Deciding how to cast your four votes? Consider assessing both current Board performance and reasonable expectations regarding what future Board members might be able to accomplish. Two candidates, Decker and Feldberg, are incumbents. As members of the current Board, “Have they done enough to deserve your votes to continue what they’ve initiated?” ‘Initiated’ is the key word here. Board performance can only fairly be assessed over a few years. A key part is to evaluate what actions they’ve initiated whose results have yet to be seen.

Assessing the Current Board
The ongoing yardstick for the Board, whose success is dependent on the PDGA Staff and Committees they oversee, is whether the organization is financially healthy with a solid blueprint for the future. In regard to financial performance, you would be hard pressed to find a more successful Board at any time in PDGA history. With regard to the blueprint for the future, part of that equation is making sure these financial resources are used effectively for both survival and growth.

This Board has worked with Staff to establish an appropriate reserve for an organization our size. To address long term success, has designated funding for innovative projects. And to deal with immediate needs, has approved an increase in both staffing and contract assistance to help address what many have seen as a few shortfalls in the delivery of services expected by members. There are additional accomplishments by the current Board you can probably find in their candidate statements.

Big Issue
The website has been the most glaring problem but consider this: PDGA Staff and Board must use the website more and have suffered from the performance issues more than most members. If it was that easy to resolve, it would have been better by now. At least with actions taken by the Board and Staff, it looks like the light at the end of the tunnel might not be a train. We’ll see over the next six months.

More Restrictions? More Options?
Some members running for election have a platform of significant change and others would like to improve upon or add to current success. Regardless of their platforms, if elected, as Board members they are responsible for taking actions in the best interest of the org’s survival and growth. The PDGA Vision and Mission statements provide guidelines for Board members to fulfill that responsibility. I’ll suggest that what the PDGA has fundamentally been about thru the years is an “organization that provides flexibility in formats for structured disc golf competition” with “flexibility” being the key word here.

Limited Control
Despite what some of you may think regarding PDGA rigidity with rules and formats, the PDGA approach to things has been much more flexible than some other sports with similar or higher profiles. The primary reason is the PDGA has minimal control over those who generate its primary sources of income. Lack of control has been fine as a business model as long as the PDGA serves its members and TDs well. The PDGA continues to thrive at the good graces of our mostly volunteer TDs who sanction many events because members seem to like playing in them.

Flex Power
The flexible structure that has evolved over the years has been a reaction to those cumulative TD and member wishes and not some grand design imposed on TDs and members. There’s very little that’s been rigidly mandated and enforced much to the chagrin of some members who would prefer the PDGA emulate more rigid competition models in other sports. We have multiple tier options, moderately enforced self-officiating, minimal to no basket requirements in events, X-tier formats, no drugs allowed and disc requirements but minimal to no compliance checking, some to no payouts, non-member sometimes allowed with fee, ams in pro, pros in am, and not really many pros nor ams in the conventional sense. Even Pro Worlds, the signature event of the PDGA, still has yet to follow a consistent format.

Key to Success?
Here’s the kicker: All of this flexibility may be the key to our success. It’s likely true but maybe it’s not only that. That’s the benchmark the next Board must measure any new ideas or changes against. Don’t undermine current success but build on it in constructive ways. I think the trick for future success of any Board and the PDGA will be to figure out how to continue to successfully balance that tension between moving toward a more rigid structure in some areas modeled after more lucrative professional sports that some aspire to versus enhancing the more flexible approaches that have been followed by the PDGA, whether master planned or simply evolutionary.

What's the Point?
My point in this discussion is not to support any particular platform or candidates because I appreciate all of their efforts to even throw their hats in the ring. It’s more to provide some perspective on what lies ahead, not just for the voters who may back certain candidates, but also for the candidates who read this.

Thank You!
The PDGA has been on track overall but has needed some fine tuning primarily due to the lack of resources until now. The new Board will be provided an excellent base from which to move forward. We should extend a big “Thanks” to Juliana Korver and Todd Andrews who are currently retiring from the Board after excellent service.

Ideas Galore
Contrary to what some might think, there has been no lack of ideas for improving the PDGA. The list is quite long and several ideas have been backlogged for years. Some delays have partly been lack of funding. But overwhelmingly, manpower to do or manage new ideas and improvements has been the limiting factor. Our large base of volunteers continues to do wonderful things both locally and nationally. Our new Board will need to learn how to take the reins and “flexibly” manage this core herd of cool cats to continue to do good things.

Assess the candidates. Think about how they might handle the challenges ahead with other Board members. And vote!

I hope everyone reads the Voters’ Guide to the Election (http://www.pdga.com/bod-voters-guide) which the PDGA just published because it will give PDGA members a better idea of the key attributes board members should possess, and a list of the typical PDGA Board task assignments which future BoD members will face. This will hopefully help PDGA members make a more informed decision on the candidates. I can't say that I personally agree with the "Dead Poets Society" method in the worksheet for ranking candidates, but it's an interesting idea and approach and may help some folks in thier decisions.

I just hope we see a good voter turnout, which has historically been poor. In my mind, members lose a lot of credibility when they gripe about PDGA issues and then it turns out they didn't even bother voting for the folks making those decisions.

Jeff,

Yes, that Nominating Committee rocks. Their voters guide has a wealth of helpful information. Here are some especially useful guidelines:

1) "In the case of candidates that you may know personally, they may gain advantage or be held unfairly accountable for things that you know about their past actions." Who would you suggest be held accountable for things that we know about their past actions? Some malevolent spirit that possessed them?

2) "Candidates who you don�t know are impossible to assess on some of the key factors and also may gain advantage by presenting biographical information that is not reflective of their true abilities." In other words, watch out! Those candidates you don't know may be lying about their credentials.

And here I was hoping that the Nominating Committee would have been able to ferret out the liars and expose them, seeing as how it's so hard for us to do it.

Peter, now that you bring up the Nominating Committee, I am wondering about that myself. With a whopping 18 BoD candidates, I am wondering how many folks submitted candidacy to end up with those 18. Were there, for example, originally 30+ candidates, and the committee whittled them down to the 18 most qualified? Or were there, say, originally 19-20 and the committee rejected only a very few because they were obviously unqualified? I'm guessing the latter over the former, but that's a total stab in the dark.

If we're truly a transparent organization, this question should get answered, right?

My impression at the Summit was the newly created NomCom was going to vette candidates and provide a recommended slate of candidates to members. Turns out, they were charged with presenting their slate to the Board and the Board could choose to provide those recommendations to voters if they wished. As it turns out, with the unexpected large turnout of candidates, the NomCom never narrowed down a slate, and with Board approval, chose to provide the voters guide instead. No potential candidates were rejected from what I understand.

Jeff:

The Nominating committee is clearly an "establishment" committee. Look at its makeup, and look at what it is saying. Its slate is Feldberg, Decker and Pozzy, but it needs to be subtle so it doesn't blow its cover. So it tells us not to blame well-known candidates for things we know they have done, and to distrust candidates we don't know because they may be lying about their credentials.

It would be silly for the NomCom to disqualify any of the multitude of little known candidates. The more the "nonestablishment" vote is split, the greater the chances for the establishment slate.

I edited two words that were going to get stopped by Theo word filter. Sorry VeganRay.

I just voted. Thank you to all the candidates for your willingness to serve. And to Todd and Juliana for your service.

I was a vocal critic of the BOD decision to impose a change and appoint some
Board members although I do like the rolling 3 year terms. Others also were vocal critics.

I applaud the BOD for putting the confidence vote on the ballot. That wasn't required but in my opinion it was the right thing to do. Soon we will know what the membership thinks.

Good job BOD! I applaud you and thank you for this action.

It would be silly for the NomCom to disqualify any of the multitude of little known candidates. The more the "nonestablishment" vote is split, the greater the chances for the establishment slate.

Peter, do you honestly think that the NomCom and/or the BoD actually had a discussion about it and decided to collude together to expressly avoid eliminating the multitude of lesser known candidates in order to split the vote and ensure that the "establishment" candidates win?

Seriously?

If so, wow.

Jeff,

I've always hated conspiracy theories because you can never prove that there wasn't a conspiracy. But this Nominating Committee has always seemed overly mysterious to me. We didn't even know who was on it for the longest time. Then we heard that one of its jobs was to furnish evaluations of the candidates to the membership, but it never did that. Instead it provided an almost useless checklist plus some admonitions like "trust the candidates you know" and "distrust the ones you don't know". Clearly this Committee wants establishment candidates to be elected.

I don't believe that the Nominating Committee decided not to eliminate nonestablishment candidates because, this year at least, I doubt that it has been given the power to eliminate any candidates. I just wanted to point out that it would be silly for them to do so, even if they could. I also worry about what powers it might have next year.

Because of the mysterious aspects of this Committee, I wonder about lots of things. Another task of the Nominating Committee is to encourage candidates to run. We have seventeen candidates this year, an unusually large number. I wonder which of these candidates may have been encouraged to run by the Nominating Committee. Certainly I was not. The Nominating Committee has not contacted me at all before or during my campaign.

The ongoing yardstick for the Board, whose success is dependent on the PDGA Staff and Committees they oversee, is whether the organization is financially healthy with a solid blueprint for the future. In regard to financial performance, you would be hard pressed to find a more successful Board at any time in PDGA history. With regard to the blueprint for the future, part of that equation is making sure these financial resources are used effectively for both survival and growth.

It strikes me as a little strange that we would assess the performance of a non-profit organization primarily by its ability to generate a profit, rather than serve its members. But, instead of maximizing services and options for the members, the PDGA seems most intent on stamping out the possibility of any "competing" entity that might offer different or better services to members. These efforts appear to have extended recently even to reducing member services by withdrawing content from the website to prevent others from easily accessing data, and thereby potentially offerring competing ratings services. This concern regarding rise of a competing entity strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It strikes me as a little strange that we would assess the performance of a non-profit organization primarily by its ability to generate a profit, rather than serve its members.
Remaining financially healthy (my words) says nothing about profit (your twist). It's a duty of the Board to monitor and secure the financial viability of the org. It's primarily the job of the Executive Director and staff to serve the membership. And in that capacity, since when is taking steps to secure data not in the best interests of members and the org?

There has never been anything preventing multiple competing entities from producing ratings and in fact they have. There are dozens of members running handicap leagues (ratings). I wrote how to do it back in 1990 which has been widely circulated. (Shortened version: http://www.discdan.com/area-leagues/how-handicaps-are-calculated) There are even apps that provide ratings other than the PDGA. It's 8th grade math, not rocket science. The SSA values are now being used to help provide ratings within the PDGA app which is a new member service.

It strikes me as a little strange that we would assess the performance of a non-profit organization primarily by its ability to generate a profit, rather than serve its members.

You may be mis-understanding the definition and goals of what it means to be a non-profit organization: a nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals. It doesn't mean that the organization doesn't make a profit; instead, it just means that those funds go back into the organization itself.

The more financially healthy the organization is, the better it is able to pursue its goals and serve its membership. More money = more programs to help grow the sport of disc golf. On the contrary, with its increased financial position, now more than ever before, the PDGA is maximizing services and options for the members to better serve them.

Remaining financially healthy (my words) says nothing about profit (your twist). It's a duty of the Board to monitor and secure the financial viability of the org. It's primarily the job of the Executive Director and staff to serve the membership. And in that capacity, since when is taking steps to secure data not in the best interests of members and the org?

There has never been anything preventing multiple competing entities from producing ratings and in fact they have. There are dozens of members running handicap leagues (ratings). I wrote how to do it back in 1990 which has been widely circulated. (Shortened version: http://www.discdan.com/area-leagues/how-handicaps-are-calculated) There are even apps that provide ratings other than the PDGA. It's 8th grade math, not rocket science. The SSA values are now being used to help provide ratings within the PDGA app which is a new member service.

Then why is preventing other entities from competing Pozzy's number one item on his platform?

http://www.pdga.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=1458585&postcount=4

As far as "securing" the data being in the best interests of the members and the org, the org can do better than relying on the ability to withold ratings from those who don't renew. The $10 per event fee for non members is substantial, and the PDGA is passing up income it could make from members like me who play many more than 5 events per year. Just go to a discount for members, such as half price. But free up the data and let 3rd parties develop apps using it, and members will be better served. Just look at the difference between DGCR and this forum. It;s night and day. Let others run with the data and sit back and be amazed. Next thing you know, there will be online video games, fantasy leagues, and other apps we can't imagine that use the data in clever ways and promote the sport. Keeping the PDGA as the only organization, and witholding the data form 3rd party use are not likely in the best interest of disc golf or PDGA members. It merely helps the PDGA maintain its grip on disc golf. But that doesn't mean it is inthe best interest of the members.

Apple Computer currently has more cash on hand than the U.S. Government. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/29/does-the-u-s-government-now-have-less-cash-than-apple/ Apple is not known for sharing their core technology and yet they seem to have done pretty well serving their customers. Theo is an Apple developer and likely is influenced by that successful philosophy. Securing data would still be the responsibility of any Board member even those who lobby for more transparency. Having a single entity maintain the standards and calculating process for player ratings may be unique among sports on a global basis.

The best disc golfers across the globe have been interested to participate in the PDGA ratings process. It's a driving force for other countries to affiliate with the PDGA and maintain this unique ratings uniformity globally. We're one of the only and may be the only individual sport that can pull off the global event coming up in August where players are competing fairly via ratings on a wide range of disc golf course terrains and lengths.

Individual sports that compete on different types of outdoor courses like ball golf, kayaking, orienteering, cross country running or skiing can't pull that off because they can't or haven't been able to develop a consistent global ratings mechanism to do so. The only way to maintain that global consistency is for one entity like the PDGA to manage and control that process or the data gets disconnected and the quality suffers or data becomes incompatible.

For example, ball golf has the USGA, R&A and Asian handicapping systems (maybe more) which aren't compatible with each other. I don't believe there's even a factor that can directly convert one handicap into another one. However, within North America the USGA handicaps rule the continent and remain consistent because they prevent others including app producers from producing them unless they are licensed. Maybe the PDGA could do licensing down the road. But from what I understand, developing a data syncing agreement with DGCR never got anywhere as an example of those efforts.

I think you are reading it right JenniferB.

Just announced at the Player's Meeting: winning the election, and our next PDGA BoD members are Dave Feldberg, Rebecca Duffy, Kevin McCoy and Peter Shive.

What happened on the vote for the Board to reconsider the appointment process?

What happened on the vote for the Board to reconsider the appointment process?

They didn't say. I think they just wanted to announce the election results because other than McCoy, all the other new BOD members were in attendance and could be recognized.

I'd be shocked if a decision to review the board appointment process didn't win overwhelmingly. No matter if you were completely for or against the Board's decision to appoint members (or anywhere in between) there's no harm in asking them simply to review it again. It's obviously a hot button issue with the PDGA members.

What happened on the vote for the Board to reconsider the appointment process?

From the Election Certification: (http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/CertifedElectionResults-PDGA-2011.pdf)

2011 Bylaws Confidence Vote (2593 total voters; vote for 1):

2154 YES, I am in agreement with the recent change to the bylaws and Board structure, and I do not believe that the Board needs to revisit this issue.

439 NO, I am not in agreement with the recent change to the bylaws and Board structure, and I would like the Board to revisit this issue.

:eek:

.....on the same ballot on which Peter Shive was selected? Elections are so fascinating.

That's because it is a popularity contest. There should be a ballot question: Did you read the candidate statements? I'd bet 75% would say no.

Maybe we should have a series of online Q&As/debates hosted by discplanet.tv prior to future elections so members can see and hear especially the lesser known candidates. Even YouTube video statements by each candidate might help more members see what a candidate is about. I'm thinking that Rebecca Duffy reporting at The Memorial and National Collegiate events helped raise her profile significantly outside Oregon.

As one of the few people still using the PDGA website it would be nice if the PDGA would make some kind of announcement on the results of the election. I just checked for the results on the home page but all I sW was a reminder to vote.
another example of how far down the list of priorities communicating with members is.

I k ow worlds is going on but it isn't hard to update a webpage.

Congrats to the winners. Whoever they are

Pete, it was posted yesterday evening:
http://www.pdga.com/2011-election-results

Thank you Chuck, pleased to see it however I just opened PDGA.com from my iPad and the lead story under the video is still the election reminder.

I just know what I see. I've refreshed, reloaded, restarted but see nothing on the election but the reminder to vote. I just tried PDGA.com from iPhone, same thing. Just the reminder to vote.

Can someone else with iPad or iPhone please take a look and see what they see?

Thanks

I brought up the Home page on my iPod Touch and you're just not seeing the rotating stories in the upper left. The Board Election reminder is the first story to roll off the rotating story window which is why you see it. Maybe the rotating stories use Flash which isn't supported by Apple?

Thank you Chuck.

I am getting updated stories. Election reminder is now 4th story down but still no election results. I u derstand iPad/touch/phone not using flash but don't even pretend to know much about coding web pages. I get home tomorrow and will check it out on my home computer. Curious to see the differences.

Frankly I am surprised here is a difference but clearly there is depending on the platform/device you view the webpage from.

I now get the election results on my iPad.
Thank you to whomever is responsible

Best of luck to David, Rebecca, McCoy (Cubs still aint gonna win even if you do.....) and Shive, please help conintue to make our sport better through your dedication and time that you will be giving.

I hope that Decker is able to continue to maintain the finances even if he isn't apoointed to the board, his loss is most dramatic to the board in my mind!

Wish you folks well!

I see that Jennifer Knisley is the Northern California State Coordinator. Does that mean there is a Southern California State Coordinator? I didn't see it on the Election Certification Report.

Every other year voting for 1/2 the country state reps.

In case you missed it,

From the Minutes from August 2011 Teleconference (http://www.pdga.com/pdga-documents/bod/bod-minutes/bod-minutes-2011/minutes-from-august-2011-teleconference):

Dave Nesbitt announced that Cale Leiviska had resigned from the PDGA board of directors earlier in the
day, effective immediately, citing family matters.
.
.
.

MOTION
(Andrews/Jenkins)

Appoint Bob Decker to the Board of Directors for an indeterminate term as of 9/1/2011
Yes: Nesbitt, Korver, Andrews, Jenkins
Abstain: Decker



Motion passes 4-0.

Thank you Juliana, Todd, and Cale for your service.

Ignoring the will of the membership (who expressed their dissatisfaction with Decker in the last election) by reappointing him is a recipe for disaster.

Banana republics that get violently overthrown operate in a similar fashion.

theo will be next...