Monday, October 29, 2007

UPA BoD voting closes on Wednesday!!! and a personal endorsement

A reminder: voting for the UPA's board of directors closes WEDNESDAY (Halloween) at 3pm EST - you can vote at any time though (so go vote now)

May i also add at this moment my personal endorsement for Josh Seamon.

Josh has been a contributor for this blog since March of 2006, he has coached St. Johnsbury Academy, and played college disc at Claremont before that, also currently plays for a mixed club team out of New Hampshire currently. He also runs UPA coaching clinics, started the Vermont Youth Ultimate League, and so much more, but more specifically...

Why should you vote for Josh?
Quite simply he has the interests of high school and youth ultimate in the forefront of what he would like to accomplish. Youth ultimate is the future of the UPA and the sport itself, and we need board members with this mentality. Additionally Josh has made efforts on both the national (on this blog and RSD) and local levels to find out what UPA members truly would like from their representatives. I personally think this connected attitude - not only of being available for contact - but actually seeking out the opinions of those who should be represented in the organization at large, is a great step especially in an organization in its comparative infancy such as the UPA.

Further, Josh has made it known that he would like to increase and better the online presence of the UPA. This is pure common sense and is an absolute must. Logical things like having the rosters of nationals teams available online for fans, connecting the local leagues with the national, giving all of the information to the people who want it. These are all things that have been mentioned in the comments of this website in addition to elsewhere and Josh hears the call. He is the man for the job and a guy that will get the job done.

The key points from Josh's candidate statement in his own words

  • First, I would like to see youth Ultimate continue to grow as fast as it has been for the past 5 years. I believe that a vibrant youth Ultimate community is the key to the growth of college and club Ultimate.
  • Second, I would like to see a dramatic increase in the number of women playing Ultimate, ideally so that there is an equal number of men and women playing the sport.
  • Third, I would like the UPA to work towards a more powerful online presence that integrates seamlessly into the lives of players and the functionality of leagues.

You only need to be a UPA member, it doesnt matter the age or how long you have been a part of the organization - in this election your vote counts, so take 30 seconds log in and cast yours. Forward the information to your teams and friends. If you've competed in a UPA event in the last year you are a member, so vote. More specifically - vote for Josh Seamon.




(Side note: this endorsement is not that of the site as a whole but rather just me personally. Though i think in the future that would be a cool thing for us to do, and so i think we will. So next election we'll discuss among all the contributors and come to a consensus and give a whole-site endorsement. This is not to say that the other contributors do not agree with me, this is just to say that i am only speaking for myself here.)

Sunday, October 28, 2007

PlayUltimate.us reminder, when things are slow here....

As alluded to in previous comments on other threads, all authors of this blog are volunteers who thoroughly enjoy posting and talking about the high school ultimate scene. But unfortunately most of us cannot post as much as we would like and therefore some spectacular stories get lost in the downtime.

So just a brief reminder about www.playultimate.us - its a site where anyone can post stories, link to their individual blog entries or picture or video or anything else ultimate related for that matter.

So, if you post a recap of your team's recent tournament or post some pictures online from a recent game, or video from a practice or anything like that - sign up and submit the story. if you wrote about it and its ultimate related chances are other people would like to read about it (or watch it).

For those of you reading those things that are posted you can also comment on everything on the site, vote whether you like it or find it interesting, and in theory the best content will rise to the top.

So check it out, give it a try post some content, and have some fun:

www.playultimate.us

Friday, October 19, 2007

UPA releases apps for next WJUC team

The UPA has released the applications for the junior national teams for 2008..

Check them out by clicking here

Do you plan to attend? Post your thoughts in the comments if you in particular plan to apply, thoughts on the process itself, the try out system etc.

note: APPLICATIONS ARE DUE BY DEC. 31 get em in

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

New Faces

I just wrote up a post about recruitment for high school on my blog. In it I describe how Columbia recruits and the setup we have. How do other schools recruit in the fall? Do you have trouble attracting players or getting new people out to practice? Do you have the same type of club fair that we did? Let's hear about it ...

Below the fold action...

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Voting open for UPA youth bumper sticker

Voting is now open for the UPA youth bumper sticker contest. You can vote by going to http://upa.org or by clicking here.


Feel free to post your arguments for one design or the other in the comments.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

What does youth Ultimate want from the UPA's Board of Directors?


I've decided to go for it and run for an at large position on the UPA's Board of Directors.

Voting it open from now until the end of October and any UPA member can vote -- You don't have to be 18.

Over the next month I will be attempting to engage as many people in the US Ultimate community as I can on the topic of what they would like to see the UPA's Board of Directors do for them. From the PlayUltimate community I am particularly interested in:

What is the US youth Ultimate community looking for in a Board candidate?

How can the UPA better serve the youth Ultimate community?

Would you like to hear my position on any issues in particular?

....anything and everything you'd like to say about the UPA.

I've put up a page detailing all of the information that's currently available on my candidacy right here: http://vyul.org/content/view/72/96/

Feel free to post your comments and questions in the comments section of this post or email them to me directly at jseamon at gmail dot com.