About the shaft, and raising the entry.
Annie, I'm sure your shafts are excellent, but your idea, though
very generous, still forces girls to participate who wouldn't
otherwise. I'm not sure what the numbers are (did Melinda say 8-12,
on average?), but if only 10 girls out of 40 want to pay for the
qualifier, you've still got 30 paying for it when they don't plan to
(or can't) participate. Personally, I'm one of the girls that
doesn't pay for the qualifier, and I wouldn't be too excited to pay
$5 more bucks to fund the chicks who always beat me anyway!! I kid!
I kid! LOL

Though the response has been minimal up until now, it seems that the
general concensus is that the tour should not pay out of pocket for
the qualifiers. And I agree with Sharon (who is the best writer!
and FUNNY!), that the tour always has been and will continue to be
(plagurizing here) a "stepping stone" for new players.

my $.02

--- In hunterclassicstour@yahoogroups.com, "Rachelle A Mayes"
<ramayes@a...> wrote:
>
> I would like to offer an additional "Third" option solution
> to
> funding the qualifiers.
>
> I will be happy to provide and AO-E Shaft for each event. I
suggest
> that you raise the entry fee to $35.00 and give each player a
$5.00
> raffle ticket in return for the extra $5.00 and use the ticket to
> draw for the AO-E Shaft.
>
> Based on my research at AZBILLIARDS you averaged 40 players per
> event during 2004. Using this raffle idea, you would generate an
> average additional revenue of $200.00 per event to be used for
> qualifiers. If you get more than you need at some events, keep the
> extra money in a special "Qualifier Only Account" for the
> next
> event. By the end of the year, you should have more money than you
> paid out and you might reduce the qualifier fee for the end of the
> year tournament.
>
> As most of you probably know, the AO-E shaft is the best,
> (Spelled `least deflecting'), shaft on the market today. Test
> results are posted on my website at http://www.annieosproshop.com
> –
> click on the AO NT Shafts link to see the data.
>
> I hope this helps. See you all in February.
>
> Annie
>
>
>
> --- In hunterclassicstour@yahoogroups.com, "Melinda"
<recplay@y...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Ladies!
> >
> > Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Christmas is coming up
> > soon...time sure does fly, huh?
> >
> > We need your opinion! We have always been pleased to be the
only
> > Regional Tour to have each of our stops be qualifiers, but in
the
> > past several years we have not recouped the amount we are paying
> for
> > the qualifiers from the $50 fee we have charged. The qualifier
> > amount is $500, with an additional $100 for the room to be a
WPBA
> > member. Therefore, we need 12 players at each stop to break
even
> on
> > the qualifier. When we don't get 12 players, the Hunter Tour
puts
> > up the rest of the money. We would like to add one or two
> > additional stops but cannot as long as we are losing money on
> nearly
> > every stop.
> >
> > We see two possible solutions to this problem and would like
your
> > opinion before we make our decision:
> >
> > One: Do not have each stop be a qualifier - if there are fewer
> > qualifiers, then perhaps there will be more demand when we do
have
> > one.
> >
> > Two: Divide the $500 for the actual qualifier by the number of
> > players who are interested in participating - if there are 15
> > players participating it would be $33 each, if there are 10
> players
> > participating it would be $50 each, if there are 5 players
> > participating it would be $100 each.
> >
> > We need your opinion by *December 19th* so we can start
> advertising
> > for our first stop at Fast Eddies in Austin on February 12-13.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your help and opinions!
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > The Hunter Tour Board Members