Virtualmeet.net

All discussion and questions concerning the 23-25 October 2009 weightlifting meet is warmly welcome here.  :)

Sign up for the meet here. (http://virtualmeet.net/community/forum/meet-talk/328/0/)

I created a quick writeup of Virtualmeet on my (very) new blog. Hopefully it will generate some publicity for you!

http://www.mantisfit.com/compete-anywhere/

The rest of the site is still under construction, which is why it's a bit bare.

Warren

Warren, way cool! A very well-written post that sums it up extremely well. Thanks a lot. :)

Also, nice site you put up. I was excited to learn that you are a kung fu instructor with your own club, hats off for that. Do you have your students do weightlifting too?

Best of luck with the blog, I burned your feed. :)

Now let's see if anyone out there is ready to join you for the meet... the sign-up deadline is approaching rapidly.

Thanks Kris! The site is still a bit bare bones (no pics yet!) but it's early days. I enjoy writing so I'm aiming to do around 3 posts a week to start with. Once all the media and site copy is up I'm going to do an SEO push, which will hopefully result in more traffic for both of us!

I'm also a qualified gym instructor, so I'm looking to start strength training classes privately. At the moment I'm still working on the program design - something for the general public and something geared towards fighters.

If no one else signs up in time, does the meet get postponed/cancelled?

Looking forward to seeing your site evolve, sounds like you've got a good focus and know precisely where you're going.


Not unless you don't want to go alone. I can well see a case for not wanting to do that, but basically if there is people in a meet (for which they may have been preparing for some time) we never cancel. The lack of lifters is probably at least partially due to me not having put much effort in site PR over the last year or so with my focus so strongly on finally shipping version 2... like you, that's when I put in a new push in getting more people aware of what's happening here. In that respect, I really appreciate it when people like you go out there and spread the word. :) Wish there were more hours in a day, but you've got to set priorities.

If it's only me, then would it be possible to lift a day earlier? I'm training at the Bethnal Green Weightlifting Club every Thursday. Last week I set 2 PRs, and if I do that again Friday lifting could prove tough!

By the way, they're also trying to shut down the BGWLC. You'll already see the link on my site Kris, but for anyone else who wants to save a piece of weightlifting history

http://www.savebgwlc.org

Looking forward to version 2 of the site.

In this case I don't really see why not since it makes things smoother at your end. But let's make it clear for future reference, that this is an exception done for an exceptional meet. :)

Yeah, I read the BGWLC stuff... sad that the people who make the decision don't really see it from the eyes of the weightlifting community. Based on the picture on the site, the gym is cool even if one would totally disregard its historical significance etc. Shutting down a gym is generally speaking seldom a wise decision. ;)

Well, our newest member Patrick Furphy (http://virtualmeet.net/ilift/) saved us from the first one-man meet in the history of Virtualmeet.net. Welcome to the site and hope you have a great first one Patrick! :)

The upload instructions have now been sent out to the both of you. One week to go until meet weekend!

Good luck, all. I'll be traveling this weekend, and will send you visions of strong, successful lifts and many PRs. Just Tweeted ya'll~

Good luck from me as well. Fingers crossed for new PRs!

No PRs for me this time round. I was poorly prepared, and overdid it in the gym the day before. Will know better for next time.

Warren and Patrick, thanks for good and prompt uploads. :) I'll get the show on the road tomorrow.

Update: the meet is ready for the judges, but I am still doing the rounds rounding up the usual suspects to act as judges. Stay tuned. :)

I'm willing to judge if you need people.

I sure do, warmly appreciated. :) Jeff, I'll send you all the details on how to do the judging when the meet is released to the judges.

Two more to go, I've asked a some people if they would (again) be willing to help out, I'll keep you updated.

Ron Villani (http://virtualmeet.net/ironman50/) has again come to the rescue, one more judge needed. Two of the regular judges have had to say no this time for various reasons. Time for another e-mail or two, let's see if we can get this puppy into the judging phase tomorrow or so. :)

...and now Jamie Jamieson (http://virtualmeet.net/jamie), we have three judges onboard. The meet will go out to the judges tomorrow.

Thanks guys!

The meet is now with the judges. The deadline to finish judging is November 8th, the usual full week from right now. You can follow the progress in the box above this forum.

Stay tuned! :)

The meet is now fully judged, thanks to Jamie, Ron and Jeff for taking care of it so swiftly. Release scheduled for tomorrow. :)

Did we win?? Heh

The meet has been released! (http://virtualmeet.net/meets/200910wl/)

I love the typical English backdrop, wish we had "Outdoor Lifter" badges. Also, congrats to Patrick Furphy for completing his first virtualmeet. Strong lifting, but unfortunately your attempts had to be red lighted this time for lack of shoes as required per the rules (http://virtualmeet.net/meets/rules/). Hope to see you back with a vengeance. :)

Thanks to both lifters and judges for making another meet happen. This will mark a small break from the weightlifting meets, if the current 2010 meet schedule draft (http://virtualmeet.net/community/forum/meet-talk/332/0/) passes, we'll be back in action in April. We'll be beating the jungle drums hard for that one.

Bah! We were hoping you wouldn't notice. Pat came round with flip-flops. Would those have counted?

I never lifted in shoes until I joined Virtualmeet!

Sounds like we need to start taking RAW more seriously. ;)

Obviously, nobody here seriously thinks Pat got any advantage going barefoot. And flip-flops? Now, that would have been hardcore.

The point is rather that when creating Virtualmeet, I made the principal decision to try to stick to the official rules of weightlifting and powerlifting to the degree feasible when arranging meets over the internet. We've had lifters begin their competitive career by doing virtualmeets to get them familiar with the game, and from that perspective it really helps to keep the rules closely aligned with the official ones. I also tend to think it helps with street/net cred.

But it's never pleasant to turn down otherwise stellar lifts due to nitty gritties like not wearing proper footwear. I particularly remember Claudia Gerhards squat 110kg@58.1kg... in socks (http://virtualmeet.net/meets/200903pl/) (she had forgot her shoes at home). On the bright side, you tend to make a mistake like that only once. :)

As long as they don't wear the wrong pants;)

Yeah, for some reason long pants are harder to spot than bare feet...  ::)

Is that why we lift in the dark for the next gathering  ;D

Yes, that and the springs.