I note that the Royal Club's rulebook for the new season is already online and available for download as a PDF file from the website here.There are no changes to the Rules of the Game. Such would require membership approval at the AGM. However there are some significant changes to the Rules and Conditions for Royal Club Competitions. These do not need approval at the AGM.
Changes to the way that the Junior Club Challenge will be run have already been set out, see here.
However, the changes put in place for next season's European Qualifying Competition may perhaps raise some eyebrows. Last season the regulations stated that the top three teams from the previous season’s Scottish Championships be invited to play in these Euro Playoffs. The National Coach, along with an RCCC Committee, could select a fourth team if they felt it would be beneficial to do so. The qualified teams must have at least three members from the previous season’s Scottish Championship team to be eligible to play.
None of the teams which finished in the top three of the Bruadar Scottish fulfill these regulations, although the top women's teams seem to be OK. What might have happened then is that a men's team would simply have been selected to represent Scotland in Champery in December. That would not have gone down well with the country's competitive curlers.
To see how the Events and Competitions Committee has got round this problem, I have extracted the following from the new rulebook.
SECTION 3 & 4—THE SCOTTISH MEN’S AND LADIES’ EUROPEAN PLAYDOWNS
(a) (i) If a European Playdown is required then the top three teams from the previous season’s Scottish Championships shall be invited to play in the these European Playdowns (if four teams are tied at the top of the round robin stage of the previous season’s Scottish Championships then all four teams shall be invited).
(ii) To be eligible to participate in the European Playdowns a qualified team must have the fourth player and two others players from the previous season’s team which entered the Scottish Championships (excluding any substitute(s) who shall not count towards the eligibility criteria).
(iii) If less than four teams qualify as of right then the National Coach, along with an RCCC Sub Committee for the competition, may select one or more teams to participate in the Play Downs. The number of qualified teams plus selected team will not exceed four.
(iv) Any teams playing in the European Play Downs must also enter the Scottish Championships with the same line-up.
(v) Teams playing in the European Play Downs for the Men will receive a bye to the Scottish Qualifiers.
The main changes are in (iii) which allow now for one or more teams to be selected to play. Colin Hamilton, the RCCC's Manager of Competitions has confirmed that invitations have gone out to more than one team, without giving details. Murdoch's new team is one, to infer from the info in this recent post.
So it is likely there will be a men's Euro Qualifying event. That's scheduled for October 29-31, dates which clash with the first round of the prequalifying competition for the Scottish Championship.
Now, here's a problem. The regulations say that the top eight teams from the previous season’s Scottish Finals shall gain automatic qualification to the Scottish Qualifiers. The qualified teams must have three players from the previous season’s team. If you have a new team then you must enter the prequalifying competition.
However, look at (iv) and (v) above. The teams invited to play in the Euro Playoff, even though they are ineligible to get the bye to the Scottish Qualifiers by right as they are new teams, nevertheless avoid the prequalifiers. Is this right? Fairness to all suggests it is NOT. There should not be one rule for some and a different regulation for others. One would perhaps expect the country's top players to easily cope with the prequalifiers, even in new lineups, but that is an assumption which should be tested on the ice, in my opinion.
