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From: D.P.Neilson@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Dave Neilson)
Subject: Disc Sports Summit - Jan 1997
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To all BD'ers,
If I may take people back a few paces from the fine detail of Indoor
Ultimate, the Ultim-8 Tour and notices about upcoming Disc Golf events ....
and ask you to digest some information of a broader nature. The following
document sums up the results of a 'think-tank' session organised by myself
earlier this year which had three key threads: Coach Education; School &
Youth; and Public Image.
Please distribute these notes as widely as you feel appropriate and
encourage all who read them to send their feedback, suggestions and
requests to volunteer directly to myself.
Sam Neilson.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D START
20 Alexandra Court,
Priory Road
Kenilworth CV8 1SB.
Evenings: (01926) 864 276
Daytime: (01203) 523 880
E-mail: D.P.Neilson@warwick.ac.uk
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Disc Sports Summit
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
25 & 26 January 1997 @ Aston University, Birmingham
=46rom all accounts, the Disc Sports Summit proved to be a great success. My
thanks to all those who attended, especially those who came from far afield
- Barry O'Kane from Edinburgh wins the furthest travelled award! A total of
20 from the 36 invited came along and all made excellent contributions to
the discussions and working groups.
I would like to summarise the key points raised during the weekend and draw
up a list of specific plans and objectives which have resulted. I will also
detail the actions and deadlines that were agreed during the two days and
indicate what other tasks remain to be addressed.
Coach Education
---------------
Simon Moore made a thorough presentation of the BFDF Coach Education
Project, describing a five level coaching award scheme which draws upon the
existing National Coaching Foundation (NCF) modules. The disc sport
specific modules which will need to be completed in the achievement of each
level remain to be written, but Simon is quite happy that he can write such
modules for the sport of Ultimate. Assistance will be needed to write the
non-Ultimate disc sports modules. Derek Robins (National Director of the
BDGA) will be arranging for the Disc Golf modules to be written, but the
general coach award structure means that they may be plugged in at a later
date.
Once the structure is in place, the modules have been written and people
have been identified to assess and teach the disc sport modules, someone
will need to co-ordinate the scheme. Simon has pointed out that there will
be a growing number of administrative tasks, including:
* a first point of contact (someone who can distribute details of the
coaching awards scheme);
* organising the delivery of the disc sports modules;
* organising the delivery of the other NCF modules (e.g. to make
group savings);
* the issue of certificates; and
* maintaining a database of qualified disc sports coaches.
There are also a host of issues relating to the promotion and publicity of
the BFDF Coaching Award Scheme once it has been properly set up. Some of
these issues will be considered under the separate thread of Public Image.
In addition, there may well be a need for a pre-Level 1 award which is
targeted at people with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). This is where the
Coach Education and School & Youth programmes clearly overlap (see the next
section for details).
Actions and Timescales
1. Simon Moore will continue to work with the NCF to develop the details of
the general structure of the BFDF Coaching Award Scheme.
2. Simon Moore will write the Ultimate modules for the five tier system,
starting with the Level 1 award.
3. Derek Robins will arrange for the corresponding Disc Golf modules to be
written.
4. The Board of the BFDF will discuss ways to handle the administrative
demands created by the coaching awards scheme.
5. A target has been agreed for the first offerings of the Level 1 Ultimate
module: There will be three courses offered, one each during the months of
October, November and December 1997.
School & Youth
--------------
The School & Youth discussions were also very productive on Saturday and
the whole group present on Sunday (which included several new faces)
further developed the various ideas for initiatives. There were four such
ideas in total with most discussion and detailed planning concentrated upon
the first.
A) The Schools Pack
This has been the subject of discussions for years, but not only did the
group draw up the fine details and identify how and who would produce the
pack components, they also suggested a timescale within which the work
should be completed. In addition, an outline promotion campaign was drawn
up to run alongside the development of the pack. There were six components
identified for the pack:
1. Introductory Letter [ACTION: Andy Hughes and Sam Neilson]
* highlighting the benefits of disc play and explaining how the pack
might best be used;
* much of the content has already been written to accompany the BFDF
approach to the Sports Council.
2. Teaching Literature [ACTION: Jim McDonnell]
* this will describe disc play in terms of invasion games and lead
neatly into the team sport of Ultimate;
* the language of teachers will be used with numerous hooks into the
National Curriculum where appropriate;
* a lot of ground work has already been done on this by Conor Davies
and this will be further developed by another professional educator (Jim
McDonnell to identify a willing teacher).
3. Schools Contact List [ACTION: Kevin Lowe and Paul Hurt]
* a list already exists, but it would be best to check with all
concerned before including such contact details in the pack;
* this might also include details of other sources of information:
e.g. BFDF / BUF / BDGA postal addresses and web sites.
4. Promotional Poster [ACTION: Paul Hurt and Andy Hughes]
* this will be a good quality, black & white, A3 sized poster which
can be easily photocopied;
* Paul Hurt already a design worked out which features Ultimate
action, a simple change of words is all that is needed.
5. A Set of Discs [ACTION: Andy Hughes and Ian Scotland]
* this might involve ten or so cheaper discs plus a couple of high
quality discs;
* this is an ideal opportunity to target disc manufacturers or
distributors to sponsor the pack;
* a number of potential sources have already been identified.
6. A Basic Training Video [ACTION: TBA]
* this might be one of the existing videos from the USA or the
Ultimate-1-2-3 video by Martin Frederiksen;
* a grander proposal would be to develop our own British video using
existing footage and adding examples of children being taught using the
Teaching Literature listed above.
There are also other items that might find their way into the packs at some
future date, such as: merchandising literature (e.g. where to get
discounted BFDF approved discs); BFDF / BUF / BDGA membership forms;
details about other BFDF schemes and packs also available (e.g. Coaching
Awards Scheme, Proficiency Awards Pack).
Another suggestion relates to how the pack might be distributed or sold.
Initially a pilot scheme could target one geographical area with free
mini-packs which are paid for by a sponsor. These mini-packs might consist
of items 1 to 4 and include just a few discs. The full blown pack might be
offered at a cost of =A3100, in line with the pricing of similar curriculum
packs available to schools. The exact strategy will be influenced by the
sponsors involved.
B) Proficiency Awards Scheme
The idea of a skills or proficiency award scheme has been suggested before
and it provides the basis for a second initiative. The International
=46risbee=81 Association (IFA) used to produce a manual which included a ser=
ies
of skills tests together with an application form. The BFDF could produce
something along the same lines and make it available to schools & youth
clubs as well as to the cub scout and girl guide movements. After checking
copyright issues, this project should be fairly straight forward to get off
the ground. It was suggested that the idea should be raised at the BUF
National Junior Outdoor Championships where teachers could be asked for
their feedback and assistance.
C) Disc Skills Competition
It had been hoped that Alex Tancock of GUL (the licensed distributors of
Mattel discs) would attend the summit to make a presentation based upon the
Mattel World Junior Championships programme which has been very successful
in the USA. Unfortunately, he could not attend, but it would be worth
looking at the potential of his involvement. It is hoped that GUL might
provide support for a British version of the World Junior Championships
which could act as a feeder into the finals held in the USA.
Dan "Stork" Roddick describes the Mattel programme in the following way:
"Mattel send a package of Fastback discs and competitive materials to
schools and parks for participation of boys and girls under age 16. The
local event, of which there were about 2500 this year [1996], involves
distance, trick catching and accuracy to a bullseye drawn on the ground.
About 125,000 kids entered! If they score a certain number of points then
they are able to take the next level of test which they videotape and send
into us for evaluation. That level adds freestyle and MTA [Maximum Time
Aloft] to the events.
=46rom the scores and videos we choose the top 8 boys and 8 girls to be
invited to the finals. They come with a parent and we pay all the expenses.
At the finals they play golf, SCF [Self Caught Flight], freestyle,
discathon, distance and accuracy. The finals is a really great event. Great
staff and cool kids. This year we got a finalist boy from both Mexico and
from Canada. Both were from player association efforts, not Mattel
affiliate co-operation.
As you may know, British kids have come to the finals several times under
the old, infamous Maureen and David Faulkner Wham-O regime [late 1970's to
1981]."
STOP PRESS: It has recently been announced that Dan "Stork" Roddick has
been made redundant by Mattel, but he wishes to be kept informed about
developments here in Britain.
Negotiations are currently underway between the BFDF and GUL to put
something in place as soon as possible.
D) QTS Coaching Award
A fourth initiative which needs to be discussed further is linked to the
Coach Education Project. The idea is to define a pre-Level 1 Coaching Award
which would be available to those with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The
best way forward might be for a teacher to work closely with Simon Moore to
develop this module once the Level 1 award has been fully defined.
Actions and Timescales
1. The BFDF Board will try to arrange for a presentation of the Schools
Pack initiative (along with information about the other planned
initiatives). This will take place on Saturday evening during the BUF
National Junior Indoor Championships (15/16 February 1997) to generate
feedback and maybe volunteers.
2. Specific actions for the Schools Pack initiative have been listed
alongside each component, but the target date for having packs ready for
distribution is the weekend of the BUF National Junior Outdoor
Championships (3/4 May 1997).
3. Jon Hope has agreed to oversee the promotional activities for the
Schools Pack initiative. The plan is to target the Times Educational
Supplement (TES) initially during the run up to the BUF National Junior
Outdoor Championships (3/4 May 1997) and to combine the approach with
details about the event itself.
4. The BFDF Board will investigate which parts of existing proficiency
award schemes (e.g. the IFA Manual) may be used to develop our own
Proficiency Awards Pack.
5. It is hoped that a project leader for the Proficiency Awards initiative
will be identified by June 1997.
6. The BFDF Board will continue negotiations with GUL (distributors for
Mattel) to develop the Disc Skills initiative.
7. A longer term approach will be to identify opportunities to present the
BFDF School & Youth initiatives to development conferences of PE advisors
with the hope of generally raising awareness and maybe (one day) including
some disc related activities as part of the teacher training curriculum
(which has already been achieved in Sweden).
Public Image
------------
The BFDF Director of Communications, Leo James, prepared a very useful
description of the whole communications area which helped us to focus more
clearly on the what was meant by Public Image. Leo identified three groups
of people who all need to interact:
* the organisers of the BFDF, BUF & BDGA (the 3B's);
* the current disc sports players (the player base); and
* others outside of disc sports (target groups).
The communication between the 3B's and the player base is largely internal
to disc sports, while all interaction with the target groups (either with
the 3B's or the player base) is external and is what we need to address in
Public Image. The target groups include: potential disc players; the media;
sponsors (current and future); sports organisations (e.g. the Sports
Councils and the CCPR); and the general public.
In an attempt to characterise the key components of Public Image, two
models were developed. The first suggested a cycle of issues which led from
one to the next. A better picture shows the key components as interlocking
pieces in a jigsaw. It was felt that this jigsaw could act as a helpful
reminder of the issues to be covered in a number of situations, but most
importantly for: events and series of events (e.g. BDGA Tour and Ultim-8
Tour); National Ultimate Team campaigns; and also to key projects such as
the BFDF Coaching Awards Scheme and the various School & Youth initiatives.
STOP PRESS: Although initially set up to meet the needs of internal
communications between the 3B's and the player base, the BUF and BDGA web
sites have developed into a very attractive and eye-catching promotional
vehicle for presenting disc sports to the public at large. The latest news
is that a Disc on the Web steering group is being set up by Ian Scotland to
co-ordinate the various pockets of web-based information.
A) Showcasing
This component is most obviously applied to major competitive events at
local, national and international levels, but may also be applicable where
key initiatives are being promoted. The main objectives are to either win
over a sponsor or to entertain and attract public interest with a view to
recruitment and maybe sales of merchandise. Clearly, any showcase event is
a perfect media attraction as well.
In all showcasing events, attention should be paid to:
* good quality publicity well in advance to all those in the target
audience;
* briefing the players, competitors and presenters about the showcase
objectives and explaining their roles in achieving those goals;
* looking after the guests and spectators with appropriate hospitality=