I am taking a break from foos, various reasons why. if you're curious ask Vern.
Vern has agreed to keep taking care of the loonies and dealing with the business side with Tail Gators.
OFA will need someone to take care of the rest.
I suggest you hold a meeting to figure out who will run the league and move OFA in its new direction. When you guys have figured out who that is, I'll hand over the keys to the cat herding bus. I tried to make sure OFA was on solid ground, new website and fall promotions underway, before I go Buske on you guys.
"Man's way to God is with beer in hand." - some Belgium monk
04-Oct-2016, 12:08 PM (This post was last modified: 05-Oct-2016, 09:59 AM by Jester.)
Hello all,
In response to Chris's post, 8 of OFA's core members sat down on Friday September 30th at 7:30pm for about an hour and discussed the best ways for OFA to move forward considering Chris's request for a break.
Sweeping changes are not necessary, in fact, we wan't to preserve what we currently have and grow within our existing frame work.
So what we will do moving forward is alleviating most of the responsibilities from Chris, and spread those responsibilities among myself, Vern, Taha, and anyone else willing to step up and do their part. So what we have done is broken down the things that need to be done at OFA, and created a few 'positions' for people to sign up for. By spreading responsibilities out over a few different people, no single person should feel a heavy burden, as the responsibilities are manageable. All of the positions should have a primary and secondary person, so that if someone can't make it to foos their role is filled.
This post is meant to continue the discussion, nothing is set in stone and things can be changed, if you have an idea, post it up.
President & Treasurer Chris Thomas
OFA has a bank account, it has an income, so transferring all of the financial responsibilities and specifics to a new person would be very challenging. So we tried to avoid this and Chris is not leaving the OFA, he's staying but would just like a reduced role, so it naturally made sense for him to maintain financial control and the Presidency.
League & Friday Foos Coordinator Primary = Vern Rose Secondary = Jesse Haw
Responsibilities:
- arrive 30 minutes before league or DYP starts
- have league sheets and clip boards set up
- loonie bin
- collect league fees
- collect completed league sheets (picture of each completed sheet sent to Casti/Jesse)
Tournament Coordinator Primary = Jesse Haw Secondary = Jon Trudel
Responsibilities:
- organize one Ottawa tournament per 18 months
- promote said tournament
- promote other tournaments to OFA players
- help OFA players get to tournaments
Maintenance Coordinator Primary = Taha Taha Secondary = Jon Trudel
Responsibilities:
- ensure all the tables are good to play before league or DYP starts, level, no broken parts, lubed rods, etc
- during the night when a table needs maintenance, stop your game and fix it
- head official, if players have questions regarding rules, go to Taha
Responsibilities:
- keep the NEW website and our forum updated
- maintain the weekly match up schedule on the forum
- respond to email requests for account creation, inquires about league, etc
- update the league and player stats
Promoter Primary = ???????? Secondary = ????????
Responsibilities:
- promote the OFA to new players
- this job is arguably the most important, and Chris has already done flyer advertising, created a new website, and utilized MeetUp and Reddit to promote, so not much needs to be done on this for now
- we should all be taking on this role, we need new players, all of us need to recruit
Good write up and interesting suggestions relative to a way forward. I was hoping some other foosers would have some opinions and perhaps offer up some other options. I know lots of foosers have experience with other operating models from involvement in other areas. Now is a chance to push Ottawa foos forward. Nows your chance nothing struck in stone at this time..
All looks fine to me that's where we left things off from the meeting. I can at least take on the role of backing up Taha on the maintenance side as well as help promote and run tournaments when needed.
Responsibilities:
- keep the NEW website and our forum updated
- maintain the weekly match up schedule on the forum
- respond to email requests for account creation, inquires about league, etc
- update the league and player stats
I can take this on. Since I'm mostly remote right now because of my work schedule, would need bit of help from people to get some photos of the league sheets.
Looks like just the promoter position left available, and Chris has already done the flyers for this year so that looks to be taken care of. We all should become recruiters, we need some new blood at OFA.
I think the promoter is the most important position and where the majority of the work is needed. Most everything else: league, website, maintenance; is well established and requires little effort.
It is the talking to new players at the tables, posting to reddit/meetup websites, printing and posting flyers for events like PS4. Figuring out what is the most effective method of advertising.
The flyers didn't work - the reason I think is that they were delivered with all the other flyers and most people just toss all of it out. If I do it again I'll pay some high school kid to deliver them separate from any other flyers. Meetup seems to be working and cost a lot less ($80/six months vs. $700 for the flyers).
"Man's way to God is with beer in hand." - some Belgium monk
Agreed... The promoter position is really where it takes someone who is active. I voiced at the meeting that this would be difficult to fill. It can't be a free-for-all, since the mentality of "Well we're all responsible, so I don't have to be that active" will prevail.
I think that we need to select someone to have a leading role in this position. Someone to delegate tasks to a squad of others, and to control the direction that promotion takes.
I'm not interested in this role, I just believe this is what is needed...
Hey everyone:
Okay, so it looks like I am not taking a break after all since I was convinced to play in the league. I will stay on as the owner, president, treasurer and league coordinator however, I need to clear up some small details that have surfaced as a result of trying to have a break.
The structure of OFA should probably be clarified. OFA was registered as a Not-For-Profit (NFP) back in the day at Zampubs in order to get government funding. The NFP status has served us well despite never getting the funding. This was only a year long project.
In reality since we moved to TG I have grown OFA and managed it as vending business with me as the owner. In order to do this I used my personal funds including my credit card, bank account, ect... You can divide OFA into two halves: the vending operation (tables); and the league and players. I have had some help from the membership over the years but I have been the principal promoter and driver of the business and club especially since we moved to our present location.
The question was raised during the meetings about who owns OFA? I ran OFA as my business and hobby. I have never tried to make any amount of money for myself but turned any profit back into parts and wraps and supporting the growth of the business including add ins for prizes and small parties. Without someone with the same drive, motivation and passion that I have for OFA it would be a smaller organization today.
Since I am not going anywhere and I'll still be playing and organizing I just wanted to clarify my position and a suggest a way forward. I think everyone would agree that over the past ten years I have put a lot of effort and time in to get OFA where we are today.
Sometime in the near future it would be nice to see someone step up and run leagues and tourneys. Running of OFA, organizing the leagues and such would be the paid position that the vending side would support. Basically this means that in the future we can pay someone else to run events/leagues when I want/need to take a break.
Nothing would change. OFA would still be funded the same way. I just wanted to clarify things as discussions about who owns the tables came up. That way in the future if/when day comes we know how to handle things.
If anyone objects please come and see me and we can discuss any of this post. I am an open book on OFA...
"Man's way to God is with beer in hand." - some Belgium monk
