Post by mccleary on Apr 11, 2019 21:35:53 GMT -8
Fellow SOBA Members,
As many of you know, the end of this SOBA season has seen many of our SOBA officers, Board Members, and our tournament director’s step down, leaving a void of leadership that needs to be replaced before next season. This comes on the heels of some additional turnover from leadership positions from the end of last season (2017-’18).
I was approached during last season by a handful of long time SOAS/SOBA members and leaders to see if I was interested in taking on a bigger leadership role, as I had done so in the past. Unfortunately, while I had interest in being more involved, working as a consultant and being on the road often just did not make the commitment possible at that time. During the past couple of months of this season, I was again approached to see if I was willing to take the reins of SOBA once more by long time bowling peers that I have a tremendous amount of respect for. Like last year, I have interest, but my career at this time makes it challenging to do so, as I just recently accepted a position with Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California and will be moving to that area in early May.
Having given all of you that background information, I have decided after careful consideration that I would be willing to commit to running this organization for the 2019-2020 season with the memberships blessing.
Most of you know my SOBA and bowling background, but to those that do not, I am a past SOBA President, Tournament Director, and long time board member. I also started bowling SOAS tournaments in 1990 (yes, I am that old) and worked for original SOAS/SOBA founder Roy Rider at Medford Lanes as a teenager. I also bring experience to the organization as a past PBA member that bowled PBA Regional events, a handful of national PBA events, USBC Masters, USBC Nationals, World Team Challenge Events, many of the “Megabuck” Amateur events - the High Roller, Super Bowl High Roller, Mini Eliminator, International Eliminator, True Amateur Challenge & True Amateur Tournament - as well as OBAs, North State All Stars, Southern Oregon Masters, Roy Rider invitational, countless Swiss tournaments, etc… Bottom line, I have bowled in and experienced a tremendous amount of different bowling organizations over the course of 30 years as a scratch bowler.
My belief is that the ethos to this organization is that it is successful when we have high participation from our intended audience – scratch bowlers from the southern Oregon region that want to enjoy themselves in a competitive, yet fun and affordable environment. We accomplish that in my opinion my focusing on the fun and affordable aspects, foster an environment of camaraderie, keep the competition on a level playing field while being careful to not overly concentrate on the hyper competitive environment that the PBA offers as an alternative. To be clear, this organization has been, currently is, and will continue to be a scratch bowling tournament club that offers a competitive environment, just one that caters to all levels of scratch bowlers from Southern Oregon and not just the very elite top 5%.
Like all leaders, I have my own beliefs about what is the best way to accomplish some things that may differ from previous leadership and I have some new ideas that I would like to explore. If I am given the go ahead to lead, I have no intention to make major changes to the basics of the club. Same entry fee, same qualifying format, no carryover, etc… My intention would be to lead from the tournament director position, as was the structure of the leadership years ago.
On my list of agenda items that I would like to accomplish is to strengthen our relationship with our proprietors. I would like to return to having contracts that explicitly state exactly what the expectations are for the proprietors and for the SOBA organization. It would be my plan to contact all proprietors that are currently on our schedule to talk about how we can continue to be successful, to share ideas, and to work out any issues we have had in past years. I would also like to contact proprietors in our area that are not on our schedule to find out if they have interest in hosting future events. Our schedule next year could look slightly different depending on the discussion with our current proprietors and the feedback that comes from our members.
Also on my agenda is to explore some ideas on increasing exposure of our organization that can tie into marketing efforts to increase added money. I plan on creating a SOBA Youtube channel, and to revamp and update our webpage. The SOBA Youtube channel would be used to stream and show taped video of all events, as I believe we can use modern technology to increase our exposure. I also would like to use email to directly contact bowlers with entry forms, a monthly newsletter, etc… This increase of exposure allows us to market to sponsors and offer advertisement value with clicks, views, and such.
Another item that I will eventually like to discuss is looking into the possibility of (re)creating a Southern Oregon Master’s tournament and making it a stop on our schedule. I believe the southern Oregon area misses not having another premier event as well as an event that was widely publicized and understood to be on a challenging lane condition, which might help bring balance to those that want to bowl on the occasional sport shot without that becoming a monthly debate.
Lastly, I would like to discuss the makeup of how our leadership looks. I know that we have difficulty getting bowlers that want to be involved in the leadership of the club. I would like to attempt to have a board that has representatives from each area that we go to. We need to look why a strong majority of our bowlers are coming from Bend, Klamath, and Medford, and why we are struggling to pull bowlers from Eugene, North Bend, and Roseburg. Is this as simple as the geographical locations of our host centers and the amount of travel involved, or something else? How do we help increase participation from those areas? Having someone that can speak to what bowlers from those areas say helps solve issues and offers opportunity to promote from within the organization when we go to those centers.
There are other ideas that can be discussed at a later time; such as the creation of a SOAS/SOBA Hall of fame to honor those that have stood out for bowling performance and those leaders that helped create what the organization became, some occasional different tournament formats, discussion of the schedule with members, questions from members, etc... I am available by email or my messenger or by phone if anyone wants to reach out to me.
Thank you,
Jason McCleary