From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Tue Jun 1 20:18:46 1999 Received: by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA27636 for britdisc-outgoing; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:18:04 +0100 (BST) Received: from daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (daffodil [137.205.192.30]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA27624 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:18:01 +0100 (BST) Received: from mail-gw1.webleicester.net (mailgate.webleicester.co.uk [195.146.160.12]) by daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA22776 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:18:00 +0100 (BST) Received: from pii266 (pool-pri2-040.webleicester.co.uk [195.146.164.40]) by mail-gw1.webleicester.net (8.9.1/8.9.0) with SMTP id UAA28441 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:15:03 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <00bb01beac63$b1454800$28a492c3@pii266> From: "British Ultimate Federation" <buf@ultimateweb.co.uk> To: "BRITDISC" <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Ultimate growth Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 18:40:17 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Tim, No time for the full half hour argument - just read our proposal (attached) for turning the BUF into an association with individual membership fees and tell us what you think. I have also included proposals for how we should charge unwaged and student players. Money is spent on very dull things like leaflets, stamps, phone calls, etc, etc. It is true to say that as Ultimatum hasn't been forthcoming recently (shucks - the editor is a *volunteer*!) we have been considering lowering next year's affiliation fee to account for this. BTW, at most players pay something like £10 per year to the BUF via tournament tax and team affiliation fees (both of which could be abolished with individual membership) - is that expensive? Cheers Ben BUF Secretary =============================== Paying for Ultimate – A Proposal Ultimate is growing. In the last five years the number of teams in the UK has doubled, the standard of play has increased tremendously and the sport is beginning to be noticed. Perhaps because of its academic roots, the way it is run has not changed much from the ‘President – Secretary – Treasurer’ university sports club management style. This has kept the sport going for many years but is now beginning to let us down. To give them credit, the various BUF committees have given a lot of time and have all added their bit, but generally this has always been focused on the bare essentials; scheduling the major tournaments, administrating membership, etc. Through the following conversation with an imaginary (and somewhat cynical!) player we hope to persuade you that we have a viable proposal to shake up the whole organisation and run things properly. PLAYER: Why does the BUF never really seem to be doing anything for us except taking our money? BUF: Because the whole organisation is entirely run by volunteers who have their own careers and can’t always make Frisbee their number one priority. As it happens, the BUF officers do a lot of work behind the scenes. The committee regularly receives up to 30 letters and emails per day and has an unceasing stream of rule and regulation queries to deal with. Unfortunately this generally isn't very interesting work and mostly involves hassling other ultimate players, writing letters and licking stamps. As the sport grows (currently approximately 2000 players) the situation will only get worse. We believe the only way to solve this problem is to pay people to do the administration work and newsletter production so that the elected officers can concentrate on the development of the sport. PLAYER: How could the BUF ever afford to pay salaries? BUF: By becoming an association with individual membership just like other countries (e.g. the UPA in America.) PLAYER: Isn’t individual membership just making more work for the organisation? BUF. Individual membership would increase the work of the administrator but the benefits of having proper contact with every player in the country would make it worthwhile. The organisation would be able to communicate properly with all players and the opportunities for starting new teams and helping special interest groups (e.g. women or juniors) would be huge. Rostering of teams would become a lot easier with a proper national database of players. PLAYER: This means I would have to pay more money, doesn’t it? BUF: Yes, but then the sport is currently so cheap it is almost free. The average player pays about £10 per year to the BUF through team affiliation fees and tournament tax. We are suggesting an annual individual membership of, say, £25. This would allow us to abolish team fees and tournament tax completely. PLAYER: What would we get for our money? BUF: Most important of all is a regular newsletter posted to all members. Other individual benefits could include individual personal accident insurance and cheap discs. For the good of the sport there would be someone running the national organisation properly so that enquiries are dealt with, information is provided, initiatives are supported and players are kept informed. Our national teams could be supported properly with maybe some financial assistance in the future. We could maintain contact with players who move or graduate and need to find or start new teams. In general, direct correspondence from the organisation rather than through team contacts would improve communication immensely. PLAYER: Who is going to police association membership at tournaments? BUF: Clearly the association would have to make sure that players at official tournaments were all fully paid members. With the increasing requirement for team rosters at tournaments it would be difficult for people to slip the net. In any case, we think most players would want to become members in order to receive the benefits mentioned above. PLAYER: What about students and junior players who cannot afford individual membership? BUF: It may be best to let these groups continue under the current team affiliation set-up. Apart from anything else, trying to keep in contact with individual student members would be very difficult. One idea might be to give these groups a bit more autonomy from the main national organisation. This is beginning to happen quite naturally now anyway as student ultimate becomes larger and more organised whilst the non-student teams are playing at a higher level. PLAYER: When might this happen? BUF: This is up to you. If the consensus on this proposal is positive then there is no reason why we should not consider going ahead within the next twelve months. The BUF is not going to make this happen unless it has the full support of players at all levels. It is likely that we might hold some sort of referendum for teams to make the final decision. The purpose of this letter is just to spark debate and gauge peoples’ feelings on the organisation of the sport in this country. We must have input from players to make this get off the ground. Please contact us with your comments suggestions or questions:- British Ultimate Federation buf@ultimateweb.co.uk 0116 2559638 PO Box 1 Swan House Leicester LE9 5ZW QUICK SUMMARY: The Federation is replaced with an Association of individual members who pay a single annual fee. The Association communicates directly with players Members receive individual benefits such as a regular newsletter posted to them and personal accident insurance. The Association employs people to produce the newsletter and deal with the administration tasks. ==================================== Impact of the Association Proposal on Student Ultimate Despite the increasing number of Open division teams, University clubs still represent the largest division of the BUF. They are also still the place where the majority of our recruitment is achieved. If our organisation is to become an association with individual membership then making the proposal acceptable to students is absolutely critical. What I would like from you is some serious thought on what would be workable and what you feel your players would realistically be able to afford. Please try to keep in mind that this is not meant to be an opportunity to lobby for smaller fees for students – we would all like to pay less! Remember this is your organisation and we are asking you to decide how it can meet your needs fairly. To put the suggested new fees in context, compare them with the £10 or so that many players already pay to the BUF every year via a combination of Team Subs and Tournament Tax. The current system: It is clear that the current flat-rate team affiliation fee is unfair to small clubs (student or otherwise). It is also particularly harsh on those - usually smaller - university clubs who don’t have the financial backing of their Sports Unions. This is something which individual membership would counter. Proposed charges for individual membership: The general idea is to have a Full Membership fee of around £25 which would be payable by all waged association members. It was also suggested that there might be a lower ‘unwaged’ fee which would convey some or all of the benefits and rights of Full Membership (e.g. Ultimatum, personal accident insurance, voting rights, etc) and would probably cost a reasonable proportion of the Full Membership. The thought was that student players would be expected to pay this unwaged fee. Players’ initial reactions: When we first publicised the proposal, we expected most student players to be against having to pay anything approaching the full membership fee. We were also of the opinion that student teams might want to remain in some sort of affiliation system rather than all having to have individual membership. However from recent correspondence it has become apparent that these two assumptions were not entirely correct. Many student players said they would be willing to pay something approaching full membership rates, in order to get all the accompanying benefits. Several clubs also said that they thought their unions would still be willing to contribute to their individual fees. Charging new recruits: As almost everyone who responded has pointed out, we cannot charge even an unwaged membership fee to new recruits (e.g. fresher’s fair recruits) as this would be totally counterproductive. On the other hand we cannot afford to go dishing out virtually free membership if we are to cover the costs of an association Administrator and producing Ultimatum. Having had further conversations with players here are three further ideas which might resolve this issue:- Idea 1: Reduced Membership The association levies a small (e.g. £1 per player) annual fee on university teams. This ‘Reduced Membership’ would not provide the same benefits or rights as proper membership but would allow players to compete in a limited number of tournaments (perhaps not Tour or Nationals) and could pay for a limited number of Ultimatum newsletters to be posted to the club main contact address. Individual members of clubs could of course upgrade to proper Unwaged Membership at anytime. Idea 2: Free Temporary Membership All new recruits are entitled to free Full Membership for the first few months (how many?). They would be sent at least one free copy of Ultimatum and would be able to play in any events they wanted. Once this period had elapsed they would be required to pay the unwaged fee in full. Given that most of the drop-off in recruits from Fresher's Fair occurs before Christmas it would seem that a Free Temporary Membership period of around three or four months might be reasonable. One particular benefit from this system is that Ultimatum landing on doormats could well help retain waverers who might otherwise disappear. Idea 3: A Hybrid of the above two Some system whereby new recruits can get a temporary free membership and can then go on to pay a Reduced Membership for the rest of the year without the Full Membership benefits. There may be a danger with temporary membership in that players may be less willing to pay fees after the relative bonanza at fresher's fair. However if this were timed to coincide with the beginning of spring term then this problem might be avoided. In either case the move to individual contact with players will give added benefits to joining clubs and will also provide the organisation with a substantial list of people to mailshot when they graduate. Some of you may have some entirely different ideas as to how to go about charging student players. Please let us hear them. Some immediate questions which need answering: Q. Will certain ‘fun-only’ clubs be totally against their members having to pay anything like the full membership fee? Q. Will the majority of the more serious student players sign up for Full (or at least unwaged) Membership or will we end up with large numbers of ‘freebie’ student members paying virtually nothing to the organisation? Q. Will individual membership harm or promote student clubs’ financial support from their unions? Q. How long does it take to get new players hooked? What we need from you: Please discuss these ideas at your meeting. There is no pressing need to come up with concrete decisions at this stage but any ideas or constraints on what would be viable would be very helpful. To reiterate, this is not an opportunity to bargain for fee prices. We need everyone to be flexible as we don’t yet know how much an association would cost to run. As most of you have been hooked on Ultimate for several years, please also try to consider the possibilities from the point of view of a brand new recruit. As usually, all feedback will be gratefully received: British Ultimate Federation buf@ultimateweb.co.uk 0116 2559638 PO Box 1 Swan House Leicester LE9 5ZW Regards, The British Ultimate Federation Committee