First, though, let’s talk about the angsty bits.
1) Forum posting is clearly down for the second season in a row, which I think is fair to now say is the Slack effect. That said. Forum posting remains historically solid, and would have been considered very good just 5-10 seasons ago.
2) We had two GMs miss minimum levels of participation, hence go on bailout plans. This is not unprecedented, and is essentially why the rule is in place. But, sure, we’d like to do better. I should note, though, both instances are related to issues in “real life” (whatever that is). We totally get it. Shit happens.
3) Unfortunately, we also lost Tyler Simmons, Stu Hopkins, and Mike Bieschke to events. It’s always hard to see GMs turn over, especially super quality guys like these, but again, life happens. The UMEBA is hot-hot-hot, though, and yielded three outstanding candidates into their seats, allowing the league to roll on without hitch.
So, there you go.
On the happier side of the news, though, both the BBA and UMEBA saw what were essentially record results for pure PPT (this is a little hard to say for sure just due to point cuts with leaving and shuffling GMs, but that’s my story and I’m sticking with it). While forum posting is down, we saw a big upsurge in feature writing and in Podcasts (like others, I enjoyed the OOTP podcast in which some leagues were touting that they had a podcast…like the BBA doesn’t have about a gazillion!). Anyway, good on us.
With Nigel going crazy, the UMEBA guys were set to utterly destroy their participation record. I’m accounting him to the BBA in the final analysis because it’s too danged much to split him out…but it turns out that without him the UMEBA guys merely turned in the second strongest season in the league’s history. No chopped liver there, eh? And, seriously, take my word for it, they dropped a record if I did the work to cut it right...
We had three GMs hit the 200 PPT mark, me, Vic, and Nigel (who, as noted, spread his points across the spectrum of the BBA/UMEBA worlds).
Mike Simon has brought his graphic talents to bear on several of our league logos, and the media guide cover, bringing us a new sensibility. He also did a great job updating the Universal History.
As always, the Media Guide was awesome. Across the board, TN creation remained high.
So, yeah…things are chugging along at a nice pace here in the Brewster. This are, as always, evolving as our folks evolve. A little less forum chatter, a little more feature writing and podcast chatter. Sounds fine to me as we celebrate our 70th season.
Here’s to another 70!
