About
University of Plymouth Ultimate Frisbee (PICNIC) started in 1992. Ultimate Frisbee is a fast-moving team sport, it is a mixed team sport therefore a great way to make new friends. Plymouth Ultimate has positions for anyone willing to give a new sport a go and improve their fitness. Ultimate Frisbee is often compared to sports like Football or American Football, however there are some distinctive features that make ultimate one of the best new sports to try, the game of Ultimate has no referees and is played with a flying disc! Points are scored in an "endzone" and you cannot move with the disc. All members have equal opportunities to get on the first team (unlike more popular sports such as Football or Hockey) due to the majority of members joining Plymouth Ultimate as beginners. We offer members 4 training sessions a week at no extra charge. Training sessions take place both indoors and outdoors throughout the year. Members are not expected to come along to all of these, however regular attendees are more likely to get on the first team. We try to also partake in as many volunteering opportunties as possible, particularly with RELAYS which outreaches to schools and gives them the opportunity to learn something new!
Socials
Picnic’s socials are weekly during Freshers, they involve great fancy dress nights out so we can get to know all the new faces at the club! We hold both drinking socials and non-drinking socials. Drinking socials include, Yellow T-shirt & 3 Pint Challenges, Scavenger Hunts, Tight 'N' Bright, Cops & Robbers, Beer Pong socials, Halloween, Christmas and many more. Non-drinking socials include bowling, film nights, game nights, meals, and charity matches with other sports and societies. Our society prides itself on our close relationships within the team, due to lots of tournaments needing us to travel all over the UK we all become great friends and spend time together outside of training and tournaments. We are a very friendly bunch of people with a wide variety of interests, if this sounds like a sport you’d like to try, or even just come along for the social aspect then we would love you to join Plymouth Univeristy Ultimate!
Events
For members interested in competing as part of Plymouth Ultimate, we run and take part in numerous competitive indoor and outdoor tournaments throughout the year. All beginners have an equal chance of competing in these tournaments and gaining a position on the first team, this is due to the fact that the majority of new members have never played the sport before.
Every year as a society we hold Plymouth Beginners Tournament (in 2018 this will be 13th-14th October). This involves all of our new members participating in a 2 day weekend of competitive indoor Ultimate Frisbee, in a tournament against other South West universities. This is seen as a “fun” tournament where the aim is to teach any new players how to play ultimate against other teams. This always involves a massive night out with Exeter, Bath, Swansea and Bristol Ultimate Frisbee teams.
We also enter competitive ultimate teams to university tournaments throughout the year. The majority of the club get the chance to play in these. Annually we enter 2 teams at Open and Mixed indoor regionals and 1 team at Womens indoor regionals. Regionals are held in the South West across the whole of the first term. We are always aiming to qualify for Indoor Nationals in each respective divison and are constantly knocking on the door.
In regard to outdoor tournamnets, our mens teams competes In BUCS every other wednesday ,untill around march,. We are very competitive in our division and always pushing to gain promotion. We also compete in the BUCS cup are are very often seen in the semi-finals and finals as were looking to qualify to play at the national tournament in April.
Outdoor for womens consists of comepeting in a 2 day weekend regional tournament in late winter, we are always close to getting that qualification spot for nationals.
Mixed outdoors takes places over a weekend and is a national tournament which we attend annually and are consistent finishers in the middle of the table. We often take a development squad as we look to train up the next batch of Ultimate Frisbee stars!
Asaswell as these competitive tournament we compete in "fun" tournaments all year round, which are held all over the south west and are great ways to get even more experience playing Ultimate.
Last year was triumphant for University of Plymouth Ultimate Frisbee!
At Men's Indoor Regionals, the boys came an unlucky 5th, losing out on a spot at nationals by a single point, but we'll be back this year with even more drive to qualify for nationals. Plymouth 2 came a very respectable 21st and played incredibly well considering most players were frisbee freshers! In Men's outdoors, the boys competed in many BUCS league games getting to the semifinal of the Cup and just losing out to Bath and missing out on qualification...again.
At Mixed Regionals held in Plymouth, the two teams we entered smashed up the South West playing some exciting games of Ultimate! Plymouth 1 came 1st going un-defeated for the weekend by beating Bath and gaining a spot at Division 1 nationals for the first time in 5 years, Plymouth 2 coming 14th giving it their all with it being most people 2nd ever frisbee tournament! At Mixed Outdoors Nationals, the team had a great weekend away in Manchester getting some good results despite the weather, courtesy of the beast from the East!
At Women's Indoor Regionals, Plymouth played some of the best frisbee of their lives on those pitches! The ladies gave it their all pulling an amazing 5th place out of the bag, beating top teams like Southampton, Exeter and Bristol.
We have had some great success over the past few years with PICNIC and we look to continue that through the support of the club's committee and engaging new and old members in the world of Ultimate Frisbee!
Links
Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/PICNICUltimate/
Twitter: @picnicultimate