Greetings,

I would like to take a moment to introduce (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ZwvCgWwAc) myself.

After discussing the feasibility for a Deaf person to even consider nomination, I feel this is a good opportunity to test my mettle by running against the good ol'boys club.

I strongly believe communication is essential for growth and on a more personal matter, look forward to improving relationships for the Deaf disc golf players with the PDGA and hearing participants.

I would personally love to have your support to help grow the sport. I would also love for you to reach out to your friends, clubs, and competitors to announce my intentions and hopefully consider my nomination. Should you have any questions about my disability or my intentions to better the game, please hit that button "reply." I look forward to challenging you to a greater good.

Come July 18, may your decision leave you with more answers than questions.

Kent,

Thank you for your willingness to serve. Best of luck to you. I unfortunately was only able to understand a small portion of your introduction. If you would use this forum to share some of your thoughts about the game and what you would add to the BOD I will give you every consideration.

Thanks,

Pete Kenny
6002

Pete,

Glad you asked. I'm currently a school psychologist at Wisconsin School for the Deaf. I have worked for an executive agency in the state of Illinois with media and promoting cultural awareness. Prior to that, I worked with Substance Abuse counseling. I earned a bachelor's and master's at University of Illinois at Springfield. I am currently working towards a specialist degree.

The first thing I am interested in is communication. As a Deaf person, without the exchange of ideas, very few people are understood. In order to do this, there needs to be questions, thanks Pete.

As an educated Deaf adult, I am able to use English to exchange ideas. (Only 8% (http://www.gallaudet.edu/Gallaudet_Research_Institute/Demographics.html) of Deaf people are able to graduate college) The use of internet forums have an importance for me to facilitate and engage in a language rich experience. Technology is a wonderful thing in building doors and bridging communities.

I have experience in the "deaf" + "disc golf" sphere with participation in 9 out of 11 Deaf National Disc Golf Championships. In 2002, Frisco and Copper were sites for the 2nd annual Deaf Nationals. I am sad to see that the Copper Mtn course has retired. I will never forget the rude introduction to mountain golf on hole #1 and slipping/sliding as I climbed that hole.

I have coordinated and hosted one of the largest Deaf disc Golf events in Springfield, Illinois back in 2009 with 101 participants. thanks to the Springfield Disc Golf Club (http://www.discgolfclub.org) Only 3 of those participants came from the state of Illinois. I was a former 4y president of this national organization. As a result of one of these tournaments (2004 - Augusta, GA), I had the luxury of meeting and exchanging ideas with Brian Graham so I know I can work with him, especially in increasing accessibility issues.

The second thing I am interested in is visibility. I depend on having access to things that I can see since I cannot hear. For example: PDGA released the first subtitled DVD for Pro Worlds. For the first time in my disc golf life, I was able to follow along with everything that was said. I wonder how many international players benefited from the subtitles as well? Another thing I thought about was the Official's test. Several Deaf players have tried to take the tests but were not able to pass until they contacted me and I offered to translate and explain certain portions of the rules for them to figure it out. I wonder if the ruling tests would have been easier video-wise with specific examples played out instead of read text-wise. Visibility is important for the amateurs. These are just two examples I have and I hope that with my illustration of these examples inject a breath of fresh perspective I have with visibility.

As a 10year amateur player, there is a need to think about how the PDGA benefits an amateur. There is limited communication in how the PDGA benefits an amateur. The standard answer I often get when asking other amateurs is "ratings." I hope to increase the propensity for some visible answers when it comes to recognizing the backbone of our fine organization.

I have some experience with the internet. I joined the pdga forum 6 years ago. I have posted occassionally but the migration to Drupal and the increase in load time has me looking for other sources. I am the systems administrator for DDGA (http://www.ddga.org). I am a co-creator for TalkDG (http://www.talkdiscgolf.com). I have monkeyed around in Gorilla-Boy (http://www.gorilla-boy.com) and contributed to SDGC (http://www.discgolfclub.org). I am seen in DGR (http://www.discgolfreview.com/forums) with the username "Ziggy"

Let me know if this helps answer your questions. If not, please let me know so I can try again. As always, I invite more questions.

Kent,

Hole 1 at Copper was the most brutal short hole I have ever played. I enjoyed that course but there were a couple of holes that sure had my number, usually a BIG number.

In my opinion your experience and position as a go to person for a segment of the DG community certainly puts you in the conversation as a qualified candidate.

Perhaps you could share your thoughts about some of the issues the BOD likely will be addressing in the next few years. Example issues might include a smoking ban during play, how the BOD communicates with the membership, the appointment of some BOD members, how can the PDGA simultaneously represent the needs of the top pros and the majority of the AM players?

To get my vote you don't need to share all my opinions but you do need to demonstrate well reasoned opinions.

Again, best of luck and thank you for your willingness to serve.

Perhaps you could share your thoughts about some of the issues the BOD likely will be addressing in the next few years. Example issues might include a smoking ban during play, how the BOD communicates with the membership, the appointment of some BOD members, how can the PDGA simultaneously represent the needs of the top pros and the majority of the AM players?

To get my vote you don't need to share all my opinions but you do need to demonstrate well reasoned opinions.

Again, best of luck and thank you for your willingness to serve.

Controversy is a good topic to explore.

Smoking ban. The first thing that came to my mind is the need for increased media exposure with our tournament play. Another aspect to think about is liability. In order for disc golf to grow, we need to be able to put on a "show" to encourage growth. How does it look if we are able to secure some television and/or alternative media sources to attend our event and all they are able to film is people taking a drag off their lucky's and then proceed to throw? First thing on the 6 o clock news about disc golf is someone taking a puff. I realize that my stance will affect a certain segment of voters but I think smoking should be relegated to their vehicles and/or personal space away from the event itself. If not the media, then what about the children. Our future depends on having children emulate our players and our organization. In the education field, we are taught that there are choices and we encourage children to find alternative choices to certain substances. I think PDGA encouraging the smoking ban is a bold move in the right direction. It is not an easy step to make. We may suffer now with the loss of a certain population but we will be able to enjoy later with the growth and image that we portray down the road. Please note, this attitude is regarding sanctioned PDGA events listed on the calendar. This means the time of the players meeting as well as start of a round until end of a round. For all those unlisted, it is up to the TD to make that decision, if they choose to smoke, then that is their prerogative and the PDGA cannot get involved. I hope this helps share my "point of view"

Communication. There are several different ways to communicate. The trick is getting all of our members to openly discuss. Without this possibility, censorship comes in the picture. By censorship, I mean that few people are educated and the rest are left to "assume" what is going on. Often these assumptions can manifest if left untouched. One of the ways I am communicating ahead of time is creating this forum post to allow people to "view" my thoughts and where I am going with this. What it requires is proactivity on the reader's part to state what they understood and what they are looking for. As a Deaf person, the most effective medium is the use of technology. The power of a word can be shared as long as the other side of the glass screen is able to understand my intentions. I am more than willing to take my time to clarify or rectify in order to get a message across. I truly appreciate your willlingness to ask certain questions in order to gain a better understanding of who I am. There is a need for more recognition of our events. I would love to read short stories on 10-20 events that occur every weekend. Perhaps we can create a template of short questions and send them to the TD of a respective event to fill out (ha! more work!) and so that we may be able to share more events and information. I'm a reader but I do recognize the need for more media. I see "ASK XYZ company rep" in various forums - I wonder if it feasible for board members to become more accessible to the average amateur player via these means? I have not dabbled in video technology yet but I do recognize the need to do so. The power of television / video is increasing. I have recently purchased my first macbook so I can learn how to do I-movie and maybe Final Cut Pro so I can start getting some sign language on video in order to educate disc golfers. One of my projects I would like to do is to convert the entire competition manual and rulebooks into sign language so that our average Deaf discgolfers can further their understanding of the rules.

Appointment process: As of this moment, the voters have the power to guide the future when it comes to appointments. This is first and foremost a member run organization. If they choose to swing for the fences and invite alternative thinkers and respective participants who promote the sport into the board, there is a chance for diversity and neutrality when it comes to appointments. That power lies within the voters. There is a certain element in familiarity that breeds comfort. Unfortunately settling for the comfort factor is not the most effective solution to encourage growth. For instance: Surveymonkey and vote-now are good effective tools that can be used to collect data (hopefully the majority of paid memberships will partake in this) With the use of such data, we can first involve our members and second see what kind of direction they are interested in. This can be done to gauge potential directions and get a pulse on the community. The toughest part, i suspect, is trying to be proactive and think ahead of the curve to invite this point of view.

Representation: Outreach and Development of our game is important. Yes, there is a need to increase the amateur recognition especially since they are the backbone of our organization. Yes there is a need to increase the visibility of our skilled players especially if we ever want to get media exposure and leave a lasting imprint. To balance the both is difficult. The interest and opinions of all our members ahhh the never-ending battle of getting both parties satisfied. What a wonderful marriage, eh? What this will require is the the ability to entertain multiple perspectives and then make some hard choices. There is no one stop solution to get both sides of the coin on the same page. This will have to be done with several different strategies to encourage the ability to understand and interact effectively with others. I am a lifelong amateur player. Recently, I joined a pro event so I could donate to the travellers and play a first round with one of the greats. I got lucky when I aced a hole and Barry Schultz was able to donate me $5 and a signature. Thanks Barry! I cannot offer a solution for this topic because whatever contribution is made to either sides of the coin, it will not be deemed fair enough. What I do hope is to recognize the direction that we are going in when we do make changes or advocate for and be prepared to acknowledge our mistakes as we strive to better this sport. There are little functional things that can help both sides at a local event such as collecting ideas for side pots, games, and recognition can be earned by others. For ex: IL09 - the 9th annual Deaf Nationals - There was a longest drive contest. The winner of this was a Grandmaster who drove from Coos Bay, OR to attend the event in Springfield, Illinois. That's one heck of a drive. I am glad for one that we have a standard set of references, same set of rules and equipment measurements to encourage every player to be level on the same playing field. There is no handicap for my disability.

I hope this helps and as always, if you have more questions or if I am unclear - let me know!

Want to learn some disc golf signs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pp7yMx-OzQ

Enjoy!

After some time with nary a reply, let's open up a thought.

My experience with behind the tournament scene is mostly related to Deaf events. Even then i recognize the need for..

The backbone of our organization is Tournament Directors. Without them, PDGA would not exist. There is a need to recognize and support these tireless workers. There is a need to develop different tiered rewards for the hard work that TD's do. I believe that collecting responses from our membership in developing ideas and then measuring them with some sort of relevant data tool (i.e. Survey monkey or vote now) to furrher advance the cause for our leaders on the local level.

Regardless of the election outcome, for all the various TD's out there, thanks for all you have done and will do.

love that post!