The John Bones World Series started off in 2000 as a mission statement: to meet as many people from around the world as possible, from an online context to an offline concept of the meetup/gathering.

The ground rules were extended: the first mode of communication had to be ELECTRONIC: That not only meant the internet, but mobile phone too. 

In 2000, a meetup had to qualify as a JBWS Meetup if a) the person we were meeting in Sydney resided outside of the Sydney metropolitan area or b) if the meetup took place outside of the Sydney Metropolitan Area.

July 2001 saw the first major rule change to this.  A home meetup could only qualify as part of the JBWS if they were outside the network serviced by the Cityrail Electric Network (bounded by Newcastle in the north, Lithgow to the West, Campbelltown to the South West and Dapto to the south) however an away meetup still could take place outside the Sydney Metropolitan Area.

Now, in July 2003 sees yet another rule change.
The restrictions are now that for any meetup, the home leg must take place with the visitor OUTSIDE the area serviced by Cityrail (which means way past Scone and Dungog to the North, Lithgow to the West, Goulburn to the South West and Nowra to the South), and an Away leg must take place OUTSIDE the area serviced by Cityrail as defined.

There are three main reasons for this.
1) We need to accept that the boundaries of Sydney are growing-areas such as the Central Coast, Blue Mountains are generally considered to be parts of Sydney
2) We need to keep the JBWS prestigious-the JBWS has seen some fine moments in history-namely LOCK UP YER DAUGHTERS and NORTHERN EXPOSURE, not to mention other splendid moments such as NATIONAL PORNOGRAPHIC-we think u get the picture!
3) It allows us to keep our main goal-meeting people all over the world.

In conclusion:
I know this sounds like gibberish to you-but hey-it's a challenge we have set for ourselves.  We don't think we should limit ourselves to the outer bounds of Sydney.  We want to take this interstate, and eventually the world.  Call us ambitious...but I think it is fair to say that we need to abandon being Sydney-centric about things. 

It's not about Sydney

It's about the People.

Sometimes, it's about all the small towns and the far away places they come from.

Sometimes, It's about getting your friends together and making an effort to get there-the interstate away trips have featured either the Road Trip or the Train Trip-that is the kind of effort we are talking about.

So far, we've had visitors from Canada, Victoria and Queensland to say the least.  A strong point is that the John Bones World Series has been to all the big places: Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra-we have seen it all! That is not forgetting the far fetched places such as Kerang, Wagga Wagga and Toowoomba, to say the least.  Instead of having expectations of when people would come and see us, we threw them out the window-the question changed to, "When would they expect us, on their doorstep???"

It abandons the myth of Sydney-centricism and deconstructs the question of, "So when are you coming to Sydney?": When are the people of Sydney coming to you????
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