"What did the Romans do for us?" "Apart from the roads, education and medical services"?
Disclaimer: This is a personal response and not in any way official. I am however very keen to hear other peoples thoughts/suggestions/moans on the UKU and its first year. (And I'm sure the rest of the UKU committee are too). To try and answer some of your questions, Wayne: 1. Year End and Election: New memberships bought from November will be valid for 2003. I believe that current thinking is that the best time for the next election is early March 2003. 2. Ben is indeed stepping down. He has been the driving force behind the development of the UKU and he has now reached the point where he needs to concentrate on real life again! I believe he may still stand for a position on the UKU board. 3. Details of members insurance (from BD archives): http://www.ranulf.net/britdisc/old/7930.html This information is NOT on the site, which brings me to what I see as a major failing of the UKU this year - communication. Or rather the lack of it. I believe the UKU in its first year has been a step forward. Wayne listed some of the reasons, and there are several programs running (or waiting for people to find the time) in the background - but as you say communication has been terrible (nothing new for volunteer organisations!). However, I am not going to waste time looking at what we (the UKU board and all the membership) could have done better or achieved more of this year. I want to focus on what we can do next year. There is a lot of energy in UK Ultimate (witness the winter leagues, champions league and the continued growth of teams) - but we do need a national organisation to match, and (although we've made a great start) we are not there yet. What we need now is to continue the forward momentum of the UKU (improve communication; speed up the actual achievement of some of the current/past schemes; and so on.) So we need volunteers. "Doers". I know several people have expressed an interest in next years board already - if there are others interested please let us know. I hope a team can be built to improve UKU next year even more. Thanks for reading, Barry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Wayne Retter Sent: 06 December 2002 20:30 To: BritDisc Subject: [BD] What did the Romans do for us? We're nearing the end of the first year of the UKU being in existence. The President (Ben Ravilious) has already announced that he won't be running for the position again next year. Just out of curiosity, when does the year actually end, and when will the election process for next year commence? What's changed in the last year? OBVIOUSLY: We now pay on an individual basis, rather than via Club subscription fees and "tournament tax"; The website has new livery; We're getting regular issues of the Newsletter and the glossy colour annual Ultimatum; The names of the major sanctioned tournaments have been changed from "BUF ..." to "UKU ..."; The UKU have appointed a paid administrator; LESS OBVIOUSLY: We're due to each get something to prove we're members of UKU - is there any news on when this will be issued, please? I know a couple of my local sports shops might give me discounts if I can prove I'm affiliated to a sporting organisation; We've all got some kind of accident insurance - though the exact details of this have escaped me. Could someone please point me toward the www.ukultimate.com URL that contains this info?; We'll all get an email address - is there any news on this?; and stuff that doesn't appear to have changed: Individual player subscription increases the ability to monitor the size and growth of Ultimate in the UK more accurately than the BUF could hope to. These statistics are useful toward the longer term aims of achieving recognition of our sport from various official organisations in the UK and beyond. Would anyone care to estimate the number of signed up Ultimate players in the UK? Could someone (NJ?) please publish the official membership figures? Could this be published regularly, or shown on the website?; The website content doesn't seem to have changed much. I'd have thought that a lot of the UKU info (the mission statement, membership stats, etc, etc) might be there somewhere. Communication. We don't really know what our elected officials are doing on our behalf. We don't know if any us, hoi poloi, can assist at all, here and there. We don't know why Ben, who went to all the effort of convincing us the UKU would be a good thing, and has now got it running, doesn't want to keep hold of the reins whilst all of his initial plans come to fruition. I appreciate that the UKU is an organisation "run for the players, by the players" and that the committee is composed of volunteers, who all have full time occupations, but I'm currently unconvinced, mostly because I can't SEE the effects and haven't been told about the behind- the-scenes developments, as to how much progress we've actually made by our move from a Federation to an Association. I look forward to someone telling how much of a good thing it really is. Wayne Retter ---------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Retter [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pootle.near.me.uk/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pootle.near.me.uk/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
