PDGA Board of Director Elections

[roblee]

To clarify: I wouldn't choose a candidate only because they choose to prioritize a rule tweak.

[biscoe]

Originally Posted by ThrowBot

Totally fair and valid. The concept originally occurred to me while reading the organizational changes that others wanted -- in this very thread. (Especially from biscoe, who has a much better perspective on such things than I do.)

So I'm not saying there's any huge flaw in the PDGA. But for those who do want to see changes, there are different options for how to shake things up.

Especially when the criticism is that options are limited and things are stale. My thought process is: if you keep taking the same inputs and putting them through the same system, you'll get the same outputs. Stagnation.

How do you change things up? Depends on the target audience that you want these changes to appeal to. Hence my thought to loosen up the voting restrictions. And I admit, yeah it's outside the box. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily worthless.

My little list of "wants" are all fairly inconsequential in terms of choosing board members. The recent boards have been the best in my memory. There is no stagnation. I would encourage voting for continuity as much as anything else at this point. Pretty sure my votes will be for Laura and Phil Mills.

[DavidSauls]

Originally Posted by ThrowBot

Especially when the criticism is that options are limited and things are stale. My thought process is: if you keep taking the same inputs and putting them through the same system, you'll get the same outputs. Stagnation.

This must be some defintion of "stagnation" of which I was previously unaware.

Disc golf is booming, from the top to the bottom.

At the bottom, the number of courses, tournament players, casual players, etc., have skyrocketed. Disc sales are so brisk that manufacturers are struggling to keep up.

At the top, we have more stars, making more big money, and getting more attention from the wider world than ever before.

If there's a risk, it's that a future board will not be able to keep up -- that it will struggle with scaling up the day-to-day operations, or that money will peel off the top layer of the game.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Originally Posted by robdeforge

I would take the rest of your post more seriously, but since you're suggesting that one of the main reasons why people are against step putts is that they're not good at them personally shows that you are not actually interested in discourse

Yeah, forgive me for getting carried away there. Probably not the thread for the discussion. My main point I was attempting to get at was...wouldn't it be nice to know where they stand on this since I see a fair amount of banter on the subject, and we are free to vote for whom we agree?

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by Central Scrutinizer

Yeah, forgive me for getting carried away there. Probably not the thread for the discussion. My main point I was attempting to get at was...wouldn't it be nice to know where they stand on this since I see a fair amount of banter on the subject, and we are free to vote for whom we agree?

I do not want Board candidates to express opinions on things they haven't fully considered. That would only lock them in to their first impression on any subject.

I want Directors who have principles that they will follow, and who will make decisions based on those principles after learning all they can about an issue and weighing all consequences.

Their final decision will - and should - often be different than the opinion they formed when they first heard about an issue.

I want to know what principles they intend to follow.

[Moose33]

This is a tougher ballot this time. A lot of the more experienced candidates have vague goals, but the. East ones with more precise vision have no experience.

Will just have to watch all the videos again and see.

[Three Putt]

Originally Posted by ThrowBot

Totally fair and valid. The concept originally occurred to me while reading the organizational changes that others wanted -- in this very thread. (Especially from biscoe, who has a much better perspective on such things than I do.)

So I'm not saying there's any huge flaw in the PDGA. But for those who do want to see changes, there are different options for how to shake things up.

Especially when the criticism is that options are limited and things are stale. My thought process is: if you keep taking the same inputs and putting them through the same system, you'll get the same outputs. Stagnation.

How do you change things up? Depends on the target audience that you want these changes to appeal to. Hence my thought to loosen up the voting restrictions. And I admit, yeah it's outside the box. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily worthless.

I think a lot of it has to do with perspective. I know from my perspective a criticism I have is that the PDGA tends to tunnel vision big successful pro-centered events and create rules without considering that there are still small emerging markets that face entirely different issues. I tend to see them as pro-disc golf centered. Pro disc golfers all the time complain that the PDGA is amateur centered and that they don't cater enough to the pro game. Obviously there is a disconnect there.

That to me comes down to people with vastly different scenarios and priorities. One person wants more resources put into helping members develop courses and promote play at the grass roots level, and one person wants billboards in Boston promoting the MVP Open. They are both looking at the same org to do that. That puts the PDGA in an impossible situation where there is no way to keep everyone happy.

You need to remember that while we complain about the PDGA; some of it has to do with unrealistic expectations (new players expect it to be a very organized big time org with lots of resources when it's really been a bunch of volunteers on a wing and a prayer for decades) and some of it has to do with the impossible expectation that it can cover the entire sport top to bottom and keep us all happy.

To me the "organizational change" that fixes a lot of that will be the scenario where the DGPT feels successful enough to rip off the band aid and pro disc golf splits to a separate org. How the PDGA would reorganize at that point will be...interesting? If it happens. I still think that day isn't as close as a lot of people want it to be, and I'm not convinced that day is inevitable. Anything can happen, though.

[Rastnav]

Alright, this is perhaps a stupid question, but, does it matter at all what the opinions of the board members are on rule changes? They don’t have any role in changing the rule sets? I though the rules committee and the competition committee were the relevant authorities. Or, am mistaken in that impression?

[krupicka]

Originally Posted by Rastnav

Alright, this is perhaps a stupid question, but, does it matter at all what the opinions of the board members are on rule changes? They don’t have any role in changing the rule sets? I though the rules committee and the competition committee were the relevant authorities. Or, am mistaken in that impression?

The Rules Committee serves at the pleasure of the BOD. We (the RC) will present proposals for changes to the ORDG to the BOD for their approval. For the most part they are not involved in putting the proposals together. That's why there is a RC. We spend a lot of time mulling things over and debating them before they even get to the BOD for their approval. The BOD should be spending their time on other topics most of the time.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by Rastnav

Alright, this is perhaps a stupid question, but, does it matter at all what the opinions of the board members are on rule changes? They don’t have any role in changing the rule sets? I though the rules committee and the competition committee were the relevant authorities. Or, am mistaken in that impression?

The Board has final say.