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Club member's and those considering joining the sdga,
Tim is an extremely nice guy. My only frustrations with him are that he doesn't seem to carry his own voice and guidance in what he see's as best for our sport. Maybe the reason for this, is because his experience is extremely limited. I did not have a strong voice when I first became a club member in 2000 and started going to club meetings in 2001.. 3 years later after having traveled extensively, and after running many fundraisers and digging and scraping our courses out of the soil. I started to feel like my say counted. Tim has 3 years of casual golfing experience. He has played some local events and is well liked by most golfers... He hasn't expressed real opinions though. He hasn't stood for what's right in his mind. A real leader stands for what's right from their experience, and also takes in the group consensus, and than represents whatever the group decides. A strong voice based on professional disc golf experience is something few in this area actually have. Even fewer are willing to join the board. Tim has a very demanding job in real life. He is very smart. He is a solid person. I value his opinions and what he can become as a club member and possibly as a board member. His experience in disc golf, and his lack of actually accomplishing things in our community is where he falls short of being the best candidate for the position of SDGA President in my opinion.
It is time for action club members. WE CAN BUILD IT! Show up to the next club meeting on the 10th of January! Sign up using sdga.us. Mail in your ballots!!!! Sean Johnson, Tim Vache, and myself Jeremy Thornton, have a deep down hunger to get results. We can accomplish! We want to empower our club members! We have young men's backs and energy. We have more than enough experience to make decisions that are good for our community! We have great relationships with people in our community. I own a landscaping business, tntyardworks.com. Tim Vache has loads of landscaping experience as well and he really wants to give back to the sport that has taken him all around the country! Sean Johnson is very wise and has really shown a strong ability to analyze a situation. He skillfully and accurately navigates both sides issues, all the while helping to come up with the most common sense approach to solving the problem at hand.
Disc golf in this town needs to hit the next level. We are READY. All I ask is you do what you can to help!
1. Get your membership
2. VOTE!!!!
These are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
OPTIONAL
3. Come to a meeting
4. Show up for a work party!!
5. Find out what you can do at the course, form your own work party (with Course facilitator guidance) and make our courses better!
6. Play a trash round, pick up garbage you see during a fun round!
7. Bring a new business sponsor to help us fund our new courses
8. Go to a weekly
9. Run a weekly
10. Write a letter to the parks department about how much disc golf is appreciated in Spokane and how we need to have more areas opened for development! The more enthusiasm and passion our golfers show, the more we are going to get!! The more involved, the more pride that is visible on our courses, the better!!!
Things on my list of what needs to happen
1. Teepads need to be framed, filled in with 3/8 in crushed gravel, leveled. Compacted to the max! This means machinery! If our teepads were built properly in the beginning they would not be torn and wearing as bad as they are. The anchors (bolts in the ground) should be 2 inches from the edge of the pads and one more set needs to be added to each side. Specific instructions from the manufacturers have been ignored. I helped with these installations but I merely followed my instructions. It is sad to see $100 per teepad dissolve well before it was intended to.
2. A grant needs to be written to underwrite the building of Camp Sekani. The deadline is February 5th. I have the paperwork already. I am in the process of filling it out. We can get $10,000 for building our COURSES. The organization that gives out these grants only has money to give out on certain years. This happens to be one of them. We can help mitigate a huge expense on our side and build disc golf with excavators and proper heavy duty, long lasting materials like concrete and rocks. Sand blasting teesigns and making our new courses as natural as possible will help make a low impact and a long lasting professional feel that we can enjoy for years to come. My landscaping business motto is, "Build it write the first time, enjoy the results for a long time!"
3. Give the club it's power back! The golfers in the Spokane area have a huge wealth of skills and knowledge that could quite easily tackle the largest projects! I know a great deal of these Out of Touch Club Members. These OTCM's need to be reached. They have grown weary of the politics and the drawn out inaction of our organization. I have never known a town to be so divided and so inactive. If the club members vote for something the board can easily vote to do what it see's fit. I think it should be two thirds majority vote from the board to go over the club's head. The absolute power that the board wields has allowed very few to make assertions that the "club has been circumvented" when in fact, the club was never present to make such assertions. The real problem here is that the club is being circumvented by board. They will have you believe that somehow the club recognized this as the best way when the charter was first written. This is not the case. The existing Charter was presented at the end of long club meeting and was passed with almost no discussion. Not really the best way to start out an organization, give one small group the power, and the large group the responsibility of paying for memberships and voting. If you read our forum and compare it to others. You may see why people have tuned out. I myself have been guilty of getting to fired up. I have taken mistakes as personal. I have been picked at, lied about and had rumors spread against me that carry no truth or merit. I am over stinging comment's, I will never question someone's man hood because of my own mistakes. I own my faults, I learn from them, I move on. I have learned how valuable these forum's can be and how detrimental they are if used incorrectly. When I am frustrated, I write all the problems out in full strength. I then comb them over to make sure that negative issue's are minimal, and what we can do is prime! I realize that when I speak in person I do not treat people disrespectfully. On the keyboard there is nothing stopping me from venting. I am stopping myself. It's time to present what's best for our group. To put our best foot forward and start bringing our club members back into the mix! Positive energy must be the norm amongst our fellow golfer's. Together we are strongest!
4. To push for more disc golf! Gordy, has said that there are 18 good holes at Sekani. He believes that they start at going up the hill and do not come down to the lower side, except to finish out. There are 2 other board members that do not vote against Gordy, (Bob, Jon Verbarg). I have built Championship disc golf courses and played on several in my 16 years of disc golf. I promise that there is one family friendly, mountain bike friendly, 18 hole course with something for every skill level course on the lower, more accessible area of Sekani. The snow melts quite rapidly during the winter and there is plenty of shade during the summer, the wind is shielded quite well in this area. There is another, par 60-66 Championship disc golf course waiting to be etched into the side of the beacon. This hill is formidable and will make our local serious players into battle tested, seriously strong disc golfers! That hill is not for 40% of our community and during our warm summers it is not for 60% of our community, nor will it be playable for winter time play. This hill is where Gordy see's our only course being designed. This is from what he has mentioned several times, including at the last meeting to interview for the course facilitator's. There are more projects that I want to accomplish. I think we need a couple of 6 to 9 hole courses that promote family play. Grant writing could possibly open up the doors for plenty of new course installations in our area.
People's park. This area has been put on the back burner because of lack of interest from the Native Americans who have been on this land for thousands of years. My Great Grandma is pure native. She is 98 years old and as sharp as a tack. She said that she would go with me to speak with the tribe about building a course at People's. She recommended that I bring discs to give to the people and to volunteer to design a course for the people of the reservation. I would organize and teach a free clinic for them as well. She said that the folks that live up there lack fun, cheap recreation to help pass the time and enjoy nature the way disc golf does. I am more than willing to drive up there and to volunteer my time if it opens more doors for our community to enjoy more disc golf.
I love disc golf. I will do what it takes to see that we get to enjoy as much as possible, and that our courses show how much pride we have in our sport! Every month of the year is a good time to grow our sport. I want to accomplish at least 2 things a month in our area. We have a large base of people that could be very active. It's time to bring them on board and get it going!
Yours in Disc,
Jeremy Thornton
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