Peri already published a great summary of the board meeting this past January in this blog's first post, but now that the minutes have come out from the meeting, I wanted to go into a little more depth about how discussions of proposals work. As a first year Board member, I learned a lot about how the proposal process functions at the January meeting--information which I'd like to share with interested members. Hopefully this will also help those of you who plan on submitting proposals to the UPA in the future.
To start, the UPA website already has a pretty detailed outline of what needs to go into proposals. Of all the proposals that get submitted to the UPA, those that purely concern logistics (called operational proposals) never make it to the Board and are dealt with by the UPA administration. The proposals the Board does review and vote on are policy proposals that pertain to setting the priorities and policy that then guide implementation by Staff.
This year, the Board reviewed 18 different proposals, of which 4 were submitted by UPA members not affiliated with the Board, Staff, or various volunteer Task Forces. Three more proposals submitted by more non-Board/Staff members were discussed and voted on during the February Executive Committee conference call. It's great to have so many "regular" members submitting proposals!
To take you through what happens when a proposal is discussed and voted on, I'll use the first proposal on the agenda as an example (page 2 of the minutes). Will Deaver had submitted a proposal titled, "Assistance Provided to 2009 DIII College Nationals." Beforehand, all the meeting attendees (which includes Board members, UPA Staff, and all the National Directors) had a chance to read the proposal, which included extensive background, laid out the pros and cons, and had the estimated financial impact of the proposal. With the proposal on the table, people were able to ask questions about specific points in the background, pros/cons, or financial impact and discuss the wording of the proposal itself. The Staff and National Directors were active participants in this (and other) discussions and often provided extremely valuable "on the ground" insights.
The wording of the proposal is very important to whether or not a proposal will be passed. In this case, the use of the term "offer" rather than more directive terms was an important element as no one wanted the UPA to be overstepping its welcome among the organizers still responsible for running the DIII College Nationals event. In general, if any proposal wording is too specific or narrow, it could be a stumbling block for the chances of that proposal passing. Or at the very least, be cause for an amendment of the wording.
In the case of the DIII Nationals proposal, the Board realized that the clause about the "promotion of the event" was actually not quite specific enough as there was no explicit mention of helping to promote the expansion of the event to include a women's division (DIII Nationals had yet to field a women's division in previous years). Given the gender equity policy that was passed in the summer of 2008, using UPA assistance to help the event attract enough teams for a women's division seemed like a necessary goal. As such, new language was proposed to amend the proposal and the Board voted on the proposal with the new wording included.
Also important is how a proposal fits in with the bigger picture of the direction the UPA is headed. This proposal dovetailed quite nicely with the future plans for restructuring the College Division that Will Deaver had just presented to the Board (and which are now public and open for feedback), which included the addition of UPA Championship events for different tiers of play.
After the questions and answers, discussion, and language amendment, the proposal was put to a vote. All 12 Board members voted in favor of the proposal and it passed. The UPA is now listed as a sponsor on the tournament website and I believe that an important partnership was formed.
A similar process was repeated for the other proposals put to the Board. I was impressed with the level of critical thinking during the discussion period for each proposal. People asked the tough questions and often challenged each other's assumptions, albeit respectfully and constructively. Through these discussions, the meeting attendees were able to work through a number of very complex proposals, and the Board was able to come to a general sense of consensus on most proposals. The process seemed well suited for getting at the heart of the issues and I believe that everyone left the meeting with optimism and positive thoughts about the future of ultimate and the UPA.
Gwen
-----
You can post a message to the entire Board by commenting here (comments will not be publicly viewable, but will be read by the Board), or feel free to send me an email about this or anything else at gwen.ambler@upa.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment