MADC 2007-2008 Fall Elections announcement

madcitydisc.org

8 Guests, 0 Users

[coyoteugly]

We are now actively seeking candidates for the MADC 2007-2008 Fall elections.

Our current board:
President - Todd Ebens (resigned)
Vice-President: Dan Madden
Treasurer: Jamie Royea
Secretary: Mike Farnham

At-Large 1: Nic A. Lelm
At-Large 2: Jay Smith
At-Large 3: Kipp Van Orsdel

The election will be held at the Fall Picnic, on Sunday, October 21st (location to be determined).

The following positions are up for election per the By-Laws.

Vice-President (2 year term)
Secretary (2 year term)

At-Large all three (1 year terms)

And, President, if we do not have one by the Fall Picnic, Sunday, October 21st.

Please consider presenting yourself as a candidate.
We have been meeting on the 2nd Monday of the month,
on a monthly basis.

The theme for the upcoming year will be Expansion.
We will also be focusing on the Elver Park Disc Golf Course renovations.

Candidates must be a member of the Madison Area Disc Club.

Candidates should prepare and submit a platform statement indicating
 what they stand for with regards to disc sports in Madison and beyond.
A brief bio would also be helpful including how long they have been playing disc golf and other tidbits.

To be on the official ballot, candidates must announce by October 14, 2007.

Write-in candidates are allowed.

[kvanorsdel]

I guess I will start things off.

I will be running again for the MADC Board.  I am 33 and have been playing disc sports since 1993 (ultimate in college)  I have been actively playing disc golf since 2003.  I started volunteering my time with the MADC in early 2006 when I offered to help with the MADC website and since that time have redesigned the website to have a better flow and establish this forum to the Madison discing community.

This past year, as an "at-large", I have coordinated the Elver Park Adopt-A-Hole project, I have taken to moving the baskets at Elver, on what I hope to be a pretty consistent schedule, maintained the MADC website and forum, helped with MCO and other things as well.

In my next term on the board I would like to push the club to help expand the number of baskets and courses in Dane County.  I feel there is a need for more course in area communities and the MADC should be actively offering our services and resources to help in the development of these area courses.  I think its important to let area communities know 9 holes can be just as good as 18, they are definitely better then 0.

I also feel it will be important to work with the city to revitalize the Elver Park course, through the planned renovation as well as the general up keep by the parks dept., ie. Mowing the fairways on a consistent basis .

Lastly I will try to get the Board to put together a 5yr plan that will be available to all club members, parks depts, etc that will show the direction the club will take in the current and following years with regards to the current two city courses, club projects, expansion and what ever else gets decided upon.

[kvanorsdel]

Here is a listing of what the roles of the board members are.  They can also be found in the MADC Bylaws

President - Prepares agenda, chairs monthly meetings, oversees all club operations, can sign checks.

Vice President - Helps president with his duties, and assumes presidency if president is vacant or incapacitated.

Secretary - Prepares agenda, keeps minutes of all club meeting and actions. Maintains club member database. Makes minutes available to club members.

At-large Directors - Attend all meetings and help the club and executive directors as needed.

[Nic Lelm]

Since I have decided to run for the Vice President position on the MADC Board I figured (and Mike Farnham gave me a little push to do this as well) I better state my positions on some of the current and upcoming topics that affect the club. 

A little history about myself and how I got into disc golf.  It was the summer of 1996 and as a soon to be freshman in high school I couldn't figure out what these baskets with chains where that had showed up in the city park the summer before.  Don't laugh to hard but us kids growing up in the middle of North Dakota had never heard of such a thing as disc golf.  So in talking with people we knew somebody had to make some contact with the park board to find out what the purpose of these things "baskets" were.  Since I was the one asking lots of questions naturally I was told it should be me who made the contact.  That is when frisbee golf (as it was explained to me) became part of my life.  After a short meeting with the park board president I went home and grabbed my less than 100 gram (maybe only 75) hyper glide standard frisbee and started figuring out how to play the game.  It was very challenging and something to do in a small town of 1100 people.  It was made even harder by the homemade baskets with a single set of chains and with a basket that didn't hold discs since there we only 9 bars to hold the disc in with no crossbars. I had only one real disc when I moved to Madison in 2001 and after about half a summer playing here I was convinced I needed to learn to use a putter.  Now I carry way to many discs always trying to figure out some new plastic!  If I keep up my current pace of disc additions I'm going to need a suitcase to play a round.

How I got involved with the MADC...One thing that always bothered me about disc golf was the amount of trash that was left behind and there had to be a better way to take care of the course.  So I started bringing cheap garbage bags with me out to Hiestand to start cleaning up the garbage.  I would then leave this partially filled bag at the tee pad to be filled with trash and hopefully at some point hauled off the course.  Well needless to say the hard working course pro had tons of problems getting these bags off the course without all the trash dumping back out onto the ground.  So I then realized that it would be better to take my energy and put it to use with a group of like minded people (MADC members and board) and through some quite interesting discussions now we have the adopt a hole at Hiestand as well as Elver.  In my first year as an active member and also a board member I learned lots and see there is so much to more to learn about disc golf in Madison.  I would also like to thank all the other board members for there patients in dealing with me on all sorts of issues from my personal struggles (taking a leave from the board) and my willingness to push for answers and sometimes push a little to much with my ability to be long winded.

Why I want to be VP - With the current situation facing the board and the club I feel like I can play a vital role in helping us move foreward.  That situation is with some of the long time board members wanting to reduce there role a little bit but still stay active leads to some openings in the board.  I would like to focus on continuing to build the club and try to get more people ACTIVELY involved and not just be members on paper.  As the club grows and we try to grow the sport it will lead to many challenges needing more people to help every year.  Whether it is course maintenance at Elver or keeping up with what we have started to do with the adopt a hole at both courses.  As the sport grows we will need to get very serious about getting more holes in the ground to keep the crowding down and have new challenges for the players.  I look forward to helping decide the future of disc golf in the Madison area.  On that note I think I have rambled enough and look forward to seeing you all at the picnic on Sunday!  Come out and have a good time cause this is for YOU!  I would like to extend a great amount of thanks to all who have made this a very successful season and look forward to many more.
peace
Nic A. Lelm

[coyoteugly]

Well said Nic.

I too am running for re-election as Secretary of the Madison Area Disc Club.
Why? There are many reasons
1. Because NOBODY else will do it.
2. Because, YES, I am the Secretary of the Madison Area Disc Club and <doink> proud of it.
3. Because, I went out and bought Magnetic Signs for my car Promoting MADC.
4. Because, 1500 business cards say I'm the Secretary of the Madison Area Disc Club.
4. Because, we aren't done yet.

For those who don't know:

My name is Mike Farnham. I've been involved with the club for 2.5 years. I've been playing disc golf
for 3 years. I first learned about disc golf, at Hiestand Park. So, Hiestand Park has a special place in my heart.  I chose "CoyoteUgly" as my forum name because I bought a Champion Coyote and found it really was one disc that you could use to play an entire round. I, therefore, termed it a "Coyote Ugly" round. Sorry, it's not about the bar. Although, while I was in Charlotte, NC, I did get to play a round with a guy who is a bouncer at the Coyote Ugly bar in Charlotte.

Anyhow, as Nic so clearly illustrated 2007 has been a fantastic year for Disc Golf, in Madison, and beyond.  When I first started attending board meetings, I sat back and made some observations. I then codified these as "Vision" statements. I'll list them here, and you can see why 2007 has been incredible.

The Madison Area Disc Sports scene will be a place where:
1. There is no trash problem on the Disc Golf Courses.
2. There is a course or courses available for play in Winter.
3. Disc Golf players frequently help out with Course Maintenance.
4. MADC has a vibrant and active membership.
5. Tournaments attract the majority of the local players.
6. Tournaments are heartily sponsored by community establishments.
7. New courses are being pursued within Dane County

If you examine this list, you will see that:
1. Adopt-A-Hole is in place at Elver and Hiestand. I believe the courses have never looked better.
2. Hiestand was actually open 11 months last year. Stoughton has been in-ground.
(But, yes, we can do better.)
3. We have seen many new faces this year on work days.
4. I think the Bag Tag challenges show that more club members are active.
5. We had a record number of players at the Mad City Open.
6. Not yet, but our MADC 2007 Fall Picnic certainly is, and I believe these sponsors will be willing to get on board with sponsoring tournaments.
7. 2007-2008 will be the year of EXPANSION where we are pursing new courses.

So, now it is time to determine some new vision statements.
I know one will be:

MADC has excellent ongoing Community Relations wtih:
-The Parks Department
-The Neighborhood Associations
-Disc Sports enthusiasts
-Other people who use the parks where we play

It has been a joy and privilege to serve with the 2006-2008 Madison Area Disc Club board.

And, I am wiling to continue to do so with the 2007-2008 Board.

I also would like to thank all who have contributed to the improvement in my disc golf game.
Sure, I can hang the Badger State Games Silver Medal on my wall,
but how does that compare to my peers nominating me as Most Improved?

PRICELESS!