DiscNW Community Bulletin Boards

Mike,
Thanks for keeping the conversation going.

weeznation wrote:

Again your facts are a off. It was July 2007 that I e-mailed the board through the youth board person. (I'll send you a copy) It was Oct 15 that I met with the board. You actually hired a full time youth person in late June or early July. That is certainly not two months. In April I submitted "The Future of Seattle Youth Ultimate" which does not ask for a full time ED. I asked to take youth out of DiscNW.

As I confirmed with you offline, you’re communications were restricted to one board member who did not share this information. In my opinion, that was an oversight on his/her part.

Our decision to hire a Youth Director came during the annual retreat on the first weekend in January.  No one was hired instantly, because everyone agreed that the best time to train in the new employee would be in July, not to mention that it takes time to nail down the job description, solicit candidates, interview them and finally select someone.  I would say that doubling staff capacity over an 8 month period is pretty quick. 

weeznation wrote:

If there are operations people on the board it is not an oversight board. You can't have it both ways. Again, I'm not arguing against an operations board. And I'm confident that Potlatch is straightened out...as I already said.

I ask you, if the board is composed entirely of attorneys, would that make it a lawyering board?  The nature of the board comes from the type of projects it works on, its dialogue and its decisions, not people’s day jobs.

weeznation wrote:

… We were up $27,000 in 2007 and it should have been more if you account for youth having to leave Seattle (YCC and HS coed). You mention the great financial system at DiscNW yet there is no way to fully account for staff time? What the hell is the tax for? Again... mystifying.

At the end of every year, we meticulously compare our budgeted with the way things actually turned out.  According to the end-of-year 2007 report, the whole youth program was just over $9k in the black.  In 2006, this same figure was around $7k, in 2005 about $6k.  Your $27k number is closest to net-revenue (revenues – variable expenses).  From this, one must also take into consideration staff time and fixed overhead, like computers, insurance, storage rental, the website, bank fees, etc.  We expect the new Youth Director’s salary to consume most of these savings next year.  I expect the Youth Program budget to go red next year, too.  But hopefully not, Wynne has been doing exceptionally well so far.
And while I’m thinking of it, which program should fund the lining of three fields at Magnuson Park?

I explained the role of the program-expense-fee previously.  Please inquire with Chris Burke and Bunny, if you want a better or different clarification/explanation. 

As I made one attempt to explain earlier, financial practices are driven by the organization’s needs.  I believe that current practices are satisfying our organizational needs to stay financially solvent, charge for services in a reasonably fair manner and make programming decisions.  Your personal need to prove the profitability of summer camps or the profitability of youth isn’t so important to us that we’re interested in bending over backward to do it.  (I explained earlier why this is so difficult)  We don’t really care that much about what program funds what program so long as the above decision-making criteria are considered.  We’re also watching things like participation numbers and community input.  If you can show me that our accounting practices are holding us back, I’ll advocate for the necessary changes.

weeznation wrote:

My argument still stands that we can make youth pay for itself whether it is in DiscNW or not. If we are in DiscNW we want separate financials to prove it. Tell us what part of the Ed's and the youth coordinators job we are responsible for and we will pay our share though we will demand strong service.

This argument stands, because no one is disagreeing.  We all think it’s true.
Please demand strong service regardless.

weeznation wrote:

"DiscNW has about $100k in the bank, which has come from some 15 years of savings, mostly profits from adult spring league as I understand it." What about the $27K from youth in 2007. You mention that youth wasn't paying a share but then you say it is mostly profits from adult spring league. Where is your accounting system? How can you separate the money if it is all held on the same account?

It’s not so hard to do by tracking the different accounts and their balances over the years.  As I mentioned previously, I expect that by the summit Bunny will come out with a strong analysis of this topic.  I’m meeting with him this Friday, I’m sure we’ll talk about it again.

weeznation wrote:

You said, "This includes paying the Asa Mercer team’s housing costs for their trip to Vancouver this summer." Where did the money come from and how quick were you to support this trip or even summer outreach?

Umm….the first opportunity we had.  The money came out of our savings from the early years, as in first-in-first-out.  (that’s a joke)

weeznation wrote:

I got to go to work. Honestly I can't figure your arguments. Theoretical and practical are not matching up.

Last edited by barney (2008-09-30 11:04 am)

Just a few notes about scheduling youth events....

Space was limited for the kids at Magnuson this past spring in part because we are sharing the Sports Meadow with lacrosse.  Another reason is growth - 38 teams in 2007, 46 in 2008!   We did return fields at Marymoor and Shoreline on Saturdays, and there was some space at South Park after the ES League that was not fully used.   However, we do put a real premium on keeping all the MS teams in one location all day - every week, so those solutions, admittedly, would have been less than desirable.

In 2009 I plan to work with the lacrosse group to see about making more efficient use of space at Magnuson (in 2008 not all of the lacrosse fields were being used all day).  Additionally, I hope that we will get access to the new synthetic fields when they are done.  Although, this will probably not be in time for the upcoming spring.  On a related note, did I mention that DiscNW is helping to get ultimate field lines on these new synthetic fields?


Cost is not the only factor weighed when determining when and where to schedule events. Occasionally, the timing of the receipt of field reservations from various parks departments is a factor.  In other situations, geographic diversity has influenced decision making.

In the past we have decided to schedule YCC practices at Marymoor instead of Seattle fields because we did have a reservation in hand from King Count but were still waiting to hear back from Seattle.  In order to set the schedule for everyone earlier than later (which has been requested by many involved with youth ultimate) we decided to use the known quantity on the eastside. 

In 2008 we were able to schedule YCC practices in Seattle.  Just this year Seattle Parks started to use a new reservations system that should streamline the process.  I anticipate being able to finalize reservations much earlier in the season with Seattle Parks.

In 2007 the HS Coed League only a few games were played at Marymoor. Most others were played on either turf or grass in Shoreline. In 2007 the Coed league had 20 teams. Nine of those teams were from Seattle schools, and the other eleven were from outside of the city. Scheduling games in Shoreline was appreciated by the teams from Everett,Shoreline, and Edmonds. Teams from Bellevue, International Community School, Monroe, Overlake, and Mercer Island appreciated playing games at Marymoor.


Youth event scheduling is addressed at Youth Committee meetings prior to every season.  In fact, there is a Youth Committee meeting scheduled for next week, and scheduling for the 2009 season is on the agenda.  If you want more information about preliminary plans for next spring please contact me (william.bartram@discnw.org) or Wynne Sherf (wynne.sherf@discnw.org).

Wink,
I’m pleased that you feel so passionate about youth ultimate.  I look forward to seeing you at the Youth Summit on the 26th.

I hope you read Bunny previous post about field scheduling.  While most leagues don’t always get their ideal field reservations, Bunny’s post and my conversations with him make it clear to me that adults do not get priority scheduling over youth.  If you believe this is happening, I encourage you to talk to him about it.  He puts a great deal of effort and thought into scheduling.  Unfortunately, I have don’t have the same knowledge as you might have about how other sports do their scheduling.  On the other hand, I think someone earlier wrote that most other sports do not have youth and adult programs under the same organization.  This may be related.

I’m interested in your further thoughts about funding the field lining at Magnuson.  You mention that adult players are employed, but it’s similarly true that the parents of youth players are paid as well.  So, I’m unclear about how your observation about paychecks leads to your conclusion.  I agree that economically disadvantaged players and teams should be encouraged to play, and I agree that DiscNW should pay extra attention to facilitating this outcome.  I’ve never heard anyone speak otherwise.  I would add that many of the youth events run at a loss, and I think this serves our mission.  You might want to check out this or last year’s budget for more info.  Note, though, that those are ‘budgets’, not profit and loss statements.  So, they’re not a super accurate way of appreciating which programs are subsidized.  I just talked with Bunny today about a new series of reports that do a better job of this.  Expect to see copies at the youth summit. 

I will also take note of your comparative opinions between Asa-Mercer and Potlatch.  Don’t forget that both efforts are primarily designed and run by volunteers. 

If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate hearing more about why you think all DiscNW profits should go to youth programs and none, I assume you would say, should go to adult program development, like the Riot clinic, or to age-neutral efforts, like advocating for more fields in Seattle.

Hopefully some one else will field your question about what our lining options were at Magnuson.  The following is from the August board minutes, which I regret to say are not yet posted.

  Field Advocacy – Magnusson Striping 
  Lauren Hill reporting from the Field Advocacy Committee

DiscNW has been awarded a grant for striping at the new Magnusson park fields.    The overall dimensions of the fields are just short of the size required for two ultimate fields.  A compromise was negotiated that will have two fields, 115 feet in width with 5 feet between and 10 feet on the outside.  The larger outside buffer was chosen to avoid players layouts ending up on concrete (as opposed to the neighboring field).
Going forward, the field advocacy team plans to publish field marking standard on DiscNW.org and meet with city officials to brief them on the topic.

barney wrote:

I hope you read Bunny previous post about field scheduling.  While most leagues don’t always get their ideal field reservations, Bunny’s post and my conversations with him make it clear to me that adults do not get priority scheduling over youth.

I have already clearly shown that during the past two years adult programs have been given priority over youth. I don't know all the details about YCC this past year but I wonder if how DiscNW handled the practices was as good as it should be for a youth program or if there were any times that teams had to go out of the city or even away from Magnuson while adults used those fields. YCC coaches? I will also point out that it is field priority for adult when DiscNW does not actively organize youth to ensure that youth can stay on the more cost effective youth fields as I mentioned in the point about coed HS ultimate. Again, this is where youth needs its own leadership in the form of a youth board.

barney wrote:

If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate hearing more about why you think all DiscNW profits should go to youth programs and none, I assume you would say, should go to adult program development, like the Riot clinic, or to age-neutral efforts, like advocating for more fields in Seattle.

I don't see where Wink said the above. And why does the Riot clinic get free fields from DiscNW when the camps don't? Or when YCC girls don't? "Age-neutral?" There should be no age neutral. Youth first. Masters have already been treated better than youth by DiscNW as seen by the YCC 2007 incident and by the people on the board who are actively playing in that division.

barney wrote:

Hopefully some one else will field your question about what our lining options were at Magnuson.  The following is from the August board minutes, which I regret to say are not yet posted.

  Field Advocacy – Magnusson Striping 
  Lauren Hill reporting from the Field Advocacy Committee

DiscNW has been awarded a grant for striping at the new Magnusson park fields.    The overall dimensions of the fields are just short of the size required for two ultimate fields.  A compromise was negotiated that will have two fields, 115 feet in width with 5 feet between and 10 feet on the outside.  The larger outside buffer was chosen to avoid players layouts ending up on concrete (as opposed to the neighboring field).
Going forward, the field advocacy team plans to publish field marking standard on DiscNW.org and meet with city officials to brief them on the topic.

Lauren Hill and Bill Farmer have always done great work and all levels of ultimate have benefitted from their tireless efforts. Youth can pay their fair share of helping these folks. And frankly a youth board can do a much better job of getting parents involved than DiscNW has ever done to this point. More parents would only help Lauren and Bill.

As an athletic administrator I would question if 5 feet between fields is safe. I would say minimum distance for safety is 18 feet between the end of a field and another field or any object like a goal post. (18 feet = 6 yards = where I put cones on 6 yard box at the closest to a goal post) Most goal posts in Seattle are anchored to the ground because it is such a liability issue of people hanging on goalposts and having the goal posts tip over and kill people. If ultimate had true power with the parks department the fields could have been made big enough to safely allow two ultimate fields. (All in good time though with Bill and Loren working hard) If the fields are already undersized it makes a lot more sense to ensure safety than to worry about the actual size of the field. (Soocer, baseball, and basketball have guidelines for field size that allow for wiggle room to keep things safe). Put 20 feet between the fields.

Safety is one of the places where ultimate lags way behind other sports and that will sooner or later cause an easily avoidable serious injury or death. Putting fields 5 feet apart and considering it safe is not a reasonable plan. And of course there also is the issue of playing multiple games in a day. I for one don't think youth should ever play more than 2 games in a day (except a jamboree where you play really really short games). I can almost see the argument for 3 in a day, but there is no way that a youth event should ever have 4 or 5 games in a day. DiscNW does not see it this way and something bad and avoidable will happen to a child and DiscNW will rightfully get their butts sued off. (BTW - We go way out of way at camps to ensure no overuse injuries and to keep it safe.)

-Mike

Mike,  I'm not seeing your scheduling priority case.  You have shown that some youth events/leagues did not happen where you think they should have based upon your primary consideration of field cost.  But there’s so much more.  For one thing, DiscNW is not in the business of minimizing costs in order to maximize profit or lower reg fees.  We are in the business of running events according to a variety of criteria reaching far past profit maximization.  After all, this is a non-profit.  Second, Bunny explained just a few posts back, which I pasted below, how last year’s YCC practices were held at Marymoor, because he was able to secure the field reservations in a timely manner but was not able to secure reservations for the fields where you think those practices should have been held.  It seems like folks on this ‘thread’ are asking for early scheduling (totally reasonable) yet complain about the unavoidable outcomes from early scheduling.  (see my concluding message) Finally, your questions below suggest that you are not familiar with the mechanics of reservations and registrations.  I’m not either, but I know that people on the youth committee talk about this stuff and understand how sometimes outcomes are not ideal.  Nevertheless, I agree with your policy principles.

bunny wrote:

In the past we have decided to schedule YCC practices at Marymoor instead of Seattle fields because we did have a reservation in hand from King Count but were still waiting to hear back from Seattle. In order to set the schedule for everyone earlier than later (which has been requested by many involved with youth ultimate) we decided to use the known quantity on the eastside.

DiscNW is also not Seattle centric, so our scheduling policies should not be either.  I’m not going to ask that scores of kids in dozens of cars drive to Seattle, burn fuel and time, so that DiscNW can lower the registration fees or accumulate more profit.  Below are Bunny’s quoted words on this matter.  Again, it’s not all about money and the field costs.  Sometimes it’s about location to teams from outside Seattle.  I think you’ve expressed disagreement on our intent to expand geographically rather than just drawing more Seattle participation.

bunny wrote:

In 2007 the HS Coed League only a few games were played at Marymoor. Most others were played on either turf or grass in Shoreline. In 2007 the Coed league had 20 teams. Nine of those teams were from Seattle schools, and the other eleven were from outside of the city. Scheduling games in Shoreline was appreciated by the teams from Everett, Shoreline, and Edmonds. Teams from Bellevue, International Community School, Monroe, Overlake, and Mercer Island appreciated playing games at Marymoor.

weeznation wrote:

I don't see where Wink said the above.

In answer to your question:

wink wrote:

All profits from DiscNW should be reinvested in Youth to make sure this sport grows in the way that I believe all of us want it to.

In ending my lunch break, I want to say that many of the issues you have been raising are decided by people who are attending the meetings.  They are also making phone calls or sending emails to other organizers, staff and board members as part of this decision making process.  For those who have an opinion about how decisions get made, I say, “Get involved”.

bunny wrote:

Youth event scheduling is addressed at Youth Committee meetings prior to every season.

Last edited by barney (2008-10-08 01:17 pm)

Barney,

I don't understand why you are such a big part of this argument. What exactly have you done to grow youth? What is your expertise to grow youth? The earlier stuff clarifying DiscNW board policies was useful but these argument are not only not useful but they make no sense. The bottom line for scheduling is that youth should come first. My questions about how DiscNW does their parks scheduling do not mean that I don't understand how to do scheduling and registrations (The camps - we get our own fields and we have more than 500 participants - And I have 15 years of youth athletic administrator experience) My questions were about how DiscNW does their scheduling. You are arguing theory versus practical experience. YCC versus adult masters, mens, and womens is concrete yet you still argue against. A well run organization would have switched youth to Magnuson instead of making scores of kids drive to Marymoor. Of course there were DiscNW board members involved in the masters so obviously adult got the priority.

The youth committee gets some stuff done but it is not professional enough. The committee should go away and be replaced by a board of profressionals. Or there should be a layer of a youth board above the youth committee.

You make arguments that cores of kids shouldn't have to drive to Seattle for ultimate and that DiscNW is not Seattle centric.  What scores? A vast majority of the teams are from Seattle. 42 out of 46 ms teams (including Evergreen) are from Seattle. Know your facts. Everything grows from MS ultimate. How you can make so many arguments with so little practical knowledge of the situation is beyond me. And yet you were president of the board. This is why we want a youth board. If you made the arguments about age neutral field scheduling to youth parents you would be eaten alive.

My arguments against expansion outside of Seattle was based on what the board approved as the job description for the full time youth coordinator. I argued that the YC should focus on Seattle and running the Seattle youth stuff because that was where the money was coming from and there were things like Seattle Public HS Fall league that needed to be run. I did include plans for how once the new league was established it could be dropped down in other areas effectively. SPS HS fall league was very specific and the plan could have also been used in a outside Seattle league such as the Edmonds - Bellevue area. Your plan for expansion is vague. And by the way the thing that pushed me over the top was one of the board members from DiscNW pretty much killing the SPS HS league for this past fall.

weeznation wrote:

Bunny - Thanks for the prompt answers.

bunny wrote:

I usually submit all DiscNW field requests for a season at the same time because that makes it easier for Seattle Parks to accommodate us.
I provide details in the request that indicate that the events are youth, adult, coed, women, men, league, pickup, camp, clinic, tournament, etc.  That way Seattle Parks can properly prioritize the requests and can bill DiscNW appropriately.

My concern here is that the Parks looks at DiscNW requests as one big request and hence youth doesn't get as much field space and time as they would if the requests were made separately.

But if this is the only way Seattle Parks will accept requests from DiscNW then I would suggest a policy that if youth does not get enough field space from Seattle Parks then youth can take any field space that adult received. This would have be done promptly when the field assignments come out and it would require youth being really well organized.

It'd be interesting to know how the Parks Department does prioritize.

If we do separate Youth and Adult, will that really help Youth gain the priority you want it to have, Mike? I haven't dealt with the Parks Department in many years, but when I did, they seemed to like continuity...Spring League was always at Magnuson Sunday afternoons despite other requests also being made for this space/time slot (not sure if there were any Youth requests). I don't know that they'd bump an existing league for a different group even if it is a Youth group.

I can see the need for a separate group to be running Youth and keeping the finances separate definitely makes sense. I'd rather see Youth stay under the DiswNW umbrella than break out on it's own. I'd hate to see Youth and Adult fighting each other for field space. I don't think either side will like the end results; we're too small of a community for infighting.

I do think that Youth should a focus for DiscNW. Does that mean that all Adult leagues/tournaments should be at the beck and whims of Youth? I'm not so sure about this.

weeznation wrote:

My concern here is that the Parks looks at DiscNW requests as one big request and hence youth doesn't get as much field space and time as they would if the requests were made separately.

Based on conversations and emails with Parks employees I do not believe that this is the case.  In fact, I have been told by several Parks employees that working with DiscNW as the main organizing body for ultimate makes it easier for them to properly accommodate the needs of the sport in the city.

weeznation wrote:

Barney,

I don't understand why you are such a big part of this argument. What exactly have you done to grow youth? What is your expertise to grow youth? The earlier stuff clarifying DiscNW board policies was useful but these argument are not only not useful but they make no sense.

Dear Mike,      I’ve been involved, because other volunteers do not have both the time and the self control to regulate themselves and avoid the slander and slanderous tones you resort to.  I’m also the only one with the patience to refute or acknowledge your endless stream of complaints.  I’m also strongly opposed to organizational bifurcation and have no interest in allowing Seattle’s youth program to fall victim to the appetites of a few organizers’ egos.  Most of all, these discussions are more about clarity of thought and open communication than they are about direct experience in youth program development.  Sure, you have a zillion details you’d like changed, and that’s fine.  For the most part, I avoid these and encourage you to take these up with staff, since they are far more familiar with the particulars. 

weeznation wrote:

My arguments against expansion outside of Seattle was based on what the board approved as the job description for the full time youth coordinator. I argued that the YC should focus on Seattle and running the Seattle youth stuff because that was where the money was coming from and there were things like Seattle Public HS

I see you points here, but DiscNW DOES NOT prioritize revenue generation over all other factors, which are described in earlier posts.  This is a really important point and an apparent disagreement between you and the rest of the organization that I can’t emphasize enough.  DiscNW is not trying to make as much money as possible from running events.  We are not a for-profit venture, though profit is important for providing financial security and for driving new programs. 

weeznation wrote:

Of course there were DiscNW board members involved in the masters so obviously adult got the priority.

Therefore they meddled in the scheduling, right?  Like I said, it’s all about clarity of thinking. 

weeznation wrote:

The youth committee gets some stuff done but it is not professional enough. The committee should go away and be replaced by a board of profressionals. Or there should be a layer of a youth board above the youth committee.

Most people I’ve talked with in the last half year or so agree with the essence of your point.  The real question is how to get any group of volunteers to actually do something.  Simple re-titling isn’t satisfactory.  Volunteers are not staff, no one can make them do anything--just like I can't force you to attend Youth Committee meetings, though if you were staff I guarantee you'd be there.  My belief is that we are going to have to come to some agreements on where different types of authority lay in DiscNW so that it is crystal clear where folks must plug-in to affect change.  To date, there seems to have been a great deal of confusion about who is in charge of which decisions and who is responsible for different aspects of implementation.  As Bunny will describe in further detail at the Summit, I believe this is an undesired and unintended outcome of the changing and inconsistent nature in how DiscNW programs are run. 

weeznation wrote:

You make arguments that cores of kids shouldn't have to drive to Seattle for ultimate and that DiscNW is not Seattle centric.  What scores? A vast majority of the teams are from Seattle. 42 out of 46 ms teams (including Evergreen) are from Seattle. Know your facts. Everything grows from MS ultimate. How you can make so many arguments with so little practical knowledge of the situation is beyond me. And yet you were president of the board. This is why we want a youth board. If you made the arguments about age neutral field scheduling to youth parents you would be eaten alive.

You might note that I referenced Bunny’s post in which the MAJORITY of teams in the league about which YOU were complaining were indeed from outside Seattle.  We had been talking about HS Coed not MS.  Like I said, it’s about clarity of thinking.  (see your own post on 9/27, Example #3 and Bunny’s follow-up post on 10-1 for the relevant facts)

weeznation wrote:

…   Your plan for expansion is vague. And by the way the thing that pushed me over the top was one of the board members from DiscNW pretty much killing the SPS HS league for this past fall.

It’s unfortunate, Mike, that you are no longer involved in early negotiations.  You might consider changing that, or you could continue to complain from the outside.  One of these methods is more effective.

weeznation wrote:

And by the way the thing that pushed me over the top was one of the board members from DiscNW pretty much killing the SPS HS league for this past fall.

Mike,

I’ve been on the sidelines reading this thread for some time now.  I would not be surprised if there were others out there feeling reluctant to contribute when they read your recent challenge to Barney’s contributions on the grounds that he does not have operational experience with youth leagues to the extent that you do.  While this may be true, it does not mean he has no stake in youth ultimate’s success and a valuable contribution to make.  Barney asks important strategic questions and both he and Bunny have repeatedly offered factual rebuttals to your various claims. The reason I’ve chosen to post now is that I cannot sit silent and be made fodder for one of your specious arguments.  You confirmed in response to my email inquiry that it was me you were referring to when you said that a board member “killed” the SPS HS fall league.  My response is longer than I had intended.  I apologize.

You and I met in June and discussed, among other things, the fall SPS HS league.  I had, just a week before, attended my first board meeting.  From the time I first heard of your proposal for a fall HS league I was very excited and offered to help in any way I could, using my relationship with the SPS Athletic office when the time was right.  You and I agreed that the proposal to SPS must come with strong organization in the form of an experienced league coordinator and a clear plan for finding coaches.  I was explicit in telling you that I was NOT volunteering to be the coordinator and neither were you.  Further, you and I talked about the challenges of making this happen over the summer when recruiting coaches and working with schools would be particularly difficult.  Regarding coaches, the fall SPS MS league is the success it is, in part because the coaches are paid. The funding for those MS coaches comes from a particular tax levy and does not support programs at the HS level.  I am not arguing against working to make a fall HS league happen (though others have made strong arguments against limiting it to SPS).  I am an advocate and sit here wondering how I can be blamed for "killing" the plan.  I only offered to help secure fields and help present the plan to SPS when other pieces had been put in place.  I did not sign up to be the point person.  That was you if anyone.  Fields and SPS support were not the limiting factors.  You put a good plan on the table, began the conversation and now seem intent on blaming someone for it not happening.   

DiscNW staff and the board understand that there is demand for more Fall HS opportunities. (To that end, we continue to support the Moho program and are currently running a fall HS hat league with more participants than ever.)  The fact that your plan did not come to fruition this year does not mean that a concerted, or individual effort existed to prevent it.  In this case, as in several others in this thread, you are trying to make the case that DiscNW is actively stifling the growth of youth ultimate.  Any objective observer would find that claim patently ridiculous.  I find it personally insulting.

I support your ideas on many issues Mike, but feel you have used this public forum to be disrespectful towards, and disingenuous about people who share many of your goals and who continue to volunteer toward youth activities.  I wonder who you think will step forward to volunteer service on your envisioned board after you’ve taken these public shots at your would-be supporters and questioned the intentions of others when you don’t get what you want, when you want it.

Adam Waltzer

I am a bit late to this thread, but I would like to respond to a couple of key points.

Separate "accounts"

There is some confusion about the function of "bank accounts" vs "bookkeeping accounts."

There is no gain to be made by having separate bank accounts for different programs.  Bank accounts cost money.  Yes they do.  They cost more money if you are a small business, like DiscNW.  More accounts cost more money.  It is also more difficult to manage multiple accounts.  If we had two checking accounts it would take probably 50% more time to write checks and enter them into our books correctly.

Our bank accounts are set up with two purposes in mind--to minimize the cost of having bank accounts, and to give DiscNW enough liquidity to pay for foreseeable opportunities.  Right now that means there are three CDs of differing maturities, summing to around $48k.  There is a "business savings" account with $25k; having this low-interest account gives us an essentially "free" checking account.  The checking account balance varies tremendously between nearly $0 and over $150k, depending on where we are in the year.  All our revenue goes into the checking account and we pay all our bills out of it.

You can see how this arrangement works for us by looking at, for instance, the Complete 2007 Revenues and Expenses, on our financial information page.  If you scroll down in this, you would see we earned $3335.43 in interest in 2007 (good!), but paid $8157.35 in bank fees (bad!), most of which was for accepting credit cards.

Doubling up our bank accounts would raise our fees, lower our interest, create work, and in general be a poor strategy.

Our bank account structure is what makes sense for us at the bank, and does not reflect the structure of the organization.

That said, it is incorrect to say we do not have separate "accounts" for youth and adults.  In fact we have hundreds of separate accounts, which are then divided into large categories.  Each line on the Complete 2007 Revenues and Expenses page is a separate account.  The large categories can be more easily viewed via the Summary of 2007 Revenues and Expenses page, also on our financial information page.  There are four summary revenue accounts, and five summary expense accounts.

The process of putting each bit of money we receive and each cost we incur into the proper accounts is called bookkeeping.  We perform bookkeeping, and have since DiscNW was founded in 1996.  (You can look at our financial reports all the back to 1996!)  It is one of the main jobs the executive director does.  In fact the increasing complexity of keeping our books updated was one of the original reasons DiscNW hired its first employee.

It should be obvious that we are keeping separate accounts because I keep reading dollar amounts in this thread that are taken directly from our financial statements.

I will have more to say about this topic in future posts.

Chris Burke
Treasurer, DiscNW

Hi All,

I am very excited about the upcoming Youth Summit, and after reviewing this thread to prep for the summit, I would like to echo some of the early sentiments of optimism - there is so much energy right now around youth Ultimate! I am looking forward to hearing all of the great ideas this Sunday - what an opportunity to be intentional about the sport and community that we all care about. And how exciting that Ultimate organizers in other cities are paying attention – what we do can really have a far reaching impact!

Although we have had the amazing opportunity to coach the fantastic kids at Asa Mercer Middle School for the past several years, Rex Gaoaen and I consider ourselves very much to be new comers to the Youth Ultimate organizing scene. As such, there have been some elements to this discussion with which we have had no experience, but we would like to take this opportunity (however late in the game) to add in a few comments on some of the issues.

1) We would like to wholeheartedly second all of Wink’s concerns about Potlatch. We have taken middle school youth to Potlatch two years in a row now, but not without significant reservations. One of the most effective ways we’ve found to energize youth about Ultimate is to tell them about how fantastic Seattle’s Ultimate scene is and, whenever possible, to get them to events where they can witness higher levels of play. Youth are naturally excited when they hear about Seattle’s championship teams and attending Potlatch is one obvious way for them to get to see some of the sport’s finest. For the most part our experiences have been positive, but I have had to purposefully keep our kids from being a part of most of the cheers (which is difficult since we emphasize the cheer as an essential part of the game) due to alcohol or sexual content. Some teams have done a great job of realizing this conflict and censoring themselves or warning us in advance if their cheer involves something inappropriate. Others have not, and have even joked about the youth participating. Luckily, our kids listen when we lead them away from the cheers and we have avoided anything serious. However, I think that it is important to note that when there are youth around we are all role models whether or not we would like to be. Young people learn from what they see adults doing, and I hope these concerns are taken seriously. I would hate to see Potlatch turn into a 21+ event; it would be very strange to have to explain to a 13 year old that, no they cannot come watch some of the players that we’ve been telling them about. Naturally, they would ask why. I would much rather see the Ultimate community realize that reigning itself in is worth it.

2) We would like to place a solid vote behind creating an SPS Fall HS league as Mike proposed. As it stands, the majority of Mercer students go to high schools without established Ultimate programs. The SPS Fall MS league is fantastic and overfull. Both Eckstein and Mercer (and maybe other schools too) had enough interest this season to field four teams but could not because of lack of field space. Luckily Eckstein kids can easily get into Nathan Hale to gain access to top notch Ultimate in high school. Unfortunately, the same opportunities do not exist for youth in South Seattle. And it’s not for lack of interest. All three South End middle schools have established Ultimate programs thanks to the Fall SPS league. Yes, kids can try to put together a club team as other high schools have done, but this structure lacks the sustainability and continuity necessary to build solid programs.

2.5) On this issue we would like to instill a sense of urgency. It’s not that we want there to be teams at all SPS high schools just because we want our kids to have somewhere to play. We want there to be teams at all SPS high schools because it is extremely important that all kids have access to healthy, positive activities. Ultimate is a very powerful tool for working with youth. The teamwork element is incredible, it promotes health and fitness, self-officiating teaches integrity and honesty, playing co-ed is fabulous for middle school kids, and of course Spirit of the Game is irreplaceable. And on top of all of that it’s so fun you can’t keep kids from loving it. The stakes are high for youth in South Seattle, and this sport can do a lot to give kids healthy options.

3) As far as organizational structures are concerned, whatever will best let all of the creative and positive energies of the youth Ultimate community flourish is the best answer. Having never attended a youth committee meeting I do not know the ins and outs of DiscNW’s processes. But, we are exited to hear the idea of a separate youth board discussed at the summit since after reviewing all the posts in this thread, it seems like that might make a lot of sense. 

In closing I would like to say that we greatly appreciate all of the support that our program has received from people at all levels of the Seattle Ultimate community. Our kids at Mercer have benefited greatly from the expertise, support, and generosity of many – among them Frank, Mike, Bunny, Joe, and Adam. Perhaps this fact can be used as an example of how we will all benefit if we value the many rich ideas expressed and work constructively with one another.

Here’s hoping for an exciting and productive Summit, and as Wink so eloquently put it, let’s “do something amazing that no one thinks is possible.”

Sam Terry and Rex Gaoaen
Asa Mercer Middle School Ultimate