2004 Board of Directors Candidate Statements
In October the members of the UPA will elect four new members to the board of directors. The board comprises six regional representatives (one elected by each UPA club region) and six at-large representatives (elected by the membership as a whole). This year, the board will need one new member each from the Northeast and Northwest, as well as two At-Large members. These positions will be voted on by the membership in the fall election (October 1-31).
Following are the candidate statements...
Since 1996 I have been involved in the ultimate community as a player, captain, coach, organizer, and teammate. Over time my involvement has included the college and club series, leagues, and perennial favorite coed tournaments. After receiving some serious body pain from a demanding sport, I am looking for another way to contribute. I want to be a UPA board member so I can influence the sport in a way that is more long-term and sustainable than my career as a player.
The important issues I will focus on as a UPA board member are:
Representation of the female ultimate community: Across the board - from league play to the Fall Series - we need to reach out to recruit more women into the sport. Only 3 of the 12 current UPA Board members are women. Coed teams struggle to meet the gender quota for lack of women. Tournaments consistently host 12 women's teams and 16 men's teams. There are only 300 college women's teams compared to 500 for the men. We need more women! By involving more women from the beginning (i.e. the youth development level) we could foster relationships between women and girls in ultimate and develop female role models for young ultimate players to admire. Clinics and development camps need to cater to female players and engage female coaches. There should be more female-only leagues. Bottom-line: we need to make a concerted effort to increase awareness of women's ultimate.
Expansion of the national ultimate community: The ultimate community is growing rapidly and in several directions at once. As a club player I would love to see more competitive teams across the country, especially in underrepresented regions. But such an expansion relies on the expansion of the youth, college, and league levels. My ideas for UPA support on the college level include: providing scholarships to fledgling programs, recruiting club players to visit area colleges to present skills workshops and provide mentorship to new programs. On a league level: provide new leagues with starter packets, which provide strategies for procuring fields, advertising and sponsorship ideas, and sample league formats. Success stories abound of strong college programs, well-attended leagues, and intense youth development programs. I want to see that success spread. As an at-large UPA Board member I would dedicate myself to the creation of a unified UPA outreach strategy that strengthens and builds on the UPA's current programs.
Currently, I am a full-time graduate student and a part-time consultant for an international nonprofit organization. In my working role, I leverage funds from federal agencies and non-governmental organizations, manage project budgets, and interface with the organization's Executive Director and governing Board of Directors to accomplish organizational objectives. I also have corporate and nonprofit marketing experience, long-term strategic planning skill, and financial management experience with budget allocation, justification, and balancing. As a UPA Board member, I anticipate successfully combining my knowledge of ultimate and its unique community with my applicable professional skills in the nonprofit sector.
Thank you for your support.
My involvement with ultimate began with juniors coach and former UPA board representative Ed Fox. Since then, I've been involved with open programs at the Universities of North Carolina and Michigan, where my roles have varied from player to captain to tournament director to assistant coach. I play the fall series with Michigan-based BAT. I have had the good fortune to participate in both college and club nationals<85>all while the Charlotte Summer League trophy eludes me.
Strategically, I'm focused on the development of juniors and college ultimate. I began an ultimate club at Myers Park High in Charlotte, which has produced players on no less than seven different college campuses, including eight graduates on UNC's roster at 2000 College Nationals. Development at the juniors level, I believe, is the key to sustaining and improving ultimate at all subsequent levels. With a strong series foundation for middle and high school players, growth possibilities are virtually limitless. I support the Callahan/X-Rules because I support a fast-paced game, and founded the Queen City Tune-Up in Charlotte with the goal of providing another Callahan-officiated tournament for college teams. I believe juniors and college ultimate is marketable, and, as your board representative, would encourage the UPA to make decisions that increase the game's exposure to a larger audience. That exposure, in my mind, is the starting point for greater membership and better funding. I support all efforts to make UPA materials and documentation electronically accessible, and encourage the adoption of online roster registration/verification.
I am currently pursuing a J.D. and M.S. in information economics at the University of Michigan. At North Carolina I received a B.S. in Business Administration and a B.A. in Journalism, both of which allowed me to study the public relations efforts and organizational structures of non-profit organizations and sport-specific companies (Eurosport, Great American Lacrosse Company) alike. I've studied the dynamics of boards of directors via law school seminar, and believe that I will bring a knowledgeable and enthusiastic perspective to the boardroom. I look forward to serving the UPA.
DON'T VOTE for Kevin Draeger without thoroughly understanding the following: Hello, I'm Kevin Draeger and I approve this message. Just when you thought you were done hearing all the campaign messages I'm here to ramble on about why you should vote Kevin Draeger for an at-large UPA board member, I'll try to keep it short.
I've been playing ultimate for the better part of a decade and like most of you wake up every day to a room covered with discs. I've been the Lake Superior Sectional Coordinator for the past three years and am looking forward to a fourth. I was president and treasurer of UW-Whitewater's team before transferring to UW-Milwaukee to found a team there. Nope, never been to nationals, but enjoyed every small indulgence of starting a team, from pudding wrestling fundraisers to large budget proposals for the school.
I understand how difficult it is and what kind of dedication it takes to start a team. If elected to the board I hope to get the UPA more involved with such processes by opening the lines of communication between the players themselves, the school and the UPA. This would eventually spawn new college and junior teams.
Well, it's safe to say that if you have made it this far, you clearly have looked at everything else in this newsletter and had nothing better to do today, so why not go and vote Kevin Draeger as an at-large UPA board member.
Thanks so much, your friend and ally
-Kevin Michael Draeger
When Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1988, he was criticized for lacking detailed plans to address the nation's problems. Jackson replied, "I am a tree shaker, not a jelly maker." Jesse Jackson was a big idea guy - a visionary, and he was implying that he would surround himself with people who could do the hard work of turning his vision into a working reality.
Well, in the ultimate community, as well as in my professional life, I like to think of myself as a jelly maker. What I feel I'm best at is understanding the details and pinpointing the inefficiencies of the visions and goals of our community. I sincerely enjoy finding ways to make them work, and make them work well. This is what I've tried to do in the dozen years I have been an active member of the Pittsburgh Ultimate community. For instance, as the Mars tournament director for the past eight years, I've overseen the reemergence of this once-defunct Pittsburgh tradition into a three-day, 36-team Fourth of July festival. There are a lot of unique things about Mars, from the scramble format to the karaoke and boat-races at
the party, and I'm proud of the role I've played in harnessing the ideas and energy of the many creative players we're lucky to have here in Pittsburgh. I've tried to play a similar role as the vice-president of the Community for Pittsburgh Ultimate (CPU) Board of Directors. When our growing summer league went to a draft format, our first draft took over 8 hours to complete. For the next year, I worked with the commissioners to design a computer program to make the process run more smoothly, and much more quickly. I've also serve as fields coordinator for our city, working on the sometimes thorny task of scheduling over 500 recreational players, 4 leagues and multiple club teams. Our community has grown from 8 to 24 summer league teams in the time I've been here, and I'm pleased to be a small part of that, and of the exciting growth we're having in many areas of Pittsburgh disc.
My role on the CPU Board reflects my philosophy of what a board like ours, or the UPA's, should do. I don't believe that great ideas should always, or even often, come from a select few. As an architecture student at Carnegie Mellon, and now working as a medical imaging software developer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, I've known many creative people. But no group I've known is as visionary and energetic as the UPA membership. If I'm elected to the board, I will work hard to understand the visions of my colleagues and fellow players and work with them to turn those visions into concrete realities that will benefit our community and our sport.
I started playing the game back in 1993 on Margaret Island in Budapest, Hungary. That spring, before returning to the USA, I traveled to more than a dozen tournaments. I loved seeing the same people weekend after weekend, because it is they who make the sport so magnificent. Since my first tournament on New Years Eve in Vienna, Austria, I have played at all levels of the sport from the first coed nationals to running local hat tournaments, organizing pickup to playing with some of the best players in the game on NoTsuOh at Paganello this year. I have thrived the past ten years eating, dreaming, and breathing Ultimate. People at the Warren Wilson College community know me as "the Ultimate Brett".
In 2002, I sparked the development of a strong outreach program in Asheville, creating a middle school league that has grown to 6 teams in two seasons. Last year I started working with high school players in their skills and strategy. Coaching and spreading the game is where my attention goes and this is why I want to be involved with the UPA as a board member. By serving on the UPA board of directors, I am confident that I will make significant contributions to cultivating strong bonds as Ultimate experiences a major growth spurt.
I have been a board member and outreach committee chairman of the Asheville Ultimate Club since 2000. In 2000, I started the Warren Wilson College Ultimate Club and in 2001 started the GreenMan open-division traveling team in Asheville, North Carolina. This year, GreenMan has its sites set for taking 3rd at Sectional Championships and continuing to turn heads at Regional Championships. I am honored that I have been invited to return to my alma mater, Warren Wilson College, to coach the team this year.
I'm currently completing my first term on the board, serving on the Executive Committee for all three years and as Treasurer for the past two. Over the past three years I have been instrumental in many positive developments within the UPA, most notably the development of our youth program and our commitment to increasing our communication with local leagues to name just a few. At my first annual meeting, I helped spearhead the allocation of funds to hire a full time youth director and provide significant funding to develop the youth program to what it is today. During this period our youth membership has more than doubled every year. Recently, I presented a proposal to create a National League Conference taking place this November (I am the chair of its steering committee) that will provide a forum for local organizers and the UPA to share ideas in order to improve the quantity and quality of ultimate and accelerate its growth.
If elected, I will continue to develop strong mutually beneficial relationships with the local leagues throughout the country. I will pursue additional emphasis on the college community by way of developing intramural programs and improving support to college teams. I'm an advocate of improving sectional and regional tournament experiences for our club players since most do not get to experience the quality of Nationals. In addition, we must continue to improve our technological infrastructure in order to better support our current membership base and the tremendous growth that we are and will continue to experience in the coming years. Our members deserve the infrastructure to easily renew their membership, register their team for UPA series and sanctioned events, and receive quality communication and timely information from our organization. I will continue to be an advocate for these and many other initiatives. I have, and will continue to be, been a strong proponent of investing a portion of our reserves into new programs and initiatives that have the potential to grow the organization and the sport as a whole.
I've been playing ultimate for fifteen years. I've played college and club ultimate along with playing, organizing, and coaching local ultimate in the greater Boston area. I'm an organizer for BUDA, a local ultimate organization in Boston with over 3,000 players. For much of the past nine years I have been their administrator, running day-to-day operations on a volunteer basis. I am also the coach of the Andover High School boys and girls teams. I am the tournament director for sanctioned events like the Boston Invitational/Easterns, Mixed/Masters Easterns, and Northeast Regionals. I was the tournament director of the 2001 UPA College Nationals and have provided my assistance at almost all of our Nationals events the past three years.
s administrator for a local non-profit ultimate organization, I know firsthand of many of the issues affecting the local recreational player. I feel like I can offer an important viewpoint to the board and the UPA. I am more than able to represent all the players (club, college, youth, and recreational) as I have experience and relationships with all these segments of ultimate. I am always willing to receive input, good and bad, and take great care to understand the concerns of all ultimate players. In the end, I am your advocate and voice and will do my utmost to represent you. Finally, as you would expect of all interested candidates, I bring a very strong passion and drive to all that I am involved with and this has and will continue to be no exception.
I would like to continue on the UPA Board of Directors as an At-Large member for another term. As the father of an Ultimate player, I have attended over 250 college and club games including every club nationals and club worlds since 1997. I maintain an Ultimate
founders website (
www.santabarbaraultimate .com/founders), a
parents website (
www.sant abarbaraultimate.com/parents) and the Santa Barbara Ultimate website. I also co-founded the S.F. Bay Area Youth Ultimate league (
www.seidler.com/bayu). I love the sport and respect its athletes. Professionally I ran marketing departments in high-tech companies for 20 years, and the past 10 years I have been performing marketing consulting for software and eCommerce companies (
www.seidlerconsulting.com).
During my past 3 years on the Board I was a major contributor to the search for our new Executive Director, filled in as acting Treasurer, was on the Executive Committee for 2 years, and I am the chair of this year's 25th Anniversary Taskforce that has spawned efforts for a 25th anniversary reunion and an Ultimate Hall of Fame.
A few initiatives will be on my agenda. I have been a strong advocate for technical website staff because I believe the UPA website can and should be a strategic tool to attract and serve its members. We are making progress, but I think we have a long way to go. Secondly, the UPA needs to put a higher priority on alumni (ex-members). UPA alumni can offer great benefits to the organization including becoming observers, board members, financial contributors and coaches; and many more coaches will be required to continue the growth and stability of the youth division.
The UPA membership is now close to 20,000 and the annual budget is almost $1M. As we get larger, it becomes more difficult for Board members to stay in touch with the membership and be adequately trained to fulfill their growing duties. IMO being an avid player of the sport is no longer enough to be an ideal Board member as we require experience in long range planning, policy making, technology and finance, and the appropriate time commitment. I started the Board Development Program to begin improving the Board's performance, and I proposed an annual online questionnaire to solicit the members' evaluation of UPA services. My polling proposal was not approved, but I will continue to push for it.
And the most important task I will support is for the Board to begin the process of setting a direction for the organization. We need a long-term vision of what we want to look like in 5-10 years and a strategy to get there. An example that came up at a recent board meeting was about a Division II to allow non-elite teams a better competitive experience.
I am prepared to work on the UPA Board for another term if you want me. I encourage the membership to read the candidate statements and vote in this election.
Thank you,
Joe Seidler
I started playing Ultimate in the co-ed league in Boulder 12 years ago and I was hooked. My passion for both playing the game and volunteering has steadily increased over the years. I currently play on Seattle Riot, co-ed leagues, and I served on the board of DiscNW, the local organizing non-profit, for 5 years. This past year, I was also the main organizer for the 9th Annual Women's Clinic in Seattle.
In my professional life, I've worked in non-profit organizations for the past 10 years and have a Masters in Public Affairs with a focus on non-profit management. My skills include non-profit fundraising, budgeting, board-staff relations, and advocacy. I believe that having a solid, professional non-profit organization is the only way we can promote the sport of Ultimate and support the growing diversity within our community of members.
I have seen the changes in Ultimate in the Northwest over the years with the amazing growth of the Juniors program, new leagues and tournaments in response to demand, Potlatch becoming highly competitive and a great time for players of all levels, battling the city council for more and better access to fields, and I've seen the changes on the field when one generation is replaced by the next. These changes are happening in cities throughout the nation and the UPA will need to become better equipped to respond to similar changes, support local organizations, and grow its membership in order to fulfill its mission.
I believe that Ultimate deserves more recognition as a sport. This could come about through corporate sponsorship, getting amateur sports status with the US Olympic Committee, or getting Ultimate on TV. But, I believe that increasing the number of people playing at all levels will have a longer lasting effect and will increase the likelihood of getting sponsorship, funding, and coverage. So the bigger challenge for the UPA is to create an organization that new players want to join, and one that can respond to a much larger number of members, while maintaining a shared vision and mission.
Vote for me and I'll work to represent you and your ideas.
I have been a UPA member for most of the last ten years and started playing through the intramural program at UC Berkeley in 1991. I recently moved to Seattle and am getting involved in the affairs of DiscNW, but I have spent most of my time playing and organizing in what many people would consider the "backwaters" of the ultimate world: Burlington, Vermont and Corvallis, Oregon.
When I began playing regularly in Vermont I was just one of those people that started showing up at weekly pickup. However, my involvement in the organizational aspects grew quickly. Whether it was pulling together people to travel to tournaments or assisting in efforts to establish a summer league, a not-for-profit organization, and the Ho-Lay Cow tournament I got involved and helped out wherever it was needed. While in Vermont I also cut my teeth working with youth ultimate by helping students organize a team at the high school I taught at and taking them wherever they needed to go to get games including two very memorable trips to the Amherst Invitational.
After moving to Corvallis in 2000 I became involved in running the summer league. My primary responsibility as the contact person with the parks department gave me valuable insight into the politics of field procurement. I also began a very rewarding and successful effort to promote the development of youth ultimate in western Oregon. Using money from the UPA's Innovation Grants Program I spearheaded the development of a Corvallis youth league and a high school tournament. From those small first steps the number of teams in the state has grown to over a dozen, two annual youth tournaments are now firmly established, and we ran the 2004 UPA High School Championship Tournament in Corvallis.
While my experiences with youth ultimate and my desire to be closely involved in the UPA's actions in this area are my primary motivation to be part of the UPA board, I also believe that the experiences I've had at many other levels would allow me to serve the multitude of interests represented in the entire UPA membership.
UPA Members,
Since my sophomore year in high school, now a distant memory, ultimate has been one of the most important elements of my life. I have received much from Ultimate and have sought to give back to it. Serving on the UPA Board of Directors will allow me to do just that.
I have played ultimate for the Overlake School outside of Seattle and then for the University of Washington. I currently play for Seattle Sockeye. I have run Potlatch since 2000. During my tenure, I have grown the tournament from 75 to 100 teams, built positive relationships with vendors and venues, increased the event to three days, and made it more fiscally sound while maintaining the grassroots spirit of Potlatch for its participants.
I served on the Board of Directors for the Northwest Ultimate Association from 1999 to 2003 and am the All-tournaments Coordinator, directing or coordinating seven to twelve events annually.
I am interested in sponsorship, youth/outreach programs, the college division, and defining the club division for possible sponsorship opportunities. I would like to contribute to the rules as they change with and for the sport and to tournament formatting manuals for new tournament directors and local organizations.
Thank you for your support.
Ryan Seguine.
BACKGROUND
I have been a player since 1982, where I started with the Corvallis Slugs in Oregon. I was the UPA Northwest Sectional Coordinator of the Western Region during the late 80's, and ran numerous tournaments, the most ambitious of which was the 1986 Western Open Regionals. In 1986 I helped found the Corvallis Ultimate Summer League, now in its 18th year with 24 teams from an area of 50,000 population. I have coached High School Ultimate for three years including two State Championship Teams. In 2004 I was the field and scorekeeper czar for the UPA High School Championships in Corvallis, and will fill a similar role in the 2005 UPA Collegiate Championships, also in Corvallis. I have raised four sons who are players in League, High School, and Collegiate Teams.
QUALIFICATIONS
I have great respect and love for Ultimate. I value the non-contact, highly athletic play, that when crowned with the Spirit of the Game, make Ultimate uniquely admirable among team sports. I have been active in local government and disc sports and developed good organizational and communication skills. I am willing to spend the time it takes to do a good job as a UPA Board Member.
GOALS
At this point in my ultimate career I am primarily interested in league play and youth ultimate. I feel these are the foundation that will allow Ultimate to continue to grow and gain acceptance. I feel Ultimate should work toward full acceptance by the communities and spectators it hopes to attract, and through this continue toward worldwide growth. I will work to keep ultimate and the UPA on track to improve the sport and the organization. I will listen to the membership and help the UPA respond to their insights.
SUMMARY
I will work for the benefit of this sport we all love. Ultimate is ready for worldwide growth because of the simplicity and the values it embodies. I would like this opportunity to work for you, and for the benefit of Ultimate.
A relative latecomer to the sport, I squandered an opportunity to play collegiate ultimate while in school at MIT. Ultimate has been my life outside of medical school, as I travelled to pickup games and tournaments across the Northeast. The team-building, leadership, and spirit of the game in our sport has also translated very well to my activities as a medical student activist.
My greatest strength lies in organizing games and tournaments, most notably as Metro NY Open Sectionals coordinator in 2001 and 2002 and tournament director for Purchase Cup 2002. Merely two weeks after the events of 9/11, I was privileged to help bring our local ultimate community back together as tourney director for club sections. That fall, I also volunteered at UPA Nationals in Sarasota.
Locally, I have participated in our Westchester Summer League for the past seven years. As their spring league coordinator this year, I brought three expansion teams into that league. In my first year of leading the Einstein medical school "Spin Doctors," we qualified for co-ed club regionals in Devens, Massachusetts. Last year, I encouraged the formation of the Fordham University woman's ultimate team, which qualified for college regionals in its very first year.
If elected to the UPA Board, I will bring my focus on outreach and building grassroots ultimate to the national scene, to help others discover ultimte frisbee as early as possible. Please don't hesitate to contact me at <ahsu@aecom.yu.edu> with any questions you may have. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to working with you all!
When I first began playing, ultimate was a way of keeping in shape and meeting some new people. Today it is more like a way of life. The sport has never ceased to captivate me, be it through the hard work and dedication necessary to achieve a high level of play, the endless fascination with thinking up new strategies, or the reward of passing the joy of the sport on to others.
I have been playing ultimate for 8 seasons. I started playing ultimate at Brown University where I played four years of college ultimate. Since then I have played women's club for three different teams (including my current team, Lady Godiva), as well as for a coed ultimate team abroad and at club worlds. However, my commitment to the sport extends beyond playing. I currently coach the Brandeis college women's team. I have been an observer at the last two college national championships, and was selected to observe the women's finals last year in Seattle. This year I ran the women's division of the Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance's Learning League.
I have experienced the game of ultimate from many angles: as a member of a high-level women's club team, a college player, a coed player, a coach, an observer and an organizer. If elected to the UPA board, I plan to bring not only a love of the sport, but a dedication to improving the way the sport is played by becoming an active member of the rules committee. Although great strides have been made recently in clarifying and improving the rules of the game, certain areas are still open to interpretation, which sometimes leads to conflict on the field. I also hope to help the sport evolve while working to balance the role of observers with personal accountability and spirit of the game. Finally, I would like to help raise the profile of ultimate as a respected sport, while maintaining those aspects of the game that make it unique.
I believe that my love for the game, my experience and my current involvement with high level women<92>s ultimate, as well as the success I have enjoyed in my roles as player, leader, coach and volunteer, make me well qualified for a position on the UPA board.
Thank you for your support.
Peri Kurshan
I have been involved with Ultimate, as a player and administrator, for much of the last thirty years. In this 25th anniversary year of the founding of the UPA, I ask for your support to be elected to the board of the UPA. My perspective includes a personal understanding of Ultimate played at the grass roots and at the highest levels of national and international competition. The key issues being discussed today by the UPA -- media, sponsorship, referees, growth, and spirit of the game -- are the same issues we were grappling with fifteen years ago. I have significant business expertise and acumen, and had previously applied it in transforming the UPA into a more business-like and player-oriented organization in the late 1980s. My objective is to ensure that the UPA as an organization continues to be responsive to the needs of the players at each level of competitive strata, preserving those things which have always made Ultimate <93>special,<94> while responding to the demands of today<92>s generation of players for the changes needed to keep the sport vibrant.
I began playing Ultimate in the mid-1970s as a co-founder of WUFO, the Williams College club team. In the 1980s and early 1990s, I played with Windy City, Rude Boys, Kaboom!, and New York, winning four UPA open division championships and four World Championships. In the early 1990s, I played with teams that won the first two UPA Masters
Division Championships and the 1994 Worlds Masters Division Championship as Team USA. I had played in 23 of the first 25 April Fool's Frisbee Fests in Washington DC, and won for the fourth time playing with WesWill in 2002.
I was elected head of the UPA in 1987, at which point it was the same loose, volunteer organization that had been established at its genesis. On the organizational side, we drafted new bylaws, reinstated our corporate and not-for-profit status, set up an office with an 800 number, and got a field liability insurance policy in place for tournament directors. We changed the corporate organization chart, setting up corporate officers and a separate board of Directors. On the play side, we came up with the Ninth Edition of the rules, improved the National Championship Tournament Series, set up the first discipline policy and the Certified Observers Pool, developed the approved disc program, and supported the development of the Juniors programs and local leagues. After resigning as Executive Director at the end of 1990, I was on the UPA board as Chair of the Executive Committee for two years and helped Neal Dambra and Cindy Fisher get the first headquarters established. I was President of the World Flying Disc Federation from 1992 to 1994, focusing on many of the same organizational and financial issues, in addition to preparing the successful applications for GAISF and the World Games, and remain involved as President Emeritus. I continue to be involved with Ultimate, recently working with Nick Jr. Magazine this August to put together a <93>how-to<94> piece for disc sports, getting an Olympics feature story in the Wall Street Journal, and co-chairing the alumni reunion committee for the 25th anniversary.
I have been working in finance for 24 years, and am currently Director of Research for a hedge fund specializing in emerging markets securities. I met my wife Katie playing at the first World Club Championship in Germany in 1999 and still enjoy playing an occasional Sunday morning pickup game in my hometown of Chappaqua, NY or throwing a disc with my three kids. I love the sport of Ultimate and want to continue to make it great.
Why become a board member? Becoming a board member is a great way to ‘give back’ to our fantastic sport. The board is ultimately responsible for ens uring that the organization achieves its
mission. Joining the board is the best way to ensure that areas of Ultimate you are passionate about (e.g., city leagues, or collegiate women’s Ultimate) are represented when important decisions are made. We also have a fun time doing it!
What type of commitment are we talking about here?
You will be responsible for attending two in-person weekend meetings per year – one in January and one in the summer. These m eetings focus on a mix of short-term policy decisions and long-term planning activities. The remainder of the communication is done via e mail and phone.
You will also be responsible for doing work outside the meetings as part of various committees (e.g., Cond uct Committee, Web Technology Committee, Finance Committee). You should expect to spend at least 1-2 hours per week, and maybe more (depe nding on your ambition!).
What qualifications are we looking for?
It is desired that a prospective board member have a mix of the following qualifications (you certainly don’t have to have al l of them though!):
Deep experience in one or more areas of focus for the UPA: This year, we are particularly interes ted in adding people with deep understanding of the following areas to the board:
- Collegiate Ultimate
- Elite-level club Ultimate
- League organizations (small local, and large regional)
- Youth Ultimate
- Web technology
In addition to the areas of expertise named above, the UPA would like to ensure that we continue to strive for appropriate representation of female members on the board. Currently, only three of twelve board members are women, so we’d lo ve to see many qualified women candidates throw their hats into the ring for this year’s election!
Professional skills: The UPA is also a business, and professional experience is useful, especiall y as we grow into a larger, more mature organization. In particular, those with financial, managerial, long-range planning, or entreprene urial experience are encouraged to apply.
Good organization and communication skills: In addition to communicating with other board members and UPA volunteers, you will be expected to be in contact with the general membership. You may also be in charge of ad hoc or standing c ommittees.
A passion for the sport of Ultimate: Whether as a player, coach, or simply a fan, being involved with the game makes the work easier and more fun.
Familiarity with nonprofit organizations: There are a lot of things that make nonprofit organizat ions fundamentally different from corporations. Familiarity with the unique aspects of a nonprofit is helpful.
Access to email: Most of the work the board does is over email, so access to email and the web is essential. We expect board members to check email no less than three times a week.
What does the election process entail?
- You should contact a member of the UPA Board’s Nominating Committee during July or August to discuss your potential candidacy
- You must submit a Candidate Statement to the Nominating Committee and UPA Headquarters by August 15th f or inclusion in the fall newsletter and posting on the UPA website
- You should campaign during August, September, and October
ted in adding people with deep understanding of the following areas to the board: - Collegiate Ultimate
- Elite-level club Ultimate
- League organizations (small local, and large regional)
- Youth Ultimate
- Web technology
In addition to the areas of expertise named above, the UPA would like to ensure that we continue to strive for appropriate representation of female members on the board. Currently, only three of twelve board members are women, so we’d lo ve to see many qualified women candidates throw their hats into the ring for this year’s election!
Professional skills: The UPA is also a business, and professional experience is useful, especiall y as we grow into a larger, more mature organization. In particular, those with financial, managerial, long-range planning, or entreprene urial experience are encouraged to apply.
Good organization and communication skills: In addition to communicating with other board members and UPA volunteers, you will be expected to be in contact with the general membership. You may also be in charge of ad hoc or standing c ommittees.
A passion for the sport of Ultimate: Whether as a player, coach, or simply a fan, being involved with the game makes the work easier and more fun.
Familiarity with nonprofit organizations: There are a lot of things that make nonprofit organizat ions fundamentally different from corporations. Familiarity with the unique aspects of a nonprofit is helpful.
Access to email: Most of the work the board does is over email, so access to email and the web is essential. We expect board members to check email no less than three times a week.
What does the election process entail?
- You should contact a member of the UPA Board’s Nominating Committee during July or August to discuss your potential candidacy
- You must submit a Candidate Statement to the Nominating Committee and UPA Headquarters by August 15th f or inclusion in the fall newsletter and posting on the UPA website
- You should campaign during August, September, and October
- The balloting will be officially open during the month of October, ending October 31st
- Final results will be announced in mid-November
Interested in running (or at least learning more)?
Click on the links below to learn more about the election process, and contact the Nominating Committee at upa_committee_nominating@upa.org or 650-533-1181.
Do you know someone who would make a good candidate? Recruit them!
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