The purpose of this thread is to list, for reference by future organizers, best practices in the preparation of BUDA. Let's do this now while memories are fresh.
What is a "best practice"? It is NOT personal preference or an untried idea. There is room for those but not on this thread.
This is for practices that have been tried, tested and found to be true.
A few to start:
1. Ideal date: first day of comp the day after the US Open final round. This allows for a prime time get together the night before - sometimes even the first night, too. Other benefits to this June date are: long days, few family holidays, pre-tourist peak (bad but not yet horrible), easier to get pass from warden owing to Father's Day proximity. 2009 US Open concludes 21 June, FYI.
2. Choose a hotel that A, we can "own," and B, has a good bar. Pub culture is a vital part of UK, so this makes BUDA's belly glow. Good to have our own communal spot.
3. As with practice 2 above, it is far better to choose courses where we will be treated with importance than to choose important courses. In practice, this means Rota courses probably get one day (or none) of the comp - the UK has such a deep bench of excellent courses this should go unsaid - added benefit is it weeds out anyone keener on ticking a course off a list than in joining fellow defectives. That might even qualify as an automatic sending off for failure to demonstrate wing nuttery, whether or not dipped in chocolate.
4. A speaker of some authority adds a lot not just to the dinner but to the event.
5. Formal dinner must be on Monday. Raggedness / knackeredness sets in after that.
6. Competition rules should be adopted if they serve to engineer a fantastic finish, discarded if they serve the opposite purpose.
7. Pairings should serve first the opportunity for people to play with and against as many as possible. But personal preferences should be honored by captains, particularly where satisfaction is sought for a past crushing!
What else?