IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Greetings

During the general meeting of the IUF held at Unicon XI, the IUF requested that Japan make a formal decision
about holding Unicon XII in Japan by October 31, 2002. Today is that date and here is the decision by the JUA:

YES, UNICON XII WILL BE HOSTED BY JAPAN IN THE SUMMER OF 2004

The JUA had various concerns, which John Foss addressed in a detailed letter. The International Committee of
the JUA, headed by Masanori Wakae (I am serving as consultant) will hold meetings with JUA officials to decide
on the details, including the all important issue of avoiding date conflicts with other meets, such as the USA
NUM and Eurocycle.

There are many details to work out, and many of them cannot be dealt with as it is too early. But the important
thing is: the answer is YES.

So start saving up your yen and brushing up your nihongo and chopstick skills :slight_smile:

Stay on top, Jack Halpern
Executive Director for International Development
International Unicycling Federation, Inc.
Website: http://www.kanji.org

kewl!
this is going to twist open a couple of heads!!

nihongo?

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

> nihongo?

Japanese word for the Japanese language. Nihon = Japan.

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

> During the general meeting of the IUF held at Unicon XI, the IUF requested
that Japan make a formal decision
> about holding Unicon XII in Japan by October 31, 2002. Today is that date
and here is the decision by the JUA:
>
> YES, UNICON XII WILL BE HOSTED BY JAPAN IN THE SUMMER OF 2004
>
> The JUA had various concerns, which John Foss addressed in a detailed
letter. The International Committee of
> the JUA, headed by Masanori Wakae (I am serving as consultant) will hold
meetings with JUA officials to decide
> on the details, including the all important issue of avoiding date
conflicts with other meets, such as the USA
> NUM and Eurocycle.
>
> There are many details to work out, and many of them cannot be dealt with
as it is too early. But the important
> thing is: the answer is YES.
>
> So start saving up your yen and brushing up your nihongo and chopstick
skills :slight_smile:

This is excellent news, except…

No Unicon in 2003? Woo woo woo…

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

UNICON’s are every other year.
North American Conventions are every year.

Looking forward to the announcement for 2003 !

Darren

Scott Kurland wrote:

> > During the general meeting of the IUF held at Unicon XI, the IUF requested
> that Japan make a formal decision
> > about holding Unicon XII in Japan by October 31, 2002. Today is that date
> and here is the decision by the JUA:
> >
> > YES, UNICON XII WILL BE HOSTED BY JAPAN IN THE SUMMER OF 2004
> >
> > The JUA had various concerns, which John Foss addressed in a detailed
> letter. The International Committee of
> > the JUA, headed by Masanori Wakae (I am serving as consultant) will hold
> meetings with JUA officials to decide
> > on the details, including the all important issue of avoiding date
> conflicts with other meets, such as the USA
> > NUM and Eurocycle.
> >
> > There are many details to work out, and many of them cannot be dealt with
> as it is too early. But the important
> > thing is: the answer is YES.
> >
> > So start saving up your yen and brushing up your nihongo and chopstick
> skills :slight_smile:
>
> This is excellent news, except…
>
> No Unicon in 2003? Woo woo woo…

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Jack,

For what it’s worth, and I know I’m not addressing this in the proper place and I am just one small voice in the wind, but previous information said that the competition may be held over two weekends with opportunities for sightseeing during the week in the middle. This would be disaster for some of us with only a week to spare for vacation. Personally, I would hope for an opportunity to travel on the weekends and attend competition during the week.

Bruce

Jack, Etc.,

This is a bit off topic but are there any good online resources for actually learning Japanese? I always wanted to in college (partly to learn the language and partly because I had a crush on the instructor) but every year I had this stupid 3-hour engineering lab that interfered with the Japanese language classes.

I want to go to the 2004 event for sure, and it’d be nice to speak. I’ve got almost 2 years to get some basics down. That applies to both my language skills and my unicycle skills.

Lewis

there is no way in the world i could go to Japan,but if i could the 1st thing i would do is look for Sendhair.

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Greetings

In message “Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan”,
Animation wrote…
>
>Jack, Etc.,
>
>This is a bit off topic but are there any good online resources for
>actually learning Japanese? I always wanted to in college (partly to
>learn the language and partly because I had a crush on the instructor)
>but every year I had this stupid 3-hour engineering lab that interfered
>with the Japanese language classes.
>
>I want to go to the 2004 event for sure, and it’d be nice to speak. I’ve
>got almost 2 years to get some basics down. That applies to both my
>language skills and my unicycle skills.

Sorry for the delay. I just sent another message with links. Another souce
of info is the links on my page at:

Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc.
http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508

Re: Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Last word from Jack thru the folks in Japan is that they may be able to work through this, and do the competitions on consecutive days. But details are very sketchy at this point, so nothing is firm. I’m sure they will do everything they can to work it this way, because your time-off restrictions are shared by many, including riders and families in Japan.

So what kind of convention do the JUA folks want to have? The list of questions I addressed for the home-office JUA people indicates that they have little knowledge of developments since UNICON III in 1987. Things have changed a lot, including the expectations of what we do at UNICON. I would like to change those expectations some more.

I’d like to see competition events that are more focused on bringing out the world champions, which I believe is in line with the JUA. At the same time, we must have some events that are fun for everybody. I’d like to see us widen the gap between these two types of competition, at least on the national/international level, to focus the top events on having an audience, and the “everybody” events on having a great time, while still encouraging riders to strive for the higher levels.

I’d like to see more attention paid to workshops and non-competitive events.

With the size of today’s UNICONs and our time constraints, it has become obvious that some events must overlap, and riders must make choices about what they will see and do. But these scheduling decisions need to be carefully thought out, hopefully in a process that involves leaders in from all the main unicycling disciplines.

Also I am concerned about rules. How familiar is the JUA with IUF competition rules? Will it be an easy transition for them to apply our rules? I would like to find out way in advance where points of conflict may arise in details of racing or Freestyle judging. These can be worked out easily if there is enough time to address them.

I look forward to being a part of this process.

Stay on top,

Re: Re: Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

John,

Ah too bad. It would be nice to have days off in the middle in order to do the tourism thing with UNICON folks. Still, I can understand. Perhaps if they make all the events in one solid week, some of us can take off some or all of the week following to ride, play, and tour Japan a bit.

Lewis

While I sympathise with the Edwards, I too found the 2 weekend format enticing; It’s not like I’m bopping over to Japan all the time -I’d like to milk that air-fare for all it’s worth.

-Christopher

Japan sounds exiting!

Just wondering…what ever happened to Puerto Rico hosting the next Unicon? Wasn’t that one of the possibilities?

That was for the possible hosting of NAUCC 2003 (or later). But at the time, there was a lack of local unicyclist support for the committment to putting on a convention. Maybe in a few years…

If UNICON XII runs like UNICON III did, there will be a chance to do some group touring after the competitions are over. We did a group tour to Mt. Fuji in '87. This included a ride back on the Bullet Train. I hope tours like this can be arranged for 2004 as well.

I enjoyed my ride on the Bullet Ferry in Seattle.

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Greetings

In message “Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan”,
Animation wrote…
>
>John,
>
>johnfoss wrote:
>> * Last word from Jack thru the folks in Japan is that they may be able
>> to work through this, and do the competitions on consecutive days. But
>> details are very sketchy at this point, so nothing is firm. I’m sure
>> they will do everything they can to work it this way, because your
>> time-off restrictions are shared by many, including riders and
>> families in Japan.*
>
>
>Ah too bad. It would be nice to have days off in the middle in order to
>do the tourism thing with UNICON folks. Still, I can understand. Perhaps
>if they make all the events in one solid week, some of us can take off
>some or all of the week following to ride, play, and tour Japan a bit.

I am confused here. I thought that we PREFERED to have it on consecutive days
but were willing to have it soplit iof no other choice. So now the JUA is working
in the direction of consecutive.

I would like to know which direction to work before our forthcoming meeting to discuss
this (no date yet).

Stay on top, Jack Halpern
Executive Director for International Development
International Unicycling Federation, Inc.
Website: http://www.kanji.org

Re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Unicon XII to be held in Japan

Jack Halpern wrote:
> I am confused here. I thought that we PREFERED to have it on consecutive days
> but were willing to have it soplit iof no other choice. So now the JUA is working
> in the direction of consecutive.
>
> I would like to know which direction to work before our forthcoming meeting to discuss
> this (no date yet).

I think it was only Bruce who replied and he preferred consecutive days.
So, yes, in a recent poll 100% of unicyclists want consecutive days.
:slight_smile:

That said, surely consecutive would be best - that way people have the
choice of whether they hang around for tourism (before or after) or
whether they’re just there for the event.

Personally, if the competitions have to be held on the weekends, I’d
still be tempted to use those for travelling. :wink:

Regards,
Mark.