ReCap
Kelly
Board:
THIS IS THE FINAL EMAIL ON THIS SUBJECT!!!!
If we are honest with ourselves we have all acted like a bunch of jealous high school boys and girls in a teen romance quagmire. We are all adults and we need to start acting like them.
Here is the bottom line. This club is about the kids who participate in it. And let me stress this, IT IS FOR EVERY KID. It is not just for the best of the best Football Player, the best of the best Cheerleader, or the best of the best Wrestler. It is more importantly NOT about me or any of you – It is about the kids. If you are on this board just so you can walk around town and let everyone know you are on it, then you are here for the wrong reason. I will stress it again, this is about the kids.
We are moving forward with Kurt as wrestling director, this is final. We are all committed to the wrestling program and we are trying to improve it in the correct way. Again as stated previously for ALL KIDS who participate.
I am going to respond to a few of Kurt’s recent actions. Just to clear the air so we can move forward as an organization
3. Disagreements between people on the board are fine, in fact it is healthy and many times can lead to brainstorming which creates better situations for the kids. If someone or many disagree with you and a decision is made not in your favor, then live with it. Don’t bombard people with the same email stating your case over and over. I disagree with some of the decisions we made as a board. I don’t like how we have stacked teams and teams that have less talent. I think the club would be stronger in the long haul if we had more teams finish 6-3 verse one team finishing 9-0 and others without a win. In the end, I accept the board’s decision (Although I might bring this one up again in a future board meeting for discussion).
To recap, we are moving forward with Kurt as wrestling director. We are all need to remember this is about EVERY CHILD in this club and consider this when making our decisions. We need to commit to all aspects of this club.
I once worked for a manager who had his three “P” statement. People + Process = Performance. We have the people, we need to improve our overall processes and in the end we will perform as an organization. Please commit, all of us, to improving our processes. This includes everything from how we order supplies, how we inventory supplies, how we choose coaches, how we conduct our board meetings, how we present our field to visiting teams, how we work our field during games, how we clean up our field after games, etc, etc, etc.
I am sure my comments have not translated correctly over email. If I offended anyone, then kick me off the board. I know I did not try to offend anyone and I know I am here for one reason, and one reason only, to make youth sports as positive and fulfilling experience a possible for every child who participates in our club.
Thanks,
John Jarvis
From: LPB...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:LPB...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kurt
Striegel
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 5:42 PM
To:
LPB...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Wrestling
Direction
Board Members:
As some of you know and some of you have found out from me I received a letter from Todd S. informing me that he is going to recommend to the board that I no longer be Wrestling Director. There were no specific reasons given for this action. In fact there were just some very general reasons with no supporting examples. I don’t want to belabor this point because I am only concerned with the truth. However, one of the reason stated in the letter was “I have continued to undermine the ongoing success of the organization”
According to Todd S. there are about 6 people who I apparently offended when I attempted to lobby for more funding for the wrestling team. If I offended anyone then simply tell me you want to remove me because I offended you. I have asked for a copy of our by-laws and would like to know if we are allowed to remove someone simply because they have a strong and differing opinion from the majority. I will ask the 6 if you would like to have the majority ever conspire to remove you because the majority disagreed with you on something and you ruffled some feathers in the process. I believe all of us knows the answer to that question. Everyone should be aware that I told John Jarvis late last week that I wasn’t even going to pursue the funding for gas money for long distance tournaments any longer. I was simply going to present a wrestling budget with a request to pay for entry fees which most everyone seemed agreeable to.
Whatever your motivations are for serving on the board you must know that mine are strictly to develop our youth through competitive athletics. It seems that this should be the goal of everyone on the board. It is and should always be about the kids. I had a lengthy discussion with Todd S. about this last night and he seemed agreeable to it and was going to call those who want to undermine me. I have yet to hear from Todd if people were willing to move on with club business as I was willing to move on without additional funding. I don’t have a beef with any of you. I just want to get wrestling going which has been brought to a halt because of 6 votes. I hope that the majority communicates to Todd S that it is time for cooler heads to prevail because we now have a problem. A big problem.
We need a solution to this now folks because we can’t register anyone until they know there is going to be a program. As I informed a few of you IKWF does not allow a wrestler to sign up with a club and then sign up with another club if things don’t work out. They will be out their money and they won’t be allowed to wrestle. Therefore, I cannot conduct registrations until we move past this. Here is what I am making a motion on:
- Keep things as they are with the option for a slight change and let’s move on with club business including wrestling: If the majority of you don’t want me to come to board meetings that is fine with me. Take my voting privilege away if it makes the majority of you happy. I can e-mail anything that requires a vote and we go with it. I will keep everyone informed as to the progress of the season. You can reduce the Wrestling Director to essentially a Wrestling Representative. This recommendation will require some people to lay aside their anger, egos, whatever and do what is best for the kids. If you want what is best for the kids and the club this seems like a good solution.
- Vote wrestling off into a separate club. This is what the wrestling leadership told me they would like to do. We edit the name to be Little Panther Wrestling and we give 50% of our profits in the first year to the founding club. This allows the board to concentrate on Football and Cheer. Wrestling can pursue its own ambitions while at the same time serving the same community and developing the same area youth.
Whatever we do, we need to do it by tomorrow or the latest Saturday because we can’t proceed with registrations on Sunday without wrestling leadership in place. For those of you who don’t have boys in wrestling I would ask you to make this decision as if you did. If you do have boys in wrestling, please help get us back on track.
Please start giving feedback because again, we can’t wait until October 15th to move forward since registrations start this weekend.
Regards,
Kurt Striegel
Board Members:
I just want to provide some clarification for option 1 at the bottom: Let’s consider me Wrestling Director on probation (we can say for my strong opinions which alienated people). Like I said, I don’t even need to have a vote or need to go to board meetings if you don’t want me there. We just need the wrestling leadership to know they have their Director so that we have a coach and a club.
Thank you,
Kurt
Rob
Kurt Striegel
Kelly,
That is why I like and respect you. You truly want what is best for the kids. I do too. I don’t have any agenda other than wanting to mentor and develop kids through football and wrestling. I would say cheer too but I am not a cheer coach so there isn’t much I can do there except to support Jennifer’s requests and stay out of her way. However, I love cheer. My daughter does competitive cheer at her school and she puts a ton of time, sweat, and emotion into it. While it isn’t my department I respect everything Jennifer does, think they are great, and are an integral part of our purpose as stated in our By-Laws.
I don’t know if taking wrestling independent is the best thing to do for the kids, the club, or the community now and in the future. There are some synergies associated with having all three of our sports part of the same club. I also question the motivation to do this. It seems the motivation is to get rid of me and if that is the case we aren’t looking out for the overall interest of the kids, the club, or the community. Some people in wresting were willing to postulate that when they thought wrestling was in danger a month ago. I have family coming in town that I rarely get to see and was supposed to go out to dinner on Wednesday night. I can’t do that now because we have to discuss the future of wrestling.
I just wish that everyone would understand that my frustration and impatience has been because I didn’t’ have an operating budget until last night and I was trying to prepare for the season while I am coaching football too. I really think the best thing is for us to see how smoothly we can function as a board now that we have a budget for wrestling. We also know that wrestling needs to do more fund raising if we want to make more investment in wrestling. I truly thought I would have more money but understand that we have to live within the means of what we bring into the club.
Does anyone object to letting the dust settle before we bring this topic up again? We planted some seeds last night for a smoother operation by passing the budget. Let’s allow it to bear fruit. Maybe we should see how peaceful we can all be once we do things correctly and run this season with an approved budget. Besides, I would rather go out to dinner with my family who is flying in from Tahoe. I’m sure if I get too much grief over it from my wife, etc I will sending an e-mail that I can’t make it.
Peace,
Kurt