Legend: MOTION ACTION ITEM Calgary Ultimate Association Annual General Meeting (AGM) December 1, 2015 Calgary Rugby Union MINUTES: 1) Call to order • Meeting called to order at 6:44pm. 2) Approval of agenda • MOTION: Mark MacInnes, seconded by Sarah Ursulan that the agenda be approved as circulated. CARRIED. 3) Review and approval of 2014 minutes • MOTION: Alex Ramadan, seconded by Eric McKenna that the 2014 Annual General Meeting minutes be accepted as presented. CARRIED. 4) Welcome and State of the Union • President Steve Winters went over his goals from last AGM when he took over, we have come a long way but there is still work to be done. • Ran successful competitive draft winter league to offer a higher level of play and remove some of the more competitive players from the recreational league. • Stats were kept in competitive league and draft league salaries were calculated based on these stats. Rec league ran as normal. • Spirit committee was started at the beginning of the summer to help with rules questions, spirit of the game and incident reporting. • Rules videos were created and posted online for people to view. • Advertising for Spring League on Facebook. • Transit ads on trains were used to promote Rookie League to try and get new people to join our leagues. • 4x4 March Madness tournament was run at Calgary West Soccer Center with an old school basketball theme. There was a mixed turn out of CUA veterans and new players. • Hat tournament in May was cancelled due to lack of interest, may be a bad time of year to run a tournament due to summer league starting as well as unpredictable Calgary weather. • Ho-Down went well, smaller scale than in years past but with good weather. Growth of tournament will be a focus in the upcoming year. • UltiGift Tournament on December 13th 2015 still to be run, Reindeer vs Elves theme and a charity aspect to the tournament. • Other leagues were run in the same format as previous years. • Able to play in McMahon again this year in Spring League which helped relieve scheduling constraints. • Monday Singles League dropped this year due to lack of interest and replaced with Rookie League that ran over the last half of summer. There were fewer teams on Wednesday but other than that very similar summer league numbers. Calgary Ultimate Association 1 2015 Annual General Meeting Minutes – Revision 1 Legend: MOTION ACTION ITEM • For the first time games were cancelled this summer due to smoke from the fires in Washington and air quality warnings being issued for the city of Calgary. • 30 teams in fall league, same as last year. • Art Hawkins game was played in June. • A pick-up game over thanksgiving weekend this year as we decided not to run league games that weekend, there was a strong turnout that included some juniors joining in on the action. • All Sport One Day participation – indoor ultimate. • Juniors – Dustin Hong took a leave of absence as one of CJU’s coordinators and was replaced by John Russell. • Juniors have been better integrated with the leagues and volunteers have been out helping. • Terri to stay on as GM for 2016 as well, increased social media presence, better updates for the community, newsletter. • BE Ultimate adopted as apparel sponsor. • CUA / CRU lease agreement – 12 year agreement, money used to improve facility, still in progress and will be a priority for the new board in the coming year. • AUA – currently looking for a permanent president, AB last province to have a provincial organization, looking for board members. • CUA offered practice space to touring teams on Mondays at CRU. • Wild went to Hawaii in February, finished 5th out of 19 at Flowerbowl, 10th at nationals and participated in the Pan-American Ultimate Championships. • Whiskey Jacks won Phoenix Bowl, 9th at nationals with a 6-3 record and have gone 5-0 against Edmonton’s Alberta Flatball Club. • Both the men’s and women’s teams set up social media pages. • Dyna finished 1-1 in the Regionals mini tournament, came 6th at Nationals, played in Flowerbowl and practiced with Whiplash. • FigJam played with Dyna at Ho-Down and played as CarJam at Nationals, bigger and better team to come next year. • Tierney FitzGerald was first player from Calgary to play in the pro leagues, playing with the Nighthawks out of Vancouver. • A number of Calgary folks played beach worlds in Dubai. • Adrianna Rowe played with Team Canada at the U23 Worlds. • Terri Whitehead won Nationals with Traffic and won MVP of final game. • Challenges remain the same, population is getting older and not growing - need to find a new stream of players to grow our sport. • Board remained stable for the entire year which was a big improvement over the previous year. Eric McKenna will be stepping down as CUA Vice-President. 5) Financials • Page 1 – balance sheet, unrestricted net assets $284K, expenses for a year of operations are less than this. • Income statement – made $7k profit this year. • Last year made $41k, lowered league fees was the main driver of this, participation also slightly down. • $21,000 decrease is due to lower league fees - $150 cheaper per team for summer, $5 decrease per player for spring league. Calgary Ultimate Association 2 2015 Annual General Meeting Minutes – Revision 1 Legend: MOTION ACTION ITEM • 2 years ago the CUA received grants of $4k which we didn’t get this year due to missed application deadlines but will be applying next year. • $5k increase in field costs, mostly winter due to shift in fields to Calgary South Soccer center, shortage of field space is a challenge in the winter. • $5k spent on marketing this year. • Cash flow - $6k increase this year. • Participation numbers: o Slightly down in summer, mostly on Wednesday nights. o Winter League is slightly down. o Spring League slightly down for men, flat for women. • Cost per game: o Winter League: $13.50 o Spring League: $12.50 o Summer League: $9 o Fall League: $10 • Martin Glazer asked if CUA applied for any grants. Application deadlines were missed this year and no grants were applied for. • MOTION: John Russell, seconded by John Jenkins that the 2013/2014 financial be approved as presented. CARRIED. • MOTION: Mark MacInnes, seconded by Terri Whitehead to retain our existing accountant (McCallum & Company) for 2015/2016. CARRIED. 6) Juniors • Alex Ramadan has been running the juniors program now for 1.5 years and John Russell started in May 2015. • The goal is to have a fun and challenging program for any kid of any age. • 6 pillars of success – seasonal programs, integration with adult leagues, school engagement and tournaments, competitive program on the horizon, building community, membership knows about the programs. • Seasonal – Juniors participated in the CUA March hat tournament, juniors ran an intro to ultimate program - 3 week learn to throw and catch program as a primer for spring league. • Spring league – 11 weeks at Kingsland, 49 kids, retention was an issue, critical mass issues, typically lose stronger and weaker kids if they feel like outliers, looking to change to clinic model rather than league mostly for the older kids to keep them engaged and challenged. • Summer program – 8 weeks on Monday nights, 57 kids with quite a few new participants, partnered with swimming clubs to increase numbers. • Fall program – 7 week league / program, typically 45 mins of skills and drills then get into games. More expensive because it is on turf and harder to get to fields at Ernest Manning. • Had a team play in fall league with coaches for the more skilled juniors, good response from kids. Older kids typically are good influencers after playing with adults when they go back to practice with juniors, good cross exposure for all programs and community building. • 2 teams in winter league, 1 summer league team and 2 fall league teams. • Engaging schools is still a priority, goal was to have 2 schools play each other, Feb – online forum, adding teachers and talking, 6 different schools at McMahon playing across from adult league. Calgary Ultimate Association 3 2015 Annual General Meeting Minutes – Revision 1 Legend: MOTION ACTION ITEM • Mini tournament amongst school, Juniors coordinators are there to promote and help with what they need and offer programming for interested kids, plan to build on this success. • Tournaments – Showdown ran at the end of May, 8 teams participated at the junior high level, 6 high school teams, 1 Calgary team, 1 Edmonton team. • Trying to run in a more professional manner e.g. with a showcase game and barbeque to get kids and parents excited and talking about their experience. • Winter is Coming tournament ran in the fall with 5 teams. • Working to get a competitive scene going with a sense of community, building a team spirit. • Community - ran in an organized manner like youth soccer, something Frisbee has lacked in the past, monthly newsletter, pro communication with parents, info meetings are all part of the plan. • Visibility within CUA, getting the word out and volunteer recognition is important to grow the program. • Lessons learned and looking ahead – partnership with YMCA to help with promotion, Alex and John to run program and this should help with numbers due to legitimacy the YMCA brand brings, run for spring league. • Looking to improve volunteer organization, can increase offering with better organization i.e. scheduling and ensuring there are enough volunteers for each event. • Growing school networks and online communication is the way to get student participation, junior coordinators cannot go into schools on their own without teachers. • Series of tournaments at schools next spring.