hi again,

from my first message (which you can read at
groups.yahoo.com/group/upc-international/message/15), i think our goals are:

* to make a selection that, in the opinion of the selectors, maximises the
benefits for nz ultimate through increasing the skills of the domestic
player base, and encouraging players to stay in/take up the game. and,

* make that selection through a process that is clear and transparent,
simple, and rationally defensible.

i think my views on upc funding are pretty clear from that first email as
well. i think there are better things to do with the upc's money than use it
for grants for individual players.

how much money is there?
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there are 230 current members whose first interest is not golf. there are
four tour events (counting the open), and another 3 or 4 tournies that are
national enough to allow the nzupc to levy (brass monkey, taupo hat, indoor
nats, possibly disc wars). so let's say 8 tournies. let's say 150 members go
to the tour events, and 75 to the second set of four. i haven't played in nz
this year, so my numbers might be a bit out. results:

* there are 900 levy-able attendees (150*4 + 75*4).
* if the levy is $5, total collected is $5 * 900 = $4,500
* if the levy is $10, total collected is $10 * 900 = $9,000

at $10, international representation is going to make up somewhere between
25% and 50% of the total cost of the tournaments. $4,500 will get one player
to a worlds in the US and pay for almost everything. $1,000 should be enough
to cover any event in australia. so by levying every player at the 8
tournies above $10 each, we could send two players to worlds (every second
year, you see), and four or five to the various australian events (nats,
mixed nats, uni games?). upc would have no money for anything else.

rach - do we know how much is actually collected by the levy, so we can get
a feel for the accuracy of these numbers.

how much would we pay?
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realistically, though, we would not want to pay all costs for just one
player. the value we would want to pay is related to the amount that would
make the difference between that player going or not going, and the boost to
domestic ulti that would result from having that player on the team.

the problem is, of course, that we just do not know:

* the value to domestic ultimate in the future from sending any particular
player to worlds now, or
* how much money is the minimum required to convince a player who was
otherwise wavering to go.

one solution is to award a relatively small grant (say $500) to a couple of
attendees through a competitive process. so applicants would need to say why
we should pick them over anyone else in terms of the boost to domestic
ultimate from subsidising them. and there would be no expectation that the
upc would award any grants at all. we could make the grant repayable if
certain conditions were not met (with regard to participation in domestic
ultimate).

this might mean that some players go to international events that otherwise
would not. and that might lead boost the level of domestic ultimate.

i think this is a bad idea
--------------------------------
to me though, this kind of scheme suffers from at least three major flaws:

* we just don't know in advance whether our money is likely to be well spent
on a subsidy or not. the idea of picking winners just does not appeal to me
at all. indeed, it could be argued that those most likely to pay for
themselves to get to an international event are the most motivated, and
therefore the most likely to contribute to domestic ultimate regardless of a
subsidy. there are other ways to find funds to travel (sponsorship,
fund-raising) that don't put the funds of nz ultimate players at risk.
* it opens up a whole host of issues around who gets funding and who does
not that are very difficult to navigate. questions of how the upc decided to
subsidise someone are inherently very difficult to justify on any rational
basis. even if we had principles enshrined in the policy about who should be
chosen, we face significant difficulty in applying them in a particular
case. and the upc would always be open to complaints of bias and
favouritism. this hassle might be worth enduring if the goal were
worthwhile, but, as i said, i don't think the payoffs are that big or that
certain from this kind of policy.
* most players would be happy to support a new zealand team to some degree.
but most players would be much less likely (it seems to me) to be keen to
pay a substantial sum to a person that they might know very little about for
that person to go have a great time at a tournament overseas.

i say stick with what we know
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so i start to think that upc funding is probably better used in other ways
than in subsidising one or two players to get to a tourney.

as i said before, if the upc wants to support international teams, i think
the best thing to do is to provide a recognition of achievement and a
gesture of support. the existing ideas on paying for uniforms or entry fees
are good ones.

thoughts anyone?

my last email (i promise) is processes and rules, building on what rach sent
through before.


h