Guest blogger week continues, with an old fashioned rant from Simon U, all the way from Townsville!
Hey there JDR,
Thanks for the invite to post. I have to offer 2 cents worth on QUDA. Here i go yay!
I love going to to Brissy to play in tournaments. The Brissy folk know how to put on a good tourney and I love the level of competition.
However, what does QUDA do for me as a player playing in Townsville. My opinion is "not a lot". The only thing I have seen from QUDA as a TSV player is disc's and as i spent sometime as the a committee member i did not see a single cent come up here.
We were asked to fill out forms for some funding if we need anything and I personally filled out 5 forms asking for some excessive things such as a van/trailer but also a lot of basic things such as money for cones and further first aid equipment. I heard nothing and saw nothing from this request. The only thing that i while a member of TSV committee got was a bill for membership fees.
I would love to know why it was so much each semester and had a few players hurt themselves and got no reply from QUDA about what steps to take to use the insurance we pay.
I love Brisbane Ultimate but its clear that QUDA is a Brisbane thing. QUDA being the father figure of TSV I think that it has done very little for us at all and that's one reason why we do struggle each year to get a solid league playing.
Thats my 2 cents worth thanks for listening.
Cheers and looking forward to Halibut.
Love Simon.
13 comments:
no you're not alone, a lot of people think quda don't really do much with their funding, personally I haven't filed any requests or anything but I know there's a lot of money stockpiled somewhere not doing much for queensland disc sports.
Hi Simon.
Firstly to clear up one point... AFDA are the people to talk to about insurance and injuries. If you need to claim compensation or compassionate fund money for someone's injuries, talk to them.
As one of the people running UQ ultimate this semester, and trying to pull us out of the financial mess we were in at the beginning of the semester, I've had my fair share of what good is the money paid to QUDA arguments, with both the for and against coming up clearly again and again.
Prior to this semester, membership of QUDA meant that the majority of the new members to our league had to pay $20 for a disc and membership, regardless of need for a disc, which meant that if we needed $50 per player to meet our profit margin, we would have to charge $70 regardless of whether they wanted a frisbee or not, if they hadn't registered for QUDA yet. We also had to keep track, to some degree of who had paid their QUDA fees, and who hadn't, which became a mess in second semester with a mix of new players, returning players who didn't need a frisbee, and returning players who did.
The obvious solution to this would be to order our own frisbees: we would be in a far better financial situation, being able to turn a small profit on each sale, having no requirement for each player to pay $20 each year, and having a constant club advertisement whenever our discs were thrown. Although now we were asking ourselves the difficult question: Do we leave QUDA, in order to reduce costs and difficulties, but miss out on the benefits that they provide?
As far as I see it, here are the main benefits of QUDA, and the reasons you should be associated with it:
- Development of youth ultimate
- Help with planning and organization of tournaments etc.
- Use of QUDA equipment (banners, barbeques, marquees etc.)
- Funds if your club begins to go under
- More veracity for your club. (It's still ultimate whether you have QUDA's name on it or not, but it certainly helps with the UQ Sport and AUS types.)
- Not wanting to divide the Queensland ultimate scene.
We couldn't do that $20 thing, and we didn't want to break it off with QUDA, although we were ready for it if necessary. Talking to Bruce, we came up with a solution that instead of discs we have the AFDA style system. Which to me, works well. People who barely play, barely pay. People who play everything under the sun will probably pay more than they did.
We don't see money from QUDA ... I'd like to see them subsidise a second field if our league expands in the future. Ultimately I think a plan to have a permanent lease on fields in various parts of Queensland is the only place where development can truly begin from, but that takes time. but I'm willing to pay $1 a week to play all my ultimate and help there be something worthwhile ultimately.
(I would also dig it if they just paid for every league's field fees. They do have the money for it.)
TL:DR;
UQ Ultimate doesn't get any money either ... as long as the negligable amount of dues we pay goes somewhere eventually I'm not going to kick up a storm.
true on all accounts.
To QUDA's credit they are trying to solve this problem but i mean it is one thing to spend money and another to make it work for you. This comes down to you actually putting in forms for something worth funding. Ultimately QUDA is there to support not to fund.
That said the amount of QUDA bashing lately has start people turning against QUDA when i dont see what the fuss is about. Every other sport i have played has had the same deal. I could have asked what was the QVA(Queensland Volleyball Association) doing with my $50 dollars and how was it helping me. Well a lot of it goes into sport developement especially junior developement. It is good to see QUDA going down these lines but the thing is there is not enough people doing the work so progress is slow. cheers to the few that do things and dont make extra work by complaining.
I think QUDA should roll more like a government. We pay taxes to it every semester and they should use those taxes with intention of building a better ultimate community.
The reason why all this junior development (Qudas main objective for the last 6 months) is going so slow is because there is no incentive to go help. Relying on people to volunteer is going to have a crap intake. But if you went to people and said "Hey, we want more coaches, i will pay you to become a frizbee coach so long as you agree to attend an upcoming Queensland juniors development clinic. And then we will pay you to keep coming down to these" Beats volunteering and its worth your time.
The point i'm getting at is that QUDA needs to start employing people to work for it. Not mountains of cash but enough to make it worth their saturday. Otherwise you will be stuck with the stagnant growth because there is no funding to encourage people to teach because it is all volunteer based which to a reasonable person is unattractive.
If I recall correctly QUDA has had an increase of 10,000 dollars in annual funding (quote QUDA fin report at regionals) on top of their income of 20,000 per year?
*Please set those figures straight if you have the data.
An annual investment from the government garunteed every year that isn't being spent on its intended purpose to me seems pretty foolhardy. Why is this not making its way into the community in a more direct way?
To sum up:
Employees are easier to attract than volunteers.
To grow ultimate in QLD capital investment is required.
I would even go so far as to make a formal request to ask for full disclosure of QUDA's audit and budget for the last 3 years.
Finally.
Adam/Jangles. I see Supporting and Funding in this case as two side of the same coin.
Ud4lyF
Will-i-am
Hey, I didn't even realise what the time was - thanks for reminding me kids, it's QUDA-bashing time again!
I'll have to apologise, too - by Will's definition, it would seem I'm an unreasonable person... but I'll have my 2c worth anyway.
(and just to get in early, that first comment wasn't directed at anyone, and certainly not at Simon's original post... mainly just for fun)
OK. Real stuff.
Firstly, read Jangles' post, particularly the end of it.
QUDA is a few volunteers, trying to run a state association with a few hundred members. They've got a fair bit on their hands.
If you want to spend their money on something worthwhile, which is reasonable to pay money for, they're more than happy to fund it. The problem is not lack of funds - it is lack of people to do something with it, and lack of good, sound ideas (i.e. not just black holes for money).
For example, anyone see the email about the Level 1 team management course coming up? QUDA said they'd pay for it. Anyone going?
Did anyone put their hands up for the Active Parks things that QUDA has been running for some time now? 2 hours on a weekend, 65 bucks for throwing frisbees around with a few kids. Not a bad way to make a quid. They were good fun.
I ran a mini-tourney last year, and because a few people didn't turn up, my budget ended up in the red. QUDA covered it. Easy.
Will, if you're going to make a formal request to QUDA, the comments column of a frisbee blog isn't really the channel through which such things occur.
And final point... volunteers v paying people.
From the sentiment side: our sport has something special. People love the game, and they sink time and money into it because of that love, rather than any expectation of great reward from achievement. The better you get, the more it takes from you, but you do it because you love it. I would like to think that sharing this passion is sufficient reason to do something for expanding the Ultimate community, rather than financial incentive. Sorry if that's a little too altruistic...
From the financial side: to really see some impact, I imagine we'd need someone working 10 hours a week for QUDA (ballpark? don't really know, not my area of expertise). Say $20/hour, that's $10 grand per year. Whoops... there goes the money we wanted to spend... we've got to kick up membership by, say, $40 per person to get back some money so we can spend it. Would you be prepared to see your QUDA fees increase maybe 200% for the sake of paying someone?
(disclaimer: those numbers are just made up for argument, I'm not in business, please don't get into a discussion on exact hours/dollars unless I'm waaaaayyy off the mark - not the point)
I don't really have a structured argument to construct, so will leave it there.
Summary points:
- If you've got a problem with QUDA not spending money, approach them with an idea for something that will benefit the Ultimate community, and tell them you're happy to make it happen.
- Don't make it a black hole for money (e.g. field costs), or something that won't benefit a number of people.
- If you want to bring something up with QUDA, then bring it up with QUDA, rather than complaining on the Net (Simon, not directed at your post as much... still somewhat applicable, but more aimed at comments)
- Realise that QUDA is a few volunteers, with real lives outside of frisbee.
And finally, I should add that I'm not really a QUDA apologist... but I've had a go at them about this in the past, and have had things explained to me... and personally, I really dislike people whingeing at those who are currently overworked without doing anything themselves...
What a bunch of whiners!
QUDA is YOU you idiots! Not someone else! YOU YOU YOU.
Good advice: if you have a problem with a committee, join the committee and solve it yourself.
Really what should be taken away here is that if you want QUDA to do something for you, do something for them. It doesn't have to be becoming part of the comnittee as such, but organising something to develop the sport such as approaching schools trying to introduce ultimate to them, participating at such things as Active parks and the like. Even stepping up and trying to run/help a league is smiled upon.
As JMac said this is not the place to be trying to get stuff done, if you wish to be heard, make formal inquiries OR maybe take an interest in QUDA planning meetings etc. Most of the people complaining here don't even make an effort to attend these, even when formally invited.
Financially, the QUDA fees this year aren't exactly hurting anyone, they are the fairest they could be, with people who play more paying more than the one nighters. 20cents per night of league? Honestly, just don't supersize your meal next time, saves your health and pays for numerous nights of league. Also, as far as I'm aware, it's not as though QUDA are embezzling the money for themselves, it is there waiting and wanting to be used for something that is worthwhile.
Who wrote the first anonymous comment by the way?
Some fool Pete.
Regardless, at the moment I couldn't be happier with QUDA. I'm just holding on until we finally have the capital to get some more or less permanent fields sorted.
You lot really have no idea, do you? Read johnny mac's email. Now read it again. Now read pete's.
Get the facts. Have the spine to take your issues to QUDA instead of pretending you know what you're talking about. You obviously don't.
Hypocrite.
Commenting about people having no spine, and then posting anonymously.
Impressive.
Ha. Gref, that's less about no spine and more about no knowledge of blogs! Valid point, though.
For the record, it's peta. Yup, the QUDA exec one.
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