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#Post#: 22--------------------------------------------------
5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Ladytkd Date: May 28, 2014, 10:57 am
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Basic notes from the USAT BOD Meeting 5/27/14:
Don Reynolds did a good job as Chair since Devin was not able to
be on the entire call.
Sarah, the membership person, will be going to Events Manager
and the current intern will probably be hired as Membership. A
new COO will be hired - Marty fired Steve, the last COO in 2011.
There are 60 applicants for Kevin's old positions and they are
working on filling that spot.
1200 coaches, referees, volunteers but not athletes, have done
background checks. There is a mandatory video for Safe Sport
which has not been implemented but will be when the technology
is worked out. Nothing said about when or if Life Members'
technical issue has been worked out and if Life Members are now
required to take background checks if they participate in the
areas that require a background check.
UFC - check it out on 5/31. USAT logo will be on two of the
mats. USAT will get exposure from UFC but no money. So far,
other than exposure it is hard to tell what USAT will get for
this. No explanation of how this will improve the USAT brand but
be sure to watch so you can see the USAT logo that the general
public will not recognize on the UFC mats.
Nationals' registration began last week (doesn't this usually go
up months before not weeks before?). There are 150-250
registrations per day in that week. Devin asked that the
registrations be tracked weekly. However, that would make more
sense if registration had begun at the usual time instead of so
late, but who knows - might be useful information.
There will be a VIP reception by the Korean Tourism people.
About 100 coaches, masters, whomever USAT determines is a VIP
will be invited to the free reception. I am assuming the purpose
is to sell trips to Korea, hopefully at a discount for USAT
members.
The CEO wants to set up a USAT Foundation to raise money for the
USAT, as was done in the past. (The money disappeared and was
never accounted for back in about 2003. May have gone for
payroll, I don't know. I know there were 6 figures on the
financials and then there was nothing. Anyway, the new
Foundation will give preferential treatment to donors for trip
positions like Head of Team. Dean Ekeren stepped in and objected
to "selling" positions, the CEO came back with he meant
honorary. Mr. Ekeren seemed to indicate he was not fond of this
idea. It will be developed further.
Lots of discussion on marketing and branding. Won't even go into
it. Hopefully these discussions are more fruitful than all the
others over the years. Same issues. Discussions about
researching this and that, research is already done but no one
seems to know that.
As already reported, there was a discussion on the Cadet
contributions. The CEO swore no one paid over $2300 for a plane
ticket. The CEO admitted that the Junior trip went over budget,
he didn't know how much but blamed higher plane tickets and the
captive audience in the venue locations for higher hotel and
plane costs. No one asked why this was not anticipated. There
was an attempt to pin him down but no useful information. No
transparency. Same old, same old. I do have information from
sources who paid plane tickets that there are tickets over $2300
but of course, that is being written off as "internet
conspiracy." Really?
Point made several times that all Aspire Camp money is to go to
the kids, but no explanation at all of how it has been spent and
where and if any of that money went to pay expenses of staff
going along on the trips and how the money is being divided
between the Junior trip which was fully funded and the Cadet
trip where parents have already put out how much money for plane
tickets? You can put all the money to Aspire and the parents
won't see anything depending on how the money is allocated. No
comments on the September possible reimbursement when the camps
are over and the junior trip is over.
Some interesting numbers were tossed and more interesting were
the numbers not discussed. The CEO said there was another
$10,000 raised last weekend. He didn't know how much was raised
already. He didn't mention the $5300 in donated money from
sources outside the camp. Didn't know, didn't know, didn't say.
BOD member asked if this money is being recorded as income or as
donations. CEO answered that the Aspire camp money was being
recorded as donations.
NCTA hopped in asking for money. Mr. Harris said they were at
the top of the list for support when possible.
Discussion on the matrix for evaluating the CEO.
CEO asked about membership numbers. He said there were 16,900
members. He was asked about last year at this time - didn't
know, said 12,000 at the beginning of year - actual figure from
the Staff reports was 13,640 with that number dropping slightly
to 13,473 in February. No one commented on the fact that USAT
has a rolling membership so you really can't compare increase
from Jan to Dec. but hey, if they want to compare apples to
oranges - who am I to argue? Mr. Johnson reminded Mr. Harris the
BOD wants membership numbers every meeting, something he says
almost every meeting.
There was an Executive Session on Safe Sport Implementation and
Office Staffing.
#Post#: 23--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: TaekwondoDad Date: May 28, 2014, 1:02 pm
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A new COO? You mean someone to actually run the USAT? That
would be awesome. Sit Mr. Harris on the sidelines. Make his
position honorary. Make his pay honorary too. Even better
year, let him donate $20k - $30k to have the honorary title he
craves with no responsibilities.
Am I missing something here? I really like the idea of a COO to
actually run the USAT. The lack of someone remotely interested
in running a business having a day to day role in management has
been THE major flaw contributing to the most problems over the
past year. Find someone with some business sense to run things
and put Mr. Harris in a corner with a paper crown that says
"CEO" on it and tell him not to touch anything. A dream come
true!
On the other hand, this is another salary and most likely a
hefty one. So I have to say I am really disappointed that while
parents are shelling out THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to pay for TEAM
TRIPS the USAT will be taking on yet another hefty salary to pay
someone to do the job that the CEO is already being paid to do.
Kudos to the members of the Board who realize that the USAT is a
BUSINESS and needs someone to manage day to day operations.
Hopefully this is the first step and the Board will soon realize
money would be better spent paying for USA athletes to compete
overseas than paying for a paper CEO to travel the world.
The Governance Committee has done a great job so far working on
the Bylaws, but has a long way to go in cleaning up the mess
they inherited. I hope they are ready for the rewrites
necessary to delineate the responsibilities between the CEO and
COO. If they find a qualified COO it will be interesting to see
how long he puts up with the CEO. I think some of the Board has
already reached their limit.
#Post#: 29--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Marco Date: May 28, 2014, 5:33 pm
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Last year, the Gov Task Force discussed the position of
Secretary General and how that role should fit into the
operation.
When Eric was here - we were missing out on a good international
presence. The appointment of a Secretary General was one
alternative to handle the international stuff where the CEO is
not a TKD person.
I did not like the prospect of the Board appointing a CEO and a
Secretary General. - there would be no way to over-see who does
what.
With Bruce having the professional relationships to deal with
the international stuff - I do like the idea of a COO to run the
office and to develop good routines that will keep us on track.
The Board will work through Bruce (and not the COO) for
accountability concerns.
The direction that this Board is going with a strategic plan
that identifies benchmarks in both daily practice, international
presence, and future evolvement - I don't see one person pulling
it all together.
As for spreading our limited funds across helping all levels of
competitors, we currently have more than the CEO making that
decision. This Board is creating a mechanismnto start
forecasting out two or three years - verses the past and current
practice of 2 or 3 months...
#Post#: 32--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Ladytkd Date: May 28, 2014, 7:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Marco link=topic=12.msg29#msg29 date=1401316387]
Last year, the Gov Task Force discussed the position of
Secretary General and how that role should fit into the
operation.
When Eric was here - we were missing out on a good international
presence. The appointment of a Secretary General was one
alternative to handle the international stuff where the CEO is
not a TKD person.
I did not like the prospect of the Board appointing a CEO and a
Secretary General. - there would be no way to over-see who does
what.
With Bruce having the professional relationships to deal with
the international stuff - I do like the idea of a COO to run the
office and to develop good routines that will keep us on track.
The Board will work through Bruce (and not the COO) for
accountability concerns.
The direction that this Board is going with a strategic plan
that identifies benchmarks in both daily practice, international
presence, and future evolvement - I don't see one person pulling
it all together.
As for spreading our limited funds across helping all levels of
competitors, we currently have more than the CEO making that
decision. This Board is creating a mechanismnto start
forecasting out two or three years - verses the past and current
practice of 2 or 3 months...
[/quote]
And who is deciding "spreading our limited funds across helping
all levels of competitors, we currently have more than the CEO
making that decision?"
#Post#: 34--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Gorilla Date: May 28, 2014, 7:35 pm
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The UFC exposure will be fun to see how that will work. Joe
Rogan is a TKD BB along with Anthony Pettis, Ben Hnderson, Edson
Barbosa, Ross Pearson and Anderson Silva. Tkd techs are used
more and more in the UFC. I think that this will help TKD's
image in the fighting world outside of Traditional Martial Arts
could be a good thing.
#Post#: 35--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Ladytkd Date: May 28, 2014, 8:45 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Gorilla link=topic=12.msg34#msg34 date=1401323734]
The UFC exposure will be fun to see how that will work. Joe
Rogan is a TKD BB along with Anthony Pettis, Ben Hnderson, Edson
Barbosa, Ross Pearson and Anderson Silva. Tkd techs are used
more and more in the UFC. I think that this will help TKD's
image in the fighting world outside of Traditional Martial Arts
could be a good thing.
[/quote]
We previously discussed this when I was on the BOD. The question
came up when we had a hired marketing person. Assume this will
be good for TKD, but do you want to do all this marketing and
send them to ATA, ITF or other schools not affiliated with USA
Taekwondo? What about this is going to promote USAT? TKD maybe,
USAT - the logo on the mat means nothing if they don't already
know what it is. You want to bring in new, not have the current
members go - "wow we're on UFC." Just a thought.
#Post#: 36--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Marco Date: May 28, 2014, 8:52 pm
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[quote author=Ladytkd link=topic=12.msg32#msg32 date=1401321764]
And who is deciding "spreading our limited funds across helping
all levels of competitors, we currently have more than the CEO
making that decision?"
[/quote]
I prefer a system where the CEO decides - but - there must be a
mechanism where others, including the Board have an opportunity
to challenge how one expense effects other priorities. This type
of process can either validate the idea or challenge the idea.
If this type of practice becomes a routine effort there is the
best chance that one good intention does not shade another good
intent, without a conscious decision of priority.
#Post#: 37--------------------------------------------------
Re: 5/27/14 BOD Meeting Notes
By: Gorilla Date: May 28, 2014, 11:50 pm
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Yep, agreed may not help USAT specifically but could help TKD in
general. If we are not spending $ on this how did we cut that
deal. Mat space at the UFC is not cheap.
I love MMA and the UFC.
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