I'd like to see the survey results also. And I'd like to know how many survey responses CUSL got.

i guess im curious about the survey results too just in terms of numbers. like is the overwhelming majority of people who want this 4/3 split actually just 13 out of 19 people who did the survey?

baker i think its awesome you guys are doing the town meeting though. its good to have a useful way to discuss this stuff.

The Town Hall meeting will be at:

4pm, Sunday February 18th
The Blackrock (in the back room)
3614 N. Damen Ave.

We will focus discussion on the 2 main league policy changes (see below) but
will also discuss any questions, comments, or suggestions you have. This is
an open meeting for anyone in the Ultimate community to have input into how
the leagues are structured and run.

From the previous email:
As many of you know, a survey went out to the Ultimate Chicago community
this past fall. The goal of this survey was to assess how well we are
meeting the needs and desires of the ultimate community in Chicago.We
followed the survey with interviews of previous UC leaders and a survey of
programs in other cities. As a result of all of this information, the board
is planning on making some changes to the general operating theory of the
Ultimate Chicago leagues. These changes fall into two categories:

1) Competition/skill appropriate play
Many people have stressed a desire to play in more or less intense
environments from how some of the current leagues are formatted. As a
result, we would like to add a 'tiered league' system across all seasons.
This is already happening in Spring with the two divisions. In summer, it
will likely involve adding a 'competitive' league to run concurrently with
the standard CUSL league. In the fall, it may mean dividing teams into and A
and B division.
2) 4/3 gender play
All leagues will play a maximum of 4 men and a minimum of 3 women. The large
majority of survey respondents preferred a 4/3 split to other options. This
will likely mean that some men will not be able to get into some leagues
unless they bring a female player. If there is a large enough pool of people
unable to get into a league, we may try to organize and open league or
individuals league for those players.

Everyone seems magically attached to letting _every-single-possible-last-player_ into the league.

While I think that can be a worthy goal for the league system, it doesn't have to be. Scarcity can be a good thing. Sellouts can be a good thing. Demand > supply means that people are motivated to get it together.

I would posit that that the cultural problem we have right now is precisely b/c the leagues try to get everyone in, regardless of league dynamics or whether you're past deadlines or how big your core is or whatever else. The wishes of the nth player >> wellbeing of the folks who are already in.

So the same core of players (too many guys, same old faces, same old culture) year after year gets catered too, and you have a yearly revolving door of women and new players. What's the point of that? I'd rather cater to new folks and women to try to get them to stay. Change the ratio (I prefer 4M:3F at this juncture). Force cores to be on the ball, force men to find women to play with, change the culture, and try to retain some of these players who cycle in and out. Run a separate men's league for the spillover. Or actually tell people no, we're full sorry.

Winterleague in SFUL is this way. Get drafted or try again next time. Organizers choose to cap things and protect the health of the experience over maxing the number of bodies.

Posted By: pbgipperThat is hardly being inclusive, Akira.

Good point, but I think we're talking about different things.

You and Claire define inclusion as getting raw bodies into the league and onto rosters. I define it as the experience folks have with their teams and on the field.

In this case perhaps these forces are unfortunately opposed.

For pfil:

There's two l's in Russell....Adena Pride.


Except for three points, I am refraining from comments about the Town Hall until I see how CUSL updates the website with information stemming from the Town Hall meeting if you can call it that with non board/committee attendance somewhere around 15 people.

1) it might be easier to recruit and retain players if registering for spring league was actually easy using the website.

2) they should institute what I will refer to as the Wife rule(She hated spring league for the disorganization) for spring/fall league which would include the following:

a.Have someone set up all the fields in advance every week and then set up a table under the shelter with a list of all the rosters, captains and field maps a la chicago rec and social league. You could either rotate duties amongst veteran players who are playing the alternative session, an injured player or hell pay some players kid or local high school student to handle this chore. And for those of you who think the community doesn't need this kind of thing, I think the word used was "communist" when actually I think they meant fascist, but I am not here to argue politics. ("Say what you want to about Nationalist Socialism but at least it is an ethos" credit the big lebowski) Despite frisbee players natural tendencies against direction and organization you can't run an organization with 2000 members in the same way you could a club team, a pickup game or an 8 team league. Particularly if those members are actually paying dues and fees.

b. Make assessing points a real possibility with continued tardiness resulting in penalties on a graduated scale ending with forfeits or suspension, obviously easier in a BYOT format. In this way repeated tardiness will actually have repercussions. Also, the scale would have to be different in relation to Summer vs fall and spring league. Playing on weeknights offers a different sort of challenges not least of which is the stupid IDOT or CTA.

3) the board can do whatever the hell it wants (Act arbitrarily) under the by-laws and I will be the first to say this is not entirely a bad thing, so long as the changes, actions and message is properly crafted. To Ben(who posts on this site and other possible board members who read) I meant to make this clearer in my comments at the meeting. By asking the question regarding the bylaws I did not mean that I thought you had evil intentions or that acting arbitrarily was necessarily a bad thing. Quite the contrary, I wanted to know the restraint you were working under and how effective the board could really be in effecting change. See comment 2(a) regarding my apparent "communist" tendencies.

Finally, if you didn't show at the meeting you have little ground to argue about changes, except that there should have two meeting on different weekend, although I doubt that would have changes the overall attendance.

Posted By: ayamaguc

80%isn't very meaningful. it may even be atrocious. does 20% of the league quit every year and never return? so you might hit 100% turnover every 5 years? that's not good. that's awful. but it's probably meaningless. 80% satisfaction from XY% of people who respond from 100% of the people in the league doesn't tell you anything. 90% satisfaction from YZ% respondents out of 100% of the folks who play ultimate in Chicagoland... that might matter more.

the 80% thing obviously needs clarification. the survey went out to x number of people (rick do you remember how many? i thought it was like 200?) and they were asked to rank how satisfied they were with the league on a scale of 1(not) to 10(totally). the average response was an 8.

so i guess my point was that if the average satisfaction level with the way things are done now is a frickin 8 then why do we have to tear everything apart and stratify leagues / go to 4/3 etc? i mean of course theres gonna be room for improvement but come on.

the mens league was a separate issue and will happen this year again i believe. the 'competitive' monday night thing would be in addition to that and would be coed 4/3 and would only occur alongside summer league precisely so that you would NOT be able to play both. you either get to play 'competitive' league on monday night OR the regular monday - wednesday.

i am not opposed to 4/3 and i understand your point akira about not trying to please everybody all the time to the detriment of the experience of new players / women but i dont really understand how going 4/3 is going to get more women to join the league either. so in other words, i am totally and utterly unconvinced that not allowing a bunch of dudes to get into the draft and making them play some run-off crappy league is going to improve the quality of the experience for anyone playing league.

from what i understood at the meeting 4/3 is a done deal for spring. i dont know how thery're going to handle the overflow. (ie blocking registration or an extra league)

I was under the impression they were going to cap the Men's registration at a certain number of players. I'm not sure what the numbers are or what ratio they are looking for (and it's possible I'm just making all this up, as I haven't been involved in the Spring league planning this year).

Higher registration fee? Someone clue me in pls...

Well obviously the optimal number would be a 4:3 ratio of M:W, but I don't really see that happening. If I had to guess though, I'd say it will probably be something like a 3:1 ratio of M:W (hopefully more like a 2:1 to 2.5:1 ratio). I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

I think the biggest problem will be trying to determine how to do the cap, because knowing ultimate players they all wait until the absolute last minute to register so the league admins probably don't even really have a clear idea of what the registration is going to end up looking like. I think they need to make it really clear that they are capping the number in the league, or they are going to end up with a lot of angry ultimate players.