|
|
HOME ABOUT ACTIVITIES FORUM NEWS PHOTOS MARKETPLACE LINKS |
| |
Romey's Ramblins - Feb 2002Busy, BusyIt is a very busy time for the AFDC at the moment, and I would like to go over what we have on our plate and mention some of the persons who are toiling in the trenches to make it all happen. Winter - Goaltimate We
currently are in the midst of our second winter league, and a successful
one at
Spring - Ultimate and Goaltimate As the
Winter League end-of-season tournament takes center stage March 9-10, El
muchacho muy alto, Randall Anderson, once again will begin shepherding us
through what I Terminus 2002 Nary a week
later, Terminus comes to town (Or, should I say, to the polo fields in
Cumming.), with the college edition scheduled for March 16-17 and clubs
taking the
Even with Hale ready for action, however, we held our collective breath knowing that we would need to find someone capable (and there are very few) of filling the big shoes of former tournament co-director, Jen Christianson. We would have been happy to get someone who could just get us through it; we never dreamed we would get Angela Lin. Yeehah! The real challenge now is trying to con her into doing it for a few more years. Junior Nationals While it is
not certain at the time of this writing, there is a very good chance that
UPA Junior Nationals will be held in Atlanta the weekend of May 18-19.
As you And imagine yourself a fifteen year-old student backed up against a fence by Eileen “The Greater” Murray, shouting “If we don’t go to Nationals, I’ll kick your ass!” Exactly – you would find a way. So expect Woodward Academy to make a showing as well. If Jr. Nats in Atlanta becomes a reality (and there is a good chance that it will), we are going to need lots of help, so keep your eyes open for announcements and please offer to help us out if you can. Summer League Right on
the heels of Jr. Nats, should we be lucky enough to get them, will be
Summer League 2002, where Florian Pfender, the man in the short, black,
@#$% skirt, will take the reins from Brian Cornelison. Brian, we really
appreciate you keeping our flagship league
Fields and Captains Two requests from me in connection with all of this, if you don’t mind. First, if you see a good field in a neighborhood near you, please call me, so that I can check it out. We need places to play all of these games, and some fields where we have played for a very long time may no longer be available. Second, one of the biggest problems with our growing Spring and Summer leagues is not having enough captains to make rosters manageable. Fewer captains means more players on each team and less playing time for all. I would be lying to say that there is not a little bit of work involved in the endeavor, but it really isn’t that bad and it can be a lot of fun. If at all possible, please contact Randall or Flo and tell him you’d like to captain a team. He might even give you a kiss. Lauren, Linda, and Holly I also want
to mention a few people who are working hard behind the scenes right now
to Tom Street Positions the AFDC for the Future Lastly, you
may know Tom Street as the guy who came to your house to pick up your
sister
And as
always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the AFDC
or how we might be able to do things better, please email
Romey. See you on the fields.
|
|
that.
With 10 teams, this is the largest AFDC Goaltimate league to date, thanks
to the work of AJ Tiarsmith, who stepped up to be
Commissioner, and Dave Bray, who began our seasonal Goaltimate leagues
and continues to work behind the scenes to help promote and sustain them. (not to mention the AFDC itself). The result being that, in terms of pure
numbers, our Goaltimate scene may be the biggest in the country, if not
the world.
am sure will be another great Spring League Ultimate season. Spring
League very likely will be our biggest ever, and just to make sure that
there is plenty of league play to go around, the Evil One, Michael Wood,
will be commanding a spring Goaltimate league that is scheduled to take us
through the end of May. 
field
the following weekend. Except for the annual saga known as Summer
League, Terminus is the biggest project that the AFDC undertakes. I
personally want to thank all of you who have come
forward
so far to volunteer, and for once, we appear to be in decent shape on that
front, so long as we can find enough qualified observers (please call
me). You would think after all of these years of AFDC service, Hale Brown
would be tired of running this show. Fortunately for us, and with a
temporary setback when a busted clavicle relegated him to one-handed
typing, he appears to be going strong and things are again taking shape. 
might expect, the difficult part in developing a convincing bid has been
finding a metro area field facility to
accommodate an event of this magnitude, but which has not been booked for
soccer. If all else fails, the Cumming fields are available, so keep your
fingers crossed. Wherever it may be, you can expect Mike
Baccarini’s
perennial Paideia powerhouse to be on the short list of favorites. 
under
wraps these past two years! While I think that they will be good, it
looks like there are some changes on the horizon. Much discussion
currently is underway about myriad issues, including: splitting Tuesday
night play into two nights, with later start times and longer games; a
complex draft scheme that will tax the mathematical abilities of captains
everywhere, in hopes of bringing more parity to the league; and possibly a
late-night “game of the week” each Thursday, where we all could go heckle
under the lights. However it all turns out, Flo has some great new ideas
and the energy to try to make them happen, so please contact him if you
have any suggestions – he will be more than happy to discuss things with
you extensively. 
make some of these good things happen for us. Lauren Cangelosi recently
took over as our Public Relations Director and she has been a real breath
of fresh air. Trying to get us noticed by the press, and by people who
probably would love to play Ultimate if they only knew about, it is a
difficult job that requires a lot of energy and persistence. We already
are seeing benefits from her efforts, and together with the efforts of
Membership Director, Linda Nordahl, and Holly Sommers promoting womens’
Ultimate, I think there is going to be some significant growth in our
organization in the not-too-distant future.
for
the prom. What you may not know is that when he took over the AFDC
checkbook, our financial condition was not what you would call a thing of
beauty. Since that time, Tom has done an absolutely outstanding job
making sure that all of us on the Steering Committee focus on trying to
keep fees at reasonable levels, while at the same time building our
reserves in the hope that we can secure the field space that we need for
the long-term growth of this organization. While we still have a ways to
go, our financial condition has steadily improved since the day he took
over, and there is no reason to believe that it will not continue in this
direction. Muchas gracias, Tomás!