The elections of the new executive director of the FPA will start on November 1st. Two candidates were nominated and are running for this position – Tommy Leitner and Paul Kenny. Here are their statements:

Tom Leitner

I would be honored to serve and would do my best to work together with our community to define clear objectives and strategies to growing our sport. If elected my goals as FPA director would be to…

1) Increase membership
2) Define and work towards realistic goals
3) Create a more inclusive environment where members have more input on key decisions
4) Seek advice from experienced experts
5) Keep the ‘Spirit of the Jam’ alive!

1) Increase membership
I would open a discussion up to current FPA members to elicit new ideas of how to increase membership. Possible ideas could be to start holding Westerfield Challenges at Ultimate frisbee events and creating ‘join the FPA’ ads on facebook.

2) Define and work towards realistic goals
One main goal is to get our sport ready for prime time. As many of you know Ultimate frisbee will be a demonstration sport at the next olympics and many believe it will soon be included as an Olympic Sport. Does freestyle have a chance to follow? Do we want to be become a more mainstream sport? Skateboarding, Snowboarding and Surfing have taken the leap… are we ready?

Other goals would be finding effective ways to…
– Organize events/shows which have spectators (at festivals, fairs, etc.)
– Empower more players to run events and clinics.
– Spread the jam – get more new players. (organize a college campus tour, create lesson plans for PE teachers)
– Create a sanctioned, branded FPA tour (with sponsorship)

3) Create a more inclusive environment where members have more input on key decisions
It’s important that members are included in the decision making process and that they get a fair say. My goal would be to give members and the board a chance to debate matters so that everyone can state their ideas and understand each others viewpoints.
This way the board can make better informed decisions and explain to the membership the reasoning behind their decisions.

4) Seek advice from experienced experts
I would ask advice from…
– IT and Graphic professionals about ways we can improve our online presence.
– Players with Marketing and Business experience to help create a sponsorship proposal package
– Players with Event Management experience how to improve events by making them more marketable and better attended

5) Keep the Spirit of the Jam alive!
It’s important to remember what makes our sport special and to stay true to our roots.
In general most players will say that the thrill of having as many good jams as possible at an event is just as important if not more so than the competition itself. The fact that we still judge our peers and that community and friendship have remained our top priorities is a credit to our sport. Whatever changes we may think would improve our sport we must never compromise the Spirit of the Jam.

Having been involved in our sport continually since the 80’s I feel my experience combined with my passion for spreading the jam make me an ideal candidate. I have served as FPA director, FPA Worlds director and was involved in the 2003 Nike European tour.

If given the opportunity I would do my best as Executive Director to stay true to the roots and spirit of our beloved sport. With young people spending more and more time looking into their smart phone and computer screens I believe a sport like ours is more needed than ever before.

Kind Regards,

– Tom Leitner

Paul Kenny

I believe the FPA has done a significant amount of work in the last 3 years and I am willing to maintain continuity of this work, including the implementation of Ryan’s new judging system which was recently approved by membership. I have traveled to many events which has provided the opportunity to talk to virtually everyone one-on-one numerous times which gives me a good sense of your personal wishes and desires more directly than just social media platforms can allow. This has not been just a weekend job for me. I engage in FPA business literally every day because I can and because I love this sport. I have always tried to do the right thing for the community. Our efforts to grow the sport are working as witnessed by the great new players in Trnava and the membership list (including many new Japanese players!) you can see at freestyledisc.org/fpa-members!

An early major contribution was bringing the 1st FPAW to Europe in 2003, when I was Executive Director. Also, my annual Jammers event is the longest-running annual freestyle tournament (other than FPAW) – with the 22nd coming up next May.

Some FPA accomplishments during my 3 years as Executive Director are below. It is a result of the “Follow the Energy” philosophy I have regarding those willing to make the effort to grow our sport. Clearly, many others get credit for these results:

• Reduced membership fees to $20/20Euro, significantly slashing this cost to you all. Further, juniors and new members continue to be granted free membership. With membership, not only are you supporting the FPA efforts but you get serious discounts on discs and other products.
• Began seasonal auction and fundraising efforts to balance the above. Thanks to Randy and Lori for spearheading this (Charles Burke too!)
• The FPA finances are as strong as I can remember even with lower membership fees which allows flexibility as opportunities present themselves and ensures our sport remains strong for future generations.
• Spreading The Jam efforts – We have sent discs, other products, technical support and pamphlets (thanks to Mystiq, Jason, Jakub and others who have translated to various languages) to help facilitate membership’s efforts to spread the jam. We have seen a huge effort by the Rovereto guys, the Milan Temple (supporting all Valentino has done to provide a wonderful disc facility there), Medellin jammers, Daniel going to Japan, Napoli jammers (Rwanda), Polish jammers (including Montenegro) and others who, with the FPA’s (along with Discraft, Discovering the World, Wrightlife, Ultimo.cz and Xdisc) support are generating a new worldwide generation of younger jammers.
• We started gathering as many historical records, magazine, articles etc from our history as we can and will be posting to freestyledisc.org. Big props to Doug Korns, Larry Imperiale and others for managing this.
• Discs and Rings to Dave Bolyard for Summerfest demos
• Providing equipment support to livestreaming (FrisbeeGuru and Mystiq) and judging (Ryan). The FPA cannot support what these folks are doing enough. They are putting in their own time, expertise and money in support of the FPA but at least we try help as best we can.
• Named Xdisc as Official Junior Freestyle Disc of the FPA, recognizing the link Xdisc efforts and many in our community have done to engage juniors and other newcomers to our sport.
• Initiated a Japanese membership drive (with help from Daniel) to better connect their jamming community with the FPA
• Began a Membership numbering system.
• Freestyle Hall of Fame began (Skippy and the HoF committee get all credit for this many-year effort and Lori gets credit for making the inductions special)

Jam on!

Paul Kenny