you are supporting the growth of the sport you love. i like the fact that some of my $ are going to support this.

Yep, it tends to be more of the smaller ultimate communities. The AFDC and various others around the country are fortunate enough to have a large number of members to be able to provide insurance through a private carrier.

If I remember correctly there was just an article in the last newsletter addressing that very point: UPA membership misrepresents overall participation in the sport because not enough players are members. We claim to have more participation than lacrosse and rugby as the article read, but we don't have official numbers due to lack of membership.

I attended the summit in ATL and that was one of the problems that the UPA faces... how to cater to non-members and offer them something for their membership.

What if UPA as a whole, helped Ultimate communities like AFDC? If I am not mistaken there are national groups similar to UPA that help little league baseball, soccer, etc. by funding parks or buying equipment. I know that it would help if the UPA could put together info. to give out to rec. departments in order to justify our field space.

If we can get a national organization like UPA to help represent our sport in local communities then we might get legitimized in the eyes of the community. I know for instance the public school system doesn't have high school teams partly because of not being aware of the sport and no officials, which is a whole different story.

UPA should get more involved on the local level and use the clout of a national organization to help communities get more participation. Maybe some sort of advertising campaign through local parks departments, sports retailers, or something that could get the attention of the public eye. Maybe even start UPA little leagues in order to get kids involved earlier.

All in all I think UPA needs to be more of a presence in the local community in order to get more people involved.

Well, that's where I do most of my work with the UPA, so I guess that's a totally fair judgment But... I also pointed out how the UPA goes out of it's way to just get the word out -- by running presentations at lots of PE Conferences. But those three things that you did list are pretty huge -- coaching, organizing, and developing youth -- I do see what you mean though about those things not having a direct impact on the AFDC.




That's a really, really good point and one that the UPA constantly tries to answer.



Well, I've been on the Women's Outreach Committee since it was formed and answering the question of how to get more females to play across the board is our number one priority. You can read about what we've come up with right here: http://upa.org/outreach/womens




That I'm not so up on, but I certainly share the concern. My #1 issue, by far (up here in St. Johnsbury) is finding field space. A 'field-space-support-program' would be pretty cool





They are certainly very real issues for alot of players -- ones that the UPA is well aware of. I can't wait to get onto the Board and see what I can do to move things forward.

I totally agree and that's what I was trying to say -- that the UPA is well aware of the fact that it needs more data sets than UPA membership numbers in order to gauge participation.




Absolutely.




Putting together info packets to give to rec departments is something that is definitely very realistic and could happen. As for directly helping to fund field space -- That is certainly something that many people have thought of, and is certainly theoretically possible, but as far as I know pretty far off. The UPA has a good amount of money (As far as I know) but it's really not that much, especially when it comes to the realm of getting access to lots and lots of fields around the country. I do realize that you're not saying the UPA should fund buying entire fields -- maybe helping to pay rental fees would be cool -- All I'm saying is that the field biz is expensive.






Ummm... the UPA constantly works towards that very goal.
1) It presents at lots and lots of PE conferences: http://upa.org/peoutreach
2) It runs coaching clinics: http://upa.org/coaches
3) It has created a series for youth through masters to play in. (States, Easterns, Westerns, YCCs, Club/College/Masters/and more series)
4) It has created give away kits for new teams.
5) It has innovation grants which people use in their local communities.

Yes, it would be nice if the UPA was large enough to do even more specific targeting like going into 1,000 individual high schools and doing the PE conference-style presentation.... but it's only so big. In my opinion the UPA has done a pretty good job with its limited resources at doing exact what you just mentioned. Does that mean the UPA couldn't do more? Absolutely not -- I think it could. I just think the UPA should get credit where it's due, and while the direct impact on the AFDC community might be that large, the UPA has had a huge impact on many leagues and communities.





I totally agree.





Those are both awesome ideas. An Ultimate Little League would be fantastic. Maybe we could just clone all those DiscNW youth teams





Agreed.

Do you have any more specific ideas on how the UPA can do that in the Atlanta community?


Another thing -- The UPA has a survey online that asks about people's opinions on many of the topics that have been brought up in this thread. It's online right here.

In case you missed the news I managed to snag one of the at-large positions

Cya in the spring!

yeah! my vote counted! Go seaman!