What's wrong with the UPA and what should be done to better fulfill your needs?
Please review the findings for this topic before engaging in discussion.
Welcome to the official UPA Strategic Planning Blog Forum. Here you will find data from recent UPA surveys and questions regarding key strategic planning questions identified from those surveys. Please take a second to read the groundrules for contributing on these forums and we look forward to hearing from you!
8 comments:
I think the cost of dues prevents many new college teams from participating in Sectionals. If the majority of them aren't going to play during the club season, it's like a $500+ tournament entry fee.
Two more points I mentioned in more detail in the "competitive structure" thread. (1) Fix the eligibility rules so that more legitimate students are allowed to play. (2) Give better notice to members when making big decisions (rules implemented, uniform requirements). (3) Improve voting process for rules revisions. If I vote "yes," don't pretend like I approved of all the changes made. Better yet, let me vote on changes individually.
Addressing these concerns would make me a happier UPA member.
I have had a few items brought to my attention this year...
Being in the CPHUL (a high school league)and being a part of a team through our high school has been an awesome experience. However, seeing that we are a "club" sport means that we do not receive any funding whatsoever from our school. The fees that we have had to endure this season are outrageous. Since we qualified for states by winning our league, we're looking at $300 to play for only 2 days. Also, we need to have more money for a hotel for a night. This all comes after paying $200 dollars to join the CPHUL. We have been scrambling trying to organize fund raising events, but due to the limited time we have, it is difficult. We won our bid to states, and from that day we had 8 days to raise 300 dollars, plus 20 more from each person to join the UPA.
I would appreciate a little more consideration for everyone that wants to play. I think that the dues are incredibly high, but if nothing else, sufficient information in a timely manner would be nice.
Thank you,
Eric Helm
My only complaints about the UPA are that I can't submit my health waiver online.
There is, however, a service that the UPA is not providing that I think would be very valuable and promote more opportunities for individuals to play ultimate.
Currently, every pickup group and team that I play with (or have played with) uses Yahoo! Groups to distribute emails and announcements. If the UPA provided a service for allowing these types of groups to communicate with each other, it would not only provide a valuable service to players, it would also give the UPA a long list of email addresses for people interested in ultimate (and not necessarily members) and establish the UPA as the place to go to find where to play ultimate.
In general, my advice to the UPA is to reduce bureaucracy as much as possible & to always keep the players' best interests "top of mind". And, don't increase fees/costs for players unless there is an overwhelming necessity to do so. The game is elitist enough as it is....we should do everything possible to promote inclusiveness.
A few examples of bureaucracy forcing unnecessary expenses on players are:
(1) shorts screenprinted with numbers on the front for college & UPA championships.
(2) UPA membership requirements for high school tournaments like this one for YCC (which denied our local team an opportunity to participate & defend a championship): "Teams from UPA sanctioned non-high school based summer, winter, or fall club leagues receive first priority followed by teams from UPA sanctioned spring HS leagues. Teams not from a sanctioned league are also invited to apply and we will be happy to try to accommodate them if we can. The goal is to encourage cities and areas to host youth leagues and specifically leagues in a season outside of the current Spring HS season."
Ultimate is the sport of the future!
I think we need to think more towards that goal. All other sports are well-established, weighed down beaurocracies (spelling?) bent on getting money. Ultimate is everything that all other sports are not. It takes enthusiasts and makes them good athletes and good people.
And it is the only sport whose rules and future are decided by a network of thousands of PLAYERS and not a small group of board members thinking about money. Think about it: Ultimate is the MySpace of sports and it will explode in the next several years. It will be the most common family sport! And it will be started by a network of college kids who loved a sport and had a dream. And i think nothing else should be our goal.
"And it is the only sport whose rules and future are decided by a network of thousands of PLAYERS and not a small group of board members thinking about money."
You write this as if it is an either or situation.
A sport whose rules are decided by thousands of players is a sport dictated by the lowest common denominator.
In what other sport would a prepubescent, no talent, unathletic dweeb have as much say so as the most talented and knowledgeable players in the game?
The UPA lacks leadership and vision. The players that make up the board did not get there based on their expertise of the game and so they lack the authoritative basis to invoke any kind of meaningful reform.
Look at the threads on this forum.
There is nothing on this entire "Revolution" blog that has anything do do with reform.
Changing the name isn't reform. Adding refs isn't reform. Preserving and promoting SOTG isn't reform. UPA support of local and international play isn't reform.
Reform is taking a good hard look in the mirror and asking "why after 40 years does this sport not have any fan base?". "Why have so many Ultimate players quit in dissillusionment over the years"? "Why is the preface written the way that it is and does it hold true?" Reform is answering these and other questions and having the guts and the leadership to rewrite the rules substantially to make a better product, not for the would be fans but for the participants.
Henry Thorne speaks of inclusion so I've got a question for you Henry. Have you played Dischoops yet? I ask not in an attempt to promote Dischoops but in an attempt to get you to challenge the very foundation that you've built your assumptions on.
Why shouldn't a defender be allowed to touch the disc while it's in the thrower's hand? Are you sure you know the answer? How do you know? By assumption or empirically through experimentation? You, yourself mention how experimentation is an important element in the culture but where has this experimentation taken place?
I could ask this same line of questioning for just about all of the rules in Dischoops vs. Ultimate. The UPA, according to their by-laws, is supposed to act in the best interest of Ultimate. My assertion is that the rules for Ultimate are arbitrary and irrational. Dischoops provides a testbed for peer review to happen to either backup or refute this claim. For you to assert that Ulimate players are inclusive while not legitimately excercising proper peer review is quite disingenuous and NOT in the best interest of Ultimate.
The fact of the matter is that the rules for Ultimate are built on a house of cards. The truth is that limiting the number of fouls by a player in a self officiated game is impractical so it was left out entirely. There are so many other examples of rules that wouldn't work without refs so rather than go with refs, the rules were compromised. Revolution without reform is not revolution at all but I have to admit, those are some pretty sweet uniforms you have the players wearing.
Revolution comes from outside the bell curve, not the middle.
Frank
Dischoops
Frank, the concept that a "prepubescent, no talent, unathletic dweeb" has the same voice as a skilled veteran is pretty close to another irrational and idealistic concept that we happen to subscribe to in America. Sure, democracy doesn't always make sense, and it often appeals to the lowest common demoninator, but we happen to like it in this country, and Ultimate happened to have been created here, so it is not surprise you see some overlap.
Authority does not come from skill in the game, it comes from the support of the players who elect you. We elected those leaders, so I'm pretty sure we want them to guide us through our sport's growth. I argue that the UPA indeed has demonstrated leadership and vision by initiating this process of looking at what our values and assumptions are, challenging them and trying to figure out what paths are best to take. I don't know what more you could ask for.
You say that the rules have to be rewritten. You're talking about creating a new sport, which is fine--it's something you have done. But I play Ultimate, and I like most of the rules that govern the game, and those rules that I disagree with will hopefully be edited in future revisions of the rules.
I don't know why players have "quit in disillusionment" but I would bet that a lot of people who played other sports have also quit. In fact, I believe many people have quit other sports (soccer, lacrosse, tennis, basketball, etc) and now play Ultimate. We have a fan base, even if it is small and largely comprised of players and their families.
Why not allow a defender to touch the disc? Because the sport is non-contact. But if you want a non-arbitrary reason, if I slap the disc, it could get warped--something detrimental to general play. If a defender was allowed to grab the disc from the thrower's hands, you wouldn't be able to play the game--it would turn into stationary rugby, which I am not interested in playing. Yes, I have experimented with jostling the thrower and knocking the disc as a marker, knowing that I am committing a foul. I do not think that it should be generally accepted as part of the game--I have no linemen to protect me from defenders, and there is no way to dribble a disc. Throwing the disc to yourself is not dribbling, nor is it something I would like to see included in Ultimate.
The rules of any sport are arbitrary. Why does a tennis player have to stand on a particular side of a line in order to serve? Why are they allowed one let, but not two? You try to sound intelligent when you argue, but some of your arguments are worthless. "Proper peer revue" is not feasible with a sport that has a player base as large as Ultimate. Perhaps it works with dischoops, where so few people play that they can all get together and talk about the rules after each game. Ultimate has grown beyond that point, and we have established a set of rules that most people can agree to play by (aside from some "cheating" on the mark and travelling when throwing). Now, we have committees to revise the rules.
Asking why the preface is written the way it is, that's a fair question. Some of the other forums address the question of a fan base. Our "revolution" is called that because it's a catchy name we can respond to, it doesn't mean we are looking to revovlutionalize the way we play.
Again, another stale thread but I will respond.
You do not like Ultimate the way it is and let me tell you why I say that. You haven't played against me. This isn't a rant or anger, it's just the truth. You only like Ultimate as long as you're playing against others who are like minded.
I can assure you that neither of us would enjoy a game between us. This has been my experience with countless players, teams, regions, etc. Democracy in the formation and governance of a sport is
misguided.
Instead of dishing out some off the cuff response about the rationality of the rules in Ultimate, why don't you just try playing Dischoops and find out for yourself whether all that you hold true for Ultimate actually bears out.
Dischoops is WAY less contact than Ultimate but I don't go around callling it a non-contact sport. It's ludicrous to call UItimate non-contact. It is the biggest lie being perpetrated by the UPA in a whole set of lies.
Post a Comment