they are not alone out there.