Tournament Organisers get sneak peak at GBHL future

Tournament organisers who run events in the Great British Hobbit League have been given a chance for their say on potential plans for the future of the league.

A Tournament Organiser Working Group (TOWG) was held by the league Management Committee to increase transparency, and to gain feedback on ideas to improve the league.

The video call was open to any event organiser in the GBHL and saw dozens of questions asked, and multiple main topics discussed.

Among the items on the agenda were:

• The location of the League finale for 2025 (Newcastle or Swindon), decision intended to be delivered by May.

• Discussion about the 2025 Masters event (which was held in March), its format change, and focus on bringing in Painting and Sporting winners into the event. The committee agreed that any format change, and eligiblity should be communicated further in advance in the future.

• Discussion around timing of the largest league events being too close together. Reps were encouraged to space them better in 2026.

• Concerns about some TOs running lots of GBHL90 events and not running 100s or 80s. A cap has been introduced to reduce the number of GBHL90s per organiser.

• The idea of Best Painted team and Most Sporting teams. The idea was well liked, but concerns around it being manipulated ruled it out for the moment.

The TOWG also saw the submission of proposals for the Management Committee to consider introducing as amendments to the League rules.

The first was to consider a way to introduce additional team scores (distinct from individual rankings) for team events.

The proposal suggested counting the team as a whole as a 10th member for team ranking purposes, so its ranking at a team event could count to the team's overall GBHL team score.

The proposal was received well, but there were concerns over the structure of how to implement the scores so more refinement was requested by the committee with the hope of introducing at a later date.

The second proposal was the idea of introducing a "Hobby Premium" event accreditation to reward attendees and TOs who go above and beyond to reward hobby and painting awards.

Accredited events could award additional points to the Artisan of the Year competition to those events which offer prizes or support for extra hobby competitions (eg Best Display Board, Best Objective markers etc).

The idea recieved a positive reception but stumbled at defining a clear criteria on which to judge the events being rewarded Hobby Premium status - more refinement was requested.

The final proposal to be heard was the idea of introducing an additional kind of event to the league - The GBHL110.

This would award 110 GBHL points to the winner - and be reserved for only the largest, most well established events in the league.

The rationale was to encourage a greater attendance at the league's flasgship events, and to reward players who beat a significantly larger field to become winner.

There were concerns about it potentially creating an imbalance in the league if too few events qualified, there was also criticism that the idea could benefit too many Committee Members for it to be considered a fair policy to introduce.

The idea was shelved until at least 2026, but the discussion shed light on the need for a general restructuring of the league to account for its huge growth in the last five years.

At its conclusion the Management Committee felt the TOWG was a resounding success.

Most attendees had positive feedback and were grateful for being able to have a greater input in the league.

The full Minutes are accessible to Tournament Organsers in the TO Facebook group, and there will be another TOWG later in the year.

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Current State of the League:

1st in League	David Farmer
2nd in League	Jakub Krochmal
3rd in League	Tom McConnell
4th	Thomas Wagg
5th	Stephen Denbigh
6th	John Partridge
7th	Aaron Wright
8th	Chris Ryder
9th	Niall Corrigan
10th	Sean Creed
Southwest Leader	Arash Hussain
Southeast Leader	Toni Jones
Central Leader	Dale Hasty
Northern England Leader	Adam Bird
Scotland/NI/ROI Leader	Alfredo Llorca
Best Newcomer	Rob Keen