Central Maryland Ultimate Association Open Board Meeting Minutes
Friday, February 10th, 2023 at 6:30pm
Attendees: Anne*, Nadia*, Mykiah*, Kevin*, Xavier, Tim, Alan*, Dani, Erica, Alex C., Robert, Jim, Adi, Ben
* Elected Board position
- Introductions
- Board introduced themselves, how long they’ve served on the Board, and their general ultimate experience.
- Anne provided context around CMUA and its position within Catonsville Rec. & Parks Council (CRPC).
- 2022 Year in Review: League Participation
- Spring: 72 players
- Summer Draft: 100 players
- Summer Clique: 154 players
- Fall: 81 players
- Moving Forward: 2023
- Coaching clinic planned for February 26th, 9am at Banneker Community Center
- All leagues are continuing as usual
- Increased use of social media
- First annual survey completed in January 2023
- Youth clinics
- Adding prizes and captain gifts in leagues
- Youth Ultimate
- Xavier is the USAU State Competition Coordinator for MD
- This year we will continue to support and strengthen the existing programs
- There are several coaching opportunities to support youth ultimate
- Notre Dame Prep (Spring)
- Towson Rec. Council Youth Ultimate
- Howard County Youth Ultimate
- Goal is to create one large traveling girls/non-binary team to grow that community and support
- Reviewed League/Equity Survey Results
- High league satisfaction, including in race and gender categories
- Biggest complaint is the times. Other complaints are locations and level of competition
- Suggestions were for longer games or multiple games a night
- Respondents also indicated wanting to rely more on social media for league advertising, sign-up, and updates
- Q & A
- Rob: What are we doing differently for youth clinics this year? The previous attempt was unsuccessful.
- Targeted advertising early on, framing it is as a clinic where they learn the basics and aren’t thrown into games right away. A local soccer coach has reached out and is interested in coordinating with us. We also need 1-2 more volunteers to help run these clinics.
- Erica: Would it make sense to incentivize volunteering? Like with a CMUA disc?
- Yes! We are considering this and working on the details.
- Jim: At least for the summer it would be great to have a list of “vacancies” with “job descriptions.” It would be helpful for me to spread it to the college guys I coach.
- We include coaching vacancies as they come in through our newsletter and we can keep doing this.
- Erica: Since there are a lot of board members who played at local colleges, is there a way to engage more current college players, especially WMP, in leagues and volunteering?
- Yes! Four of the Board members are active college ultimate coaches and are working to engage their players in CMUA leagues, volunteering, and events.
- Alex C.: My sense from the conversations I’ve had with USA ultimate folks is that at a certain point the sanctioning [of YCC games] might be necessary to get bids.
- Not having a sanctioned youth league makes this difficult. YCC being in Aurora also makes it difficult to get our bid accepted since there is less field space. More teams are leaning towards an alternate youth tournament in Blaine, and we have bids in both.
- Rob: What are we doing differently for youth clinics this year? The previous attempt was unsuccessful.