Fellow PADA members,

I initially wrote "Letter from the President" for the title of this post, which got me thinking about how long it's been since I last wrote a letter with pen and paper, or even printed a letter from a computer to be sent by snail mail. It's hard to pinpoint exactly, but surely PADA was a different organization then that it is now. There were probably no paid staff members and no middle school leagues, and our website certainly didn't allow you to tack on small donations to your registration fees (yes, you can donate directly to specific programs now!). The needs of our great organization are ever-changing, and my experiences in recent years have convinced me that our thinking must be progressive in order to address those needs.

PADA had a great year in 2015. With rare exception, we saw existing leagues grow or remain at capacity, while player satisfaction remained high. We created new playing opportunities with U19 Winter League, Spring Middle School League, U23 Competitive Developmental Summer Program, a late summer Delaware League, and a Philly Women's Fall League. PADA players also enjoyed success and recognition at the state, national, and even international level in several venues. PHUEL players nearly swept the All-State teams (and inspired two of their coaches to earn Coach of the Year). Our YCC team, PHUEL Forge, finished 6-2 to take 5th place at the 2015 Youth Club Championsihps, losing only to the eventual finalists. We watched Green Means Go play an exciting showcase game against the All-Star Ultimate Tour, while AMP and Patrol both qualified for the USAU Club Championships. The Spinners made the MLU playoffs for the first time, and a Phoenix player was featured at #1 on the AUDL Plays of the Week. Several PADA players won medals at Beach Worlds in Dubai, and a few more earned medals at U23 Worlds in London.

Our successes are worth celebrating, but I am also cognizant of our shortcomings. PADA is an organization of players, and we should strive to come as close to 100% player satisfaction as possible. Sure, we all know a muggle or two who never "gets" Ultimate and we might not ever win their approval (especially those who think we're crazy for choosing to spend so much of our free time playing, teaching, and organizing this wonderful sport). But there are numerous examples of even the most committed players having bad experiences that were avoidable. Examples of such experiences include: injuries from reckless players; contentious play resulting from poor spirit of lack of rules knowledge; baggage chains being mistakenly split up; schedules or draft data not being shared in a timely manner; teams playing savage because pickup or replacement players were not available; the list goes on. One such incident likely won't turn a player away from Ultimate forever, but as avoidable as these issues are and as frequently as they happen now, it's time we implemented plans to do something about them.

As PADA players, we have been fortunate to share in Edgely and other unique privileges. But having researched other city-based Ultimate organizations, including conversations with their staff and leadership, I do see room for us to improve as an organization. Preventing mishaps that affect individual player experiences, such as those described above, will require some big changes at the organizational level. For this reason, the Board of Directors has been working hard to implement plans intended to move PADA forward:

We plan to increase PADA's investments in staff and key volunteers. We plan to hire a new part-time staff member (in addition to our Program Director and our Youth Director) very soon and are exploring ideas to recognize, thank, & reward the volunteers who keep PADA moving forward.

We plan to develop and establish more standardized policies, guidelines, and training manuals. These will serve as resources to people in all roles (players, captains, coordinators, staff, Board members) and help make PADA more consistent across its diverse array of programs. The new "Policies" page on the website (coming soon) will be a central information station going forward.

We plan to evaluate our Board elections process and whether the current model is right for our organization. This will include researching processes used by other Ultimate organizations and discussing with their leaders what the pros and cons of those processes are. In particular, DiscNW uses a very different model to appoint new Board members.

We plan to make Board processes more transparent and to hold the Board more accountable to the membership. Any PADA member interested in learning what's going on behind the scenes should have access to do so without needing any special permissions. Things like league budgets and Board Meeting minutes will become more accessible through the website.

Our Board members are excited to carry out these plans, and we hope you will support us in our efforts. The current Board term has about six months remaining, so our goal is to have these plans implemented before the current term ends.

If you ever have ideas you want to share with us or are able to help us carry out our plans, please don't hesitate to reach out to us by emailing or you can email me personally at . Let's make 2016 a great year for PADA.

Kevin McCormick

President, PADA Board of Directors