Mid-Season Meeting
We’re about midway through the on-the-water season, so now might be a good time for a re-calibration of our team goals (short-term and long-term) and the steps we need to take to reach those goals.
Here’s my recollection of where we started:
This past fall, we set the following goals: (a) travel as a team to at least one race this year and (2) perform there -- and in local races -- with pride and a sense of team spirit.
In order to reach those goals, we identified the following as two critical needs: (1) build membership to a point where we have at least 20 paddlers plus a drummer and steersperson and (2) develop an independent or non-rec-program structure for the team. We then appointed a treasurer, captain, travel coordinator, and membership director; we also hired two coaches.
We took the following specific steps related to those needs: Carolyn researched the structure used by the masters rowing team, and we’ve emulated that structure on issues like fees. We held open houses and grew our membership. We agreed to a three/week practice schedule. We worked out over the winter to maintain and increase fitness levels. We ordered uniform tops. We developed an informational brochure and have updated it. We set up a blog. We traveled to DC and raced (6 times!). We raced in Pittsburgh (and won!).
In many ways, then, we’re making significant progress from where we were last year at this time, progress that would not have been possible without the significant and specific contributions of team members who stepped up and took the lead on accomplishing various tasks (so a huge paddle cheer to everyone!).
But we still have miles (meters?) to go.
Let’s meet this month and confirm or revise our two broad goals and identify specific strategies for helping us reach them. For instance, do we need a clearer team structure (in terms of who is responsible for what, including specific responsibilities each team member has for things like attendance and fitness)? What are our plans to prepare for the race at the September festival? Are there things we should be doing to increase our recruiting success?
Please let me know by Saturday (August 7th) your availability for a one-hour meeting to be held either Saturday, August 14th (11 AM) or Wednesday, August 18th (8 PM).
Thanks!
posted by Kit at 8/02/2004 03:59:00 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for all the responses. Neither date was perfect, but it looks like more people can make the Saturday meeting date than the Wednesday one.
So we will have a team meeting next Saturday (August 14th) at 11 AM. The meeting will not run past one hour.
Here's a very uick run-down of the agenda we covered this morning. I'll pull together my notes and post/email a more comprehensive summary in a day or two.
1. TRRA & Paddlefish (Pauline described TRRA's perception of us as too negative and asked us to help them more.)
2. October 2/HOTO (Pauline will check to see whether TRRA would like us to paddle in this event again this year. Because TRRA is handling this itself this year, she suspects they will want us to help however we can to make this event a success. This may be by paddling, but might instead involve volunteer hours on land.)
3. Sept. 18th Festival (More questions than answers on this event at this point, but note that Ben has organized a steering clinic for the d'boats on August 30th, so our practice for that evening will involve helping with this -- starting at 6 -- rather than the standard practice as a team. If you can help distribute posters, please ask Ben for 10 or so and then hang them up in your neck of the woods. Give Ben the location and contact name for the places where you hang the posters so he can keep a running list to help jumpstart this step next year. Pauline suggests marking on the poster the contact info to draw attention to that.)
4. Team Goals (We confirmed current goals and suggested slight expansion for next year's goals. Some discussion on attendance -- need for paddling with a full boat at practice, both for that experience and for developing things like timing. Need to recruit more members -- will follow up festival with letter inviting corporate/community paddlers to Open House. Discussion of coaching: can we pay more? can we work out a schedule so we know which coach will be at which practice?)
5. Social/Team-Building Events (We'd like to have a retreat at the end of the season, but October 2nd conflicts with TRRA's request that we help with the HOTO; try to find another weekend for retreat. Kathy will organize a trip to Sandcastle before the end of the summer. Lori S. will host a pot-luck party at her house sometime in the fall, maybe October. Bob will look into developing team tee shirt design for "attitude shirt.")
Post a Comment
<< Home