Carcassonne Central

Hi everybody,
I'm fairly new to playing Carcassonne but I'm already hooked on it. I'm a member of a board games club at my University and we try to organise a few events every year.
I already have experience in organising events. In fact I'm a member of the Speedcubing community (guys that solve Rubik's cubes fast), and have already organised two official Rubik's Cube Opens (and will be organising another one next March). These competitions are officially recognised by the World Cube Association (WCA) and all results are recognised and constitute the official world rankings. A delegate of the WCA comes to the competition to make sure everything is up to standard and rules are respected to make it official. The whole community is extremely well organised and competition organising is fairly striaghtforward

So, I was wondering how it works with the Carcassonne community? Who organises tournaments? Can anyone organise a tournament? Can they be made official? Is there an official body?

I believe we have the means to organise a tournament, although I have no idea about how an actual Carcassonne tournament takes place. How are teams made? What rules/extensions are used? What are the time limits?
There are a few other game board clubs around where I live and there are a couple of gaming shops with whom we are close links and would help us in making the right contacts and getting enough coverage at a local scale.
The idea isn't to organise the next World Championships but it would be nice to have a local tournament run in conditions which could make it officially recognised.

I would be very grateful for any comments, advice or guidance

Check out the last post in the following thread:
http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=630.0 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=630.0)

It doesn't answer all your questions, but it's a start.

Thank you Scott for that. The Swiss tournament format seems the way forward.