QUAFL 2021: Location Announcement and Organising Committee Applications Open

QUAFL 2021 Location

For 2021, the Australian Quidditch Championships will be held at Melbourne's La Trobe Sports Park at La Trobe University on the 4th and 5th of December. After six consecutive wins by Melbourne based teams and six years away from Melbourne, this year, the championships return to Victoria.

This year looks to be the best QUAFL held to date. Boasting state of the art fields and facilities, Quidditch Australia is confident all our members shall enjoy this setting for our 10-year celebration event.

APPLY FOR THE QUAFL 2021 COMMITTEE

Quidditch Australia are looking for a dedicated organising team for QUAFL 2021. Senior roles shall be provided with a free social ticket along with a volunteer specific t-shirt. Junior roles shall be provided with a discounted social ticket along with a volunteer specific t-shirt. Both roles may also be provided with other benefits to be determined at a later time.

A full list of available positions can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16tsvlu5-pKDB6ARhyyztlYGpaFv0fBaB/view?usp=sharing?usp=sharing

If you want to have a hand in running the 10th anniversary of the largest quidditch tournament in the southern hemisphere, please apply below:

Applications close on August 16th.

QUAFL 2019 - Committee

The Organising Committee for the 2019 Championships is as follows!

Alistair Yap - Tournament Director

Arfy Papadam - Logistics Director

Harry Huang - Volunteers Coordinator

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the tournament, please get in touch with the organising committee at quafl@quidditch.org.au

Additionally, we are still seeking volunteers for general committee members, who can help out with the organisation of Australia's biggest tournament in a general capacity and provide assistance to the organising committee.

General committee volunteers can count towards the team volunteer requirement. If you would like to volunteer as a general committee member, please apply below:

Apply To Be A General Committee Member

QUAFL 2019 Registration

Registration for Players and for Teams is Now Open for QUAFL 2019!

There are 2 separate registration forms: 1 for team registration and 1 for individual registration.

Team registration will only need to be filled out once per club. If your club is sending multiple teams to QUAFL, you may register all of them in one submission.

Players and non-playing members on a team's roster will then have to register individually for QUAFL using the appropriate form. Players should only start registering AFTER their team has registered.

Please take note of a new team requirement that has been added. Each team is required to have at least 1 individual register as a volunteer at QUAFL. This can be done via the Player Registration Form. Please keep in mind the intent of this addition to team requirements is to ensure that an adequate amount of volunteers are present so that they do not have to work for several hours over the course of the weekend, and we will be keeping in mind team schedules when rostering volunteers.

All payments are to be made using PayPal and payment information can also be found in the respective forms.

The deadlines are as follows:

Team registration closes on October 8th 2019

Individual registration closes on October 23th 2019

The forms can be found at these links:

Team Registration

Player Registration

Individual Player Registraion

https://form.jotform.co/AQAOfficial/QUAFL2019

If you have any questions, please contact Tournament Director Alistair Yap at quafl@quidditch.org.au

Australia Quidditch Championships 2019: Team & Player Exemptions, Gameplay Requirements

With the Australian Quidditch Championships fast approaching, appeals are now open for teams or players to submit exemptions to the event's gameplay requirements.

Individual Player Requirements

All players wishing to participate in the Australia Quidditch Championships must meet the following criteria to be eligible to participate; 

(d) Player Requirements:

(i) All players participating at the championship must have played a minimum of three ranked games at any point in the season in question to participate. The purpose of this rule is to ensure that all players understand the rules of the game and can play in a safe manner. 

(1) Exceptions may be given in circumstances of isolation in a similar manner to the team requirements. 

(2) Exceptions may also be given if a team can provide evidence that a player has been sufficiently involved in the sport in past seasons or involved in training or playing in an unofficial capacity to the extent that their safety and experience can be verified. 

(3) These requirements must be met 60 days before the start of the championship. 

Quidditch Australia Gameplay Policies 2019, page 13

Ranked matches refer to official CLUB matches, such as games at the Victoria Cup, NSW Quidditch League or Queensland League. Ranked matches do not include fantasy events or games played for mercenary teams. 

Exemptions for individuals may be made up until October 8th.  Individual player registration for the tournament will open in late September and close on October 23rd. 

Team Eligibility

As detailed in the Quidditch Australia Gameplay Policy document; 

(b) Team Requirements 

(i) In order to be eligible to qualify for the championship, a team must satisfy one of the following criteria: 

(1) Participation in a QA-sanctioned state league, having completed at least five ranked games within that competition. 

(2) Participation in at least two ranked QA-sanctioned tournaments, having completed at least three ranked games in each tournament. 

(3) Participation in at least seven ranked games against at least two opponents, over a period of at least three different days of competition

(A) For the purpose of this regulation, participation in any event which takes more than one day to complete will still only count towards a single unique day of competition.

Exemptions may be provided to teams in the case of;

(ii) If a team has reasonable grounds for which these criteria cannot be satisfied, they may launch an appeal to the Gameplay Department, who may waive these criteria at their discretion. 

(v) Teams, who have fewer than two other QA member teams within their state or three teams total registered with their respective state body for the duration of the current season, may still qualify for the championship without satisfying these criteria provided they seek out and accept all possible opportunities for official play available to them. 

(vi) A new QA team who has never attended previously, is considered to have only come into existence in the 12 months prior to the championship, and who has signed up for their first ever annual QA membership in the second half of the season may not have sufficient opportunity to satisfy these criteria, due to lack of time or sufficient opponents. Such teams may still enter provided they seek out and accept all possible opportunities for ranked play available to them. 

(vii) Any unofficial QA team who participates within a sanctioned state body's formalised tournament structure (e.g. Victoria Cup), will be considered as exposed to opportunity and expected to have made all efforts possible to satisfy these criteria. 

Quidditch Australia Gameplay Policies 2019, page 12

Teams who feel they satisfy the requirements of an exemption may submit an appeal to the Quidditch Australia gameplay committee. Exemptions for teams may be made up until October 1st as team registration will close on October 8th.

Transfers prior to the Australian Quidditch Championships

Transfers must be submitted to the Quidditch Australia Gameplay committee by no later than October 8th for these transfers to be considered. After this date, players are locked into their current team till the end of 2019. Transfers may be submitted here: http://www.quidditch.org.au/player-transfer-form/

Team Referee Requirements

All teams are required to complete their team based referee requirements by October 8th. Quidditch Australia will be using the IQA Referee tests are the method of certificiation. These tests are accessible by visiting

https://www.iqareferees.org/

Teams will not be able to apply for exemptions to these requirements.

The requirements are as follows:

(iv) The certification requirements outlined in Section 3.2.b must be spread across six playing club members attending the championship.

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(b) Expectations for QA-Sanctioned Events

(i) Unless otherwise indicated by the tournament director, it is expected that for all QA-sanctioned events, inclusive of the Australian Quidditch Championships, teams will be able to contribute the following:

(1) one certified head referee

(2) one certified snitch runner

(3) one certified snitch referee

(4) three certified assistant referees

(5) two goal referees

(6) three scorekeepers or time keepers

Please note that snitch runner certification is no longer required and the referee certifications must be spread across five (5) playing members of the team rather than six (6). 

Quidditch Australia Gameplay Policies 2019, page 13 & 17

Exemptions to the Player or Team Eligibility May Be Submitted Here

Questions can be directed to Quidditch Australia's gameplay director, Nicola Gertler, at gameplay@quidditch.org.au

QUAFL 2019 Bid Package Released!

We are excited to release the Event Overview and Bidding Process for the Australian National Quidditch Championships - QUAFL 2019!

Teams or organisations interested in cohosting the event with Quidditch Australia are encouraged to submit applications to events@quidditch.org.au, by the end of March.

We have already begun to take on feedback from QUAFL2018 with regards to the location criteria in the bid package, and look to release a full report on the tournament feedback in the near future.

Please find the bidding information here:

[embeddoc url="http://www.quidditch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/QUAFL-2019-Bid-Package.pdf" download="all"]

Road to QUAFL: Queensland Champs USC Dementors

Photo Credit: Fee Howcroft/USC Quidditch LeagueQUAFL 2018 is taking place this weekend. Before 24 of Australia’s finest Quidditch teams converge on the Sunshine Coast for 2 days, let’s take a moment to get to know some of the best teams in each attending state. Today we talked to Annie Partick, President of the University of the Sunshine Coast Quidditch Club, about her team’s success this year and their goals for QUAFL. How did it feel to win the Queensland League Grand Final?Fantastic! We suffered our first grand final loss last year to the ACU Paladins (now the Brisbane City Bin Chickens), so we came into the competition eager to reclaim the trophy. We’re very proud to have come away as winners.To what does your club owe its success?We trained hard in the lead-up to each Matchday, with fitness trainings on top of our weekly club tournament games. I feel like we’ve spent a lot more time together outside of quidditch as well – we enjoy spending time with each other which means we gel better on pitch. We also had a sudden influx of fantastic female chasers last semester, which was a huge bonus to our lineup. Our squad this year is mostly female, and we’re not afraid to use them, which I think is a real advantage for our team.What are you most looking forward to at QUAFL this year?Versing teams we rarely get to play against is always beneficial and teaches us a lot, but I’m also excited to see interstate friends, including members from our club who’ve moved away to other teams. This will be our first year where we could play against ex-Dementors!Who are some of your more understated stars that you want other teams to watch out for?Simon Spann – you guys are going to love him. But really, Daisy McMillan, Marie Løvland, Kaysanne Hockey and Jessica Head are our new female chaser recruits and they’re all incredible. This will be their first time playing against interstate teams, and we’re really excited to show them off! They are so dedicated to the sport, and our club, and we think their names will become more familiar as they make their way onto the Thunderbird lineup next year.Who is a team from your state that you want other teams to watch out for?The Brisbane City Bin Chickens are the next on the ladder, and as always, they’re going to bring their A-game to QUAFL. We’ve had a lot of close games against them, so they’re definitely not to be underestimated! That being said, the competition was quite tight this year, and there are fantastic players on both QUT and UQ.A number of your team members were in respective state teams this year. What do you think you’ve learnt from the competition this year?It’s very sobering to go from being the best in the game in the Queensland league, to being pitted against the best in Australia. It’s very easy to get cocky or complacent when playing games that you know you can dominate, and it’s easy to stagnate in that environment. State Shield always shows us how much we are yet to learn. I think a lot of us came back with a new level of fearlessness, which we hope to take into QUAFL.Other than the games and medals you’ve won, what’s your team’s biggest achievement?Our biggest achievement is probably the community that we’ve built within our club. Everyone hangs out on the weekend, lives together, dates, or just likes spending time with one another. We’ve worked hard to build an environment where people feel safe and happy and want to keep coming back.  A big contributor to this is our internal league, where we’ve played weekly for 8 seasons now, and it’s still growing. From this, we’ve been able to contribute a player to the Australian team for the first time, as well as several Thunderbirds, and (at last) a B team for the national tournament.On a more negative note, what’s one of the biggest hurdles your team has had to deal with?Some of our team is very spread out, so we haven’t had a chance to train as a full squad (and won’t actually get that opportunity until Sunday). Simon and Chelsea live in Sarina, Mitch lives in Longreach, Jason in Gin Gin and Laurie in France!  It’s hard to coordinate everyone’s schedules, but we’ve done the best with what we’ve got.What are some future directions of the club for after QUAFL?Our B team, the Nifflers, are making their debut at QUAFL this year, and we’d love to see them continue to play in Queensland and interstate competitions next year. We also want to send a full Dementors squad to Mudbash or Midwinter in 2019, and win more games at State Shield.Many thanks to Regina Atkinson and Tegan Diep for their work putting this interview together