well, this is an interesting find...

I was going through my Google drive this morning and found this blast from the semi-recent past (it was written and posted to the MRDA forums late in 2013 during the Board of Director elections) that I thought might be interesting to share more widely than I was previously allowed. I've also been thinking a fair piece about what RAWK had to say recently on the Derby Deeds podcast, and I still think these are good points that kind of got lost in some of the other stuff surrounding the election.

Each year the MRDA holds elections for their various positions, where each candidate is asked to write a letter of intent. The Director of Officiating is the only position that's had multiple candidates run in the last two years. While I haven't written very much about why I left the MRDA, since that's still a somewhat difficult and complicated topic, and I'm only four months out of the organization, I still think these ideas are worth discussing and now don't have to keep them buried, given that I'm no longer bound by the rules of that organization.

NB: I deleted the other material around the post (my qualifications, other formalities of candidacy letters etc.) in order to put emphasis on the ideas rather than the politics.

GOALS FOR 2014

I see six areas where we need immediate action from the Director of Officiating. If you have questions, I’m happy to discuss my ideas for any of these at length, but I wanted to keep this letter relatively short.

1. Stabilize Certification with Evaluation and Training.

These three programs have lurched about for a while, never quite settling into the support structure we need to really encourage development in officiating. The Certification program was announced on May 5, 2012, and is still not fully implemented--something is always on hold waiting for something else. When officials have to wait months for evaluations to be processed (some haven’t gotten feedback from Spring Roll yet), they get discouraged and the MRDA loses. We must address these three facets together to create a better environment for better officials.

2. Create a Tournament Staffing Advisory Panel.

In a model similar to the WFTDA’s, we should have an oversight committee made up of skaters and officials to select a tournament’s head officials and provide guidance on building officiating crews, and to make sure review and selection of applicants happens in a timely manner. While the panel’s only technical authority would be over MRDA tournaments, this is a service we could offer to other multi-bout events with a strong MRDA presence, such as The Big O, Spring Roll, and Mohawk Valley Cup, to help these events better staff for the level of play they’re attracting.

3. Create a WFTDA Officiating Liaison Panel.

In addition to our seat on the WFTDA’s Rules Theory Panel (currently held by Miss Trial), I would like to designate two other liaisons to WFTDA Officiating to help communicate shared issues between the two associations, in order to foster and maintain good, public cooperation and the betterment of officiating across both organizations. We have many people who work in both worlds and are well connected; let’s take advantage of that diversity of perspective.

4. Explore the creation of an Assistant Director of Officiating position.

I believe the Director of Officiating should not chair any of the standing officiating committees; that person should be an advisor to all of them, to facilitate cross-committee communication without getting bogged down in the politics or scutwork of any of them, and to represent the interest of the Board on all of them. With the list of initiatives above, this may still be more work than one volunteer should reasonably take on. We are better placed as an organization if we have more than one person who knows how everything fits together--developing natural successors to the Director job makes MRDA Officiating more stable overall.

5. Open the governance: “Town Hall” meetings and term limits for elected officials.

Many of our nearly 200 recognized officials seem to have developed the sense that their opinions don’t matter: they don’t vote; they don’t participate on the forum; they don’t apply to work tournaments or chair committees. They feel it’s the same people making the same decisions every time. We need to do better. Officials and skaters should all feel they can go to their Director, or to anyone on the MRDA Board of Directors, to raise concerns, ask questions, and participate in the governance process. I actively support the creation of a Town Hall / Open Cabinet meeting, where all membership can talk directly with the Board. The MRDA is an organization that we share, and for which we share a responsibility to make it sustainable.

6. Increase investment in the Association among officials.

We have many qualified people ready (or almost ready) to step into tournament and tournament crew head reffing, high-level training, and representing the MRDA to those outside of the organization, but we are not attracting interest. Better transparency in governance will help, and opening up jobs--leader and worker--will create opportunities for more officials to participate. New initiatives like those above call for new people to develop and show their strengths. This is what I do. I’m a teacher at heart; my instinct is to foster personal growth in people by giving them tools and support to take on new challenges.