The 2011 season is officially over ... with some great surprises

As you know we have decided to play the Bricketwood Winter Series to give some of our players the chance to sniff out the RaceTo format … so we thought we’ll sign up for Round 3 prior to the Bricketwood Paintball Christmas Party and presentation of the 2011 winners - which included some exciting stuff for us!


WINTER SERIES ROUND 3

In short – let’s just skip the event. Nothing besides a lot of experience gained. Unluckily I was not there personally to break down in detail what happened, but we had a very young team on the field that just received punishment for the lack of their experience vs. the Div. 1 and Pro players.

Luckily none of this seem to have impacted the  Christmas Party in the evening – which I could attend.


BRICKETWOOD CHRISTMAS PARTY 2011

This event was the closing of the 2011 season for all teams. London Nexus, London Tigers, London Relentless, London Defiance – to just mention a few – were happily participating to make this party a success and mingled amongst each other. It is great to see all the passion and effort put in the sport and on the field then is then turned into so much sportsmanship. Rivals stand at the bar together talking and laughing about the hard fought points and matches throughout the season with a smile on their face.

The highlight of the event for us, Yorkie (Bricketwood Manager) and the team Relentless Paintball presented us with the “Bricketwood Paintball – Team of the year 2011” award. I took the chance to thank everyone for the opportunity and explained them a bit about where Samurai MV” originated from, Martin Vipas and our plans for 2012 to raise £ 30.000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

We were absolutely delighted and again Yorkie highlighted to some of us in the team later that evening that Darren, coach and manager, was just going above and beyond in getting new players in the sport and having done a great job in 2011 to raise our profile in the tournament paintball scene for beginners. Relentless having also had this prize last year congratulated us and wished us the best of luck with our target of raising £ 30.000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust next year – they also kindly offered support for next year in handing out flyers for our cause to locations where they will be travelling to. I have to pull my hat off to Relentless Paintball – absolute genuine gentlemen and looking forward to see more of them live at the Millenniums in 2012.


SPONSORSHIP 2012

3 weeks after sending the proposals, we received the first rejections. I am really happy we are getting responses at all – so it seems people are reading it. =)

By the 15^th January 2012 we will know what will be happening in 2012 with or without a financial sponsor – on the 11^th December is our team meeting where we will be discussing budgets for 2012 … so stay tuned.

We're almost there ... only 6 weeks left of this year

Well here we are – mid of November and quite a few things have been happening.

THE TOURNAMENT – WINTER SERIES

First off we have been participating in the RaceTo2 Division of the Bricketwood Winter Series (Round 2), which was a huge experience and learning curve for the team looking at 2012. We arrived as usual at 7:30/8:00 a.m. to walk the fields and have a look at the lay out. After the team captain meeting we received our schedule and realized that we actually would be playing teams that normally play 2-3 Divisions over us, so we thought to ourselves let’s see how this goes.

It will not come as a surprise that we didn’t place high in this tournament (7^th of 8 teams), but we gave them a run for their money and pinched one point off of 2 teams we played in the preliminary rounds (which play Division 1 and Semi Professional) and lost the last of the 3 matches 2:0. The last game of the day, after the group stage, was against our sister team Samurai Rage, which we decided for us in a 2:0 win. So maybe not great on paper – but the team now has a lot better picture of what a “RaceTo2”tournament will look like next year and not to forget, this was against veteran teams that have been playing this format for ages.

THE “NEW COACH” FOR SAMURAI MV

The next highlight for us was that we found a new “coach”who will help out training “Samurai MV” in the off season and support us throughout the 2012 season. He has been in domestic and international tournaments for quite a while and is an absolute asset to have around for knowledge and training schedules and support – we might even get him on the field next year … but time will tell. I’ll go into this more in early December once we had our first training with him (27^thNovember 2011). Darren, the “Samurai Paintball” coach, I think is a bit relieved that we have someone now, since he has been a busy man over the last months trying to support almost 40 people split in 4-5 teams … it’s just not possible and I think this will be a huge support for him. Again here –thanks Darren for all you have done for us up to here – every trophy we bring home is for you. =)

THE SPONSORSHIP

Last but not least – we have finally finished our sponsorship proposal and got it signed off by our current supporters/sponsors. We have sent this out toa dozen of companies yesterday and now are

keeping our fingers crossed to hear back from them soon. The final deadline for them is the 15^th January 2012, since we need to then start ordering our gear and jerseys.

SUMMARY

So it is all taking shape now – our new logo is almost final, new coach and support is found, new players have been drafted in the team over the last weeks and we have sent out our sponsorship proposal - all this and more will be revealed to you here in the next few weeks in every dirty little detail ... so stay posted and tuned … 2012 is only 6 weeks away!!!

Last Pro-Clinic Training for 2011 – with Jason Wheeler (from London Nexus)

Thanks to the great relationship of the teams training at Bricketwood Paintball and our fantastic owner/coach Darren we got Jason Wheeler from London Nexus to close the season with a last Pro-Clinic in 2011 on the 6^th November. It was a great opportunity to get the heads ready for Samurai MV looking at next season – but just as useful for all our sister teams that were attending this training.

It was a great day with an early start – warm-up, drills and 3vs.3 games before lunch. Following lunch we continued with some RaceTo2 format games back to back, to put into action what we had learned that day - until we all ran out of paint. After this really good but exhausting session, Jason actually took another 30-45 minutes speaking about “5-man” tournament style paintball vs. “X-Ball/Race To” tournament style paintball. It was an absolute privilege listening from one of the best players in the UK about what Nexus do to prepare for a new field layout before a tournament:

• What time/action go into preparation
• Detailed list of process on and off the field – tricks and tips on what to look out for
• What sideline coaches should and shouldn’t do

I think the entire group of teams that Samurai Paintball had down that weekend were well impressed and have a much better grasp on what is on the plan for 2012 – and especially us from MV know it will be quite a stretch to keep up … but I think it will be just as much fun. As Jason said “The good thing about this sport, like many other sports is – you get out of it, what you put into it” – and I think we will be putting in loads.

Since I don’t want to blur this post with our last training with other admin things that are currently happening – I’ll leave it as this for now and give you all an update later this week.

Jason – Thanks again for your help and time and good luck for your plans in 2012! =)

Another step closer

Hello again,

Since I posted the introductions we have progressed a little which is great and another step closer to our objectives in 2012.

We have discussed some feedback and changes on the suggested Logo of Tanked for the Samurai jersey and they are looking into this as I am writing this. This will be the last bit I need to send out my sponsorship letters/presentation to the companies I would love to ask for support for our plans in 2012.

Next up is the charity activities "pre-2012" and this was an IMPRESSIVE success over last few days. Last Sunday was the 1^st Round of the Bricketwood Paintball Center – Winter Series. It is an “off season” series organized by Yorkie (the site manager) to keep us in the game. November will be round 2 and final round is in December with a Christmas Party in the evening which collects donations throughout the evening and then give it to a charity of their choice – Yorkie approached us Sunday during the tournament and told us that after speaking to the boy and girls during the tournament about Samurai MV and out plans for next year to give the money to our charity. Next thing I hear is that one of the teams participating (named: "STD Paintball Team") was giving us their “financial leftovers” from the team savings of the season. I must say it was a great moment – we haven’t even started our campaign and already have received a huge support from players, friends and fans. SO thanks again to:

Our next trainings will be on the 6^th and 13^th of November and by we will be looking at orders more details and schedules for 2012 which I can already let you know some small details about …

One charity activity per month like i.e. an auction, 2-3 Paintball for Charity events (open invitation to play paintball and money goes to the CF Trust for every player on the field), travel to Germany, France and US to raise awareness and also funds … so it will be a packed year, but I think it will be just as rewarding in the end.

Wish us luck with our sponsorship hunt now – since this is the big variable at the moment.

Talk soon!

First Introductions ...

As usual in the beginning – introductions are in order … so here we go:

My name is James and I play for a tournament paintball team in the London area in the UK which is named Samurai MV. Tournament paintball is a bit different to the “normal” paintball sites or events you would go to when you are going for a birthday party, company event or stag/hen due. It’s a sport we play and train for throughout the year with proper tournaments, series, European and World Cups. For more information I can recommend to visit http://www.millennium-series.com/, which is the European Paintball Championship – there are loads more in the UK, Germany and France that have proper leagues etc. – but I think I might get into that at a later stage as well once we start talking about our 2012 plan.

So - Samurai MV is one of a few teams playing under the Samurai Paintball banner. Samurai Paintball was founded in 2005 and has been going strong – in 2007 Samurai MV was formed in memory of Martin Vipas, a player of samurai who tragically passed away after having suffered from Cystic Fibrosis. In the first seasons Samurai MV (and the other Samurai teams) started raising funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on all the events they played … and for 2012, 5 years later, we would like to relaunch this initiative to raise funds once again – this time just on a much larger scale, but more of that shortly.

Personally I have only played paintball roughly 2 years, and the rest of the squad started more or less in 2008 – which makes us a very young team in experience. On the other side our players ages range from 25 to 40 years, which is rather on the “older” side compared to other squads out in the sport. We have had quite a good run over the last 2 years winning the 1^st place in the UK Masters Series in 2010 and finishing the same league 2^nd this year and the season “closing event” for the Masters (Shoot the Rainbow) was always on the top 3 podium positions in the last 2 years as well … so we seem to have a base that we can work with.

What is the purpose of all this – really simple – for 2012 we are planning to start a large scale launch of raising funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust by playing 2 domestic and 2 international tournament series in UK, Germany and France – finishing the year in October by flying and participating in the 2012 PSP Worldcup in Orlando, Florida … and this Blog will be a part of a documentation of this journey.

• The charity website is started: CHECK - yesterday you can see everything needed for making donations on the right hand side!

• The Logo’s and jerseys are designed: CHECK - Something I will reveal in one of the next posts ...

• First Support & Sponsorships have been settled: CHECK

BUT – we are on the look for a financial sponsor to support us in the costs of making this journey come true. So this will be the big breaking news if this goes through.

Last but not least I would like to ask you all to just head over to Facebook and get on our Facebook page (Samurai Paintball) to see what is going on – see pictures of the boys and girls and get some updates prior to 2012.

I will be back on the weekend with some updates on how things are progressing with the prep-work. We still need the financial sponsor, will have a try-out for some more people on the Samurai MV team for next season and then also the final details of what we will be doing 2012.