V's Leadership thread

[Guest speedmonk42]

We have to organize.

The time to start is sometime shortly after my headache goes away, which by the feel of it should be sometime around February.

Location will be Toronto, unless someone can make a seriously convincing argument that does not involve strippers and smoked meat sandwiches.

The purpose will be:

1. To come to an agreement on creating an official organization.

2. Defining the goals of that organization.

3. Determine the structure of the organization.

4. Laying the ground work for a long term strategic plan*

* The strategic planning is to focus on areas over which we have influence, and how to increase that influence. This is not a place or time to complain about the CSA.

The structure of the meeting has yet to be determined, but it will be as professional as possible.

Thoughts, ideas... please post them below.

You can email me directly at sugarengine@gmail.com

[canucklefan]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

* The strategic planning is to focus on areas over which we have influence, and how to increase that influence. This is not a place or time to complain about the CSA.

Can you specify which are the areas where The Voyageurs have influences?

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by canucklefan

Can you specify which are the areas where The Voyageurs have influences?

Growing our numbers creating a better atmosphere at games

Building relationships with stadiums and ticket agencies to block purchase 1000's of tickets

Developing security standards for games

By being an organization people want to be part of doing all of the above putting a stamp on making it credible and enjoyable to cheer for Canada.

Those are just a few things we have influence over. I am not saying people should not criticize the CSA ect.. just that the event, if people want to have one, should not be a CSA bitch festival. In particular, the strategic planning is for things we can do, not what other people should be doing...

[Bertuzzi44]

I almost feel like we have to agree on #1 first, else #2-4 are moot, and there becomes no reason to meet. I think we should make it 'official', but I know others don't.

Oh, and if there is a meeting perhaps you should invite a few prominemt members of Sam's Army as well? For organizational advice?...since they deal with many of the same problems we have to.

Just a thought.

[Cheeta]

Long overdue. Too long. If for no other reason than to better serve OUR SELVES, that is to say the already existing Vs, we need to get organized.

It will be a pain in the ass. And in some way, shape or form, "it" will happen.

Making the Vs official doesn't change a whole lot for many of the people on this website. People will participate (or not) in a Vs organization in a fashion and at a level they're comfortable with. Just as it should be. What we do achieve by making the Vs an official organization is an ability to marshal together those most pro-active Vs who're currently acting individually (or in local groups) on projects and ventures into a more cohesive and focused body. That's important.

Thank God, in many ways the game is finally outgrowing us in this country but I still feel we, the Vs, have the responsibility as a sort of Tribal Elder to be in the vanguard of the movement into the future for Canadian football. Especially with the CSA struggling with their own growing pains currently. We simply cannot effectively do that as we are now.

All the positives which have occurred under the Vs banner this last year have been largely because of the initiatives of individual Vs. Winnipeg Fury, VPjr, River City, the Montreal Vs and a good many others besides. It's great that it has and I'm sure it will always come down to the efforts of individual Vs to make certain schemes work but these positives don't have to be, nor should they be, dependent on the initiative and focused energy of so few.

And just so everyone knows, the Vs membership has grown by about 1,000 legitimate</u> members in the past year. That's roughly a 50% increase. True, that increase includes a good many lurkers who've finally come forward to be recognized but that's still a sizable increase and considering how crappy this website is that increase is just the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned.

The Vs have always been about supporting and promoting the Beautiful Game in Canada and with the evolution of footie up here we've come to a point where we simply are not doing that effectively any longer.

We're there. For those who're willing it's time to get more serious and take the fight to the next level.

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by Bertuzzi44

I almost feel like we have to agree on #1 first, else #2-4 are moot, and there becomes no reason to meet. I think we should make it 'official', but I know others don't.

Oh, and if there is a meeting perhaps you should invite a few prominemt members of Sam's Army as well? For organizational advice?...since they deal with many of the same problems we have to.

Just a thought.

Yes. You are correct. #1 serves several purposes.

The first is an overwhelming opposition check. At this point unless the opposition is completely overwhelming something is going to happen. There is a collective ownership of the name and everything that makes the organization, I am not sure what the threshold is but it must be completely obvious with a strong almost legal reason not to proceed.

The second purpose is a psychological one. Agreeing to move forward and committing to the process. Putting the arguments for and why behind us and moving consciously onto how.

[VPjr]

I fully support this effort. The V's most certainly do need to become more organized. Some people may not like it but the time has come. A little bit of structure is not a bad thing.

You can count on me being in attendance when a meeting date is announced. If I had to travel for this meeting, I would (i feel that strongly about it). One thing is certain, we definitely need to ensure that we explore all options to broadcast this meeting to anyone interested in participating from home.

[CoachRich]

This is what they have in the UK

www.fsf.org.uk

The Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) is the national supporters’ organisation for all football fans comprising over 142,000 individual fans and members of local supporters’ organisations from every club in the professional structure and many from the pyramid.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

I have been musing about something similar for a while, though am not sure about whether the organizing officially part is necessary to be taking effective action. But as I am only in Canada for two months in the summer it is a bit much for me to start recommending this or that solution.

This is what I think can be done whether folks accept or not formalizing the entity, accepting that maybe some of what I am speaking about I could be involved in implementing in Vancouver if folks are interested in doing something:

1) Regardless of if or how to organize, we should meet and have a public presence. There is no need to be grandiose or call a Toronto summit THE summit, as most from outside will not make it. Make it a TO Voyageurs and Canadian soccer fan summit and that is enough. There is no way you can set up nationally if 95% of folks outside of Metro TO can't make a TO summit.

2) The idea should be extended to other cities where there are enough to organize a similarly intended meeting. They could be the Voyageur Summits, in plural. And their goal, apart from the legal question, is to seek out solutions for Canadian soccer.

3) Trying to save Canadian soccer is all very well, but the best way to start, in my opinion, is by having a seminar/mini-conference/encounter that has entertaining content as well as serious content.

The encounter, preferibly in a publicly accessible hall (not a pub), could include a session with some coaches, a visit from a retired Canadian national team player, or the screening of a classic oldie from Canadian annals. In other words, you add relaxing and informative content and then have your hard knocks working session. You can even have a closed door session if that is really necessary to talk without distraction from people not really in line with Voyageur (hard core Canada fan) interests.

4) Inviting someone better known and/or having a varied program through which you focus on the key needs allows to publicize the event, draw press attention. In other words, the higher profile session, for the general public, draws the press, but the motive of rethinking Canadian soccer remains visible and still gets picked up by the media.

5) If you play it right you build affinities and alliances, and our relative weight as a pressure group, however informal and unorganized in reality, is reinforced. We have already seen our profile rise in recent years, there is no reason why it cannot continue, in spite of not having a legal statute backing us up.

6) I'd be happy to get involved if someone wants to set something up in Vancouver next July.

7) There is another thing I have been musing about for a while, related to taking action: I am willing to set up and update a thread that will constitute the Voyageurs Canadian soccer directory. CSA, provincial associations, clubs, politicians and authorities related to sport, agents and other go-betweens, everything anyone needs to send out that irate email or complain about what is not working right.

So many people talk about acting and wanting to contact this or that authority and do not know how to begin. I will be PMing the moderators soon to see if we can do this as a locked thread that everyone can add to and I would update regularly, much like the Mothers of Canucks Abroad thread.

[Guest speedmonk42]

Jeffrey, don't worry about only being here two months of the year, we need all the input we can get. Which is what the meeting will be about. Maximum input, and within our capacity maximize this as much as possible and hold other meetings as well.

2) The goal should be to seek solutions for the Voyageurs, which will both directly and indirectly help Canadian soccer. This is why I am stressing that we focus on things we have influence over, namely growing our oranization.

3) The goal is to create as professional a conference as possible given available resources. This will not be in a pub.

4) Not yet, though I would not rule out the possibility. We will not be rethinking Canadian soccer, it will be about how to set up and Voyageurs, pick specific goals and how to achieve them. A 'Rethinking Canadian Soccer' conference is the kind of thing an established Voyageurs organization can put together in the future.

5) We can't be a pressure group and a charity at the same time. Advocacy and raising funds as far as I know are carefully regulated and it can't be the main purpose of the organization.

6) I may be back in Vancouver for a month or two in the summer, so lets shoot for a meeting there too around that time, and see what we learn from the first one.

7) Don't bother with this thread just yet. The new website will have a directory built in for people and organizations. More importantly I want to build in a dirctory of 'project' Initiatives and things people are working on around the country.

But more importantly this directory should be used in a positive manner. We need to build connections to grow the game and organization not simply for irate email, though I fully understand the sentiment.

[CanadasBest]

Getting this group more organized would definitely be a good idea. I fully support this.

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by gwallace76

Getting this group more organized would definitely be a good idea. I fully support this.

Sounds great.

This summer we will shoot for a western meeting as Jeffrey suggested.

[piltdownman]

What about having the mach coincide with the Montreal Impact Cl match? That would give some incentive for us out of towners to fly out.

Regardless I strongly believe that a component of the meeting should be a conference call/web meeting where people who do not live in Toronto can give input.

[El Hombre]

quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

What about having the mach coincide with the Montreal Impact Cl match? That would give some incentive for us out of towners to fly out.

Regardless I strongly believe that a component of the meeting should be a conference call/web meeting where people who do not live in Toronto can give input.

Depending on who will actually be attending this in February, it would make sense (at least to me) to have mini meetings in January and then have a representative show up at the big one in February. For example, if there is someone that is actually willing to fly to Toronto for this from Vancouver, it would make sense that the Vancouver-ites get together prior to that and that person can represent that area.

Just a thought. I like where this is going though.

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by El Hombre

Depending on who will actually be attending this in February, it would make sense (at least to me) to have mini meetings in January and then have a representative show up at the big one in February. For example, if there is someone that is actually willing to fly to Toronto for this from Vancouver, it would make sense that the Vancouver-ites get together prior to that and that person can represent that area.

Just a thought. I like where this is going though.

Yes, I was considering this kind of thing too. However, I would like to have at least one meeting before anyone committed the resources necessary to flying across the country.

I also considered coinciding with the CL match, the timing is almost right.

It's not like we don't have time... sigh...

Technology will be used as best as possible to stream, tele-conference ect...

[smiddy]

I like the mini conferences idea beforehand. Which might help firm up a provincial V's structure. That could send representatives to the big conference. Just my 2 cents.

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by smiddy

I like the mini conferences idea beforehand. Which might help firm up a provincial V's structure. That could send representatives to the big conference. Just my 2 cents.

Yes. But here is what I am thinking.

1. Initial conference

2. Mini-conferences

3. Summit & decision making.

The advantage to having one first is getting the experience down, learning from it and making the rest of them more effective.

This is a longer process, but a necessary one. Based on our experiences with the first two steps we can decide on the format for the third.

[Reza]

I think we finally now have enough bodies to form a more organized group and I am fully in favor of more organization now that we have been able to pull hundreds of fans in three different locations, through the works of many dozens of people and with the help of various club team supporters club.

I think it's important to look for ideas such as LOCs, term-based positions (trust me maintaining a website or chasing after CSA or porvincial bodies after a while can get tiring).

I also think we need to modify our website a bit, by making it more focused on fewer items as opposed to trying to cover too much with it and then not having enough resources to update it.

I think like any good organization, we need to identify a few key proceses, and spend the months and years, to constantly fine tune and improve those.

As for the summit, we should hold smaller regional meetings and if someone is willing to travel to the summit, that's fine, but this is 2008, so there are all kinds of options from Skype to video conferencing to many many other ways of staging a summit.

[Winnipeg Fury]

For those that say we have to organize, I say WE ARE organized.

Since I got the Voyageurs official recognition, we have had 4 games. 4 games in three cities.

Prior to the St Vincent match, we numbered just over 800. We are now over 3000. And that after Canada **** the bed in qualifying. If anyone is not happy with those numbers, considering the brutal performance of our team, they have unreal expectations.

We have a close working relationship with all the major club groups across Canada. All the clubs (with the exception of the Montreal Ultras who won't officially support a Canadian supporters group for political reasons) have permanent links to the Voyageurs on their sites. All of the club groups are in agreement that when Canada plays, they fly the V's banner. Not a small achievement.

The CSA have gone from shunning us for years, to recognizing the Voyageurs and working with us.

After months of negotiation, I have had the Voyageurs Cup turned into the Holy Grail of Canadian soccer with televised matches. It has placed us forever at the top of the pyramid. Again, working with the different club groups to insure a complete victory for the Voyageurs.

If people can't recognize that we have come lights years in the past year, then there are complete idiots. We have moved from an internet chat forum, to Canada's largest national supporters group in very short order.

And if anyone thinks this was all achieved by some unorganized mob, they are delusional.

On a personal note, I just spent a small fortune attending matches out East. I'm not going to drop a grand for what sounds like a night of egos, beer and popularity contest (sorry, but qualifying has left me in a dark mood and I'm not in the mood for sugar-coating anything).

[ted]

quote:Originally posted by Winnipeg Fury

And if anyone thinks this was all achieved by some unorganized mob, they are delusional.

Actually what I think is that you and and maybe a couple of others have done an insane amount of work on your own. Thanks. Please don't stop!

That said, I still think some sort of more formal structure is what was meant by "organize"and it is worth talking about. We proposed a similar meeting a couple of years ago and even talked about making it a bit of a conference and bringing in someone from Supporters Direct for a keynote and brain-picking session.

I know I can't attend such a meeting back East but I would be delighted to meet with locals and send a rep or reps with a mandate to speak for us.

Right now we have a functioning anarchy. I think it is worth discussing the future of the organization. We cannot really continue to moan about the CSA never reviewing their organization if we will not even consider doing the same.

[BrennanFan]

Yea we achieved alot, but there's a lot still left to accomplish.

As someone else posted, ticketmaster doesn't work for the MNT. As long as the CSA sells tickets to games like any other sporting event via ticketmaster, we will never have a true home field advantage. I think our longterm goal should be to convince the CSA to give us 100% control of ticket sales for all WCQ games. We could run a membership/ticketing system on behalf of the CSA and sell the tickets ourselves to Canadian supporters. To deal with that much money, we need to incorporate.

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by ted

Actually what I think is that you and and maybe a couple of others have done an insane amount of work on your own. Thanks. Please don't stop!

That said, I still think some sort of more formal structure is what was meant by "organize"and it is worth talking about. We proposed a similar meeting a couple of years ago and even talked about making it a bit of a conference and bringing in someone from Supporters Direct for a keynote and brain-picking session.

Right now we have a functioning anarchy. I think it is worth discussing the future of the organization. We cannot really continue to moan about the CSA never reviewing their organization if we will not even consider doing the same.

Definetly not anarchy. Anarchy is a mob, and none of the above would have been accomplished if that were the case. It isn't formal, and not visible perhaps to outsiders,but it's solid, functioning, national and in place.

It's funny, but I work with criminal organizations and have modeled much of the Voyageurs after certain groups. The V's have been operating with an informal national council, made of regional rep's. When key components of the Voyageurs Cup were being discussed with the CSA, I wasn't operating within a vacuum, but getting advice from many of the senior V's across Canada. GL, Rudi, Free Kick, Grizzly, Cheeta, Red Hat, Gordan, Vancouver Fan, Reza, Ed, Daniel, etc.......bouncing ideas off people, making sure I was on the right track. No these people weren't elected, but they were all senior V's that had proven themselves and proven to me that they had their head together. All people who's judgement I could trust and had proven themselves through years of dedication. The fact the deal went down, and nobody opened their mouth putting anything in jeopardy confirms to me that these people were all solid.

Don't mistake visibility for functionality. You could have paid a CEO a 6-digit figure and he would not have accomplished half what I accomplished this past year on zero budget. (I'm generally a pretty shy individual and shun the spot light. Despite essentially running the show the past year and behind everything, I tend to downplay my personal role and what is happening. Just my nature). It seems that continually minimizing my role and what has taken place has given the impression that anarchy rules.

Is there work to do ? Absolutely ! The foundation has been laid and now it's time to build.

Maybe you guys are right, time to step out of the shadows. We have a functioning organization, maybe it's time to formalize. All major goals have been accomplished, time to step up.

I would personally love to see some of the senior guys that I consider council members, get some official recognition/designation.

[Guest speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by Winnipeg Fury

If people can't recognize that we have come lights years in the past year, then there are complete idiots. We have moved from an internet chat forum, to Canada's largest national supporters group in very short order.

And if anyone thinks this was all achieved by some unorganized mob, they are delusional.

On a personal note, I just spent a small fortune attending matches out East. I'm not going to drop a grand for what sounds like a night of egos, beer and popularity contest (sorry, but qualifying has left me in a dark mood and I'm not in the mood for sugar-coating anything).

No one has said we have not achieved anything, or suggested we are an unorganized mob. Quite the contrary, the Voyageurs are the success of this round of qualifying and there is no disputing it.

As for your mood, I feel the same way which is why any such meetings must be delayed until next year.

We need to organize becauase we can't have our people continue to front large sums of money to buy tickets in bulk or rely on a code system that clearly does not work and creates serious security problems.

This will be a significant amount money which requires oversight/incorporation.

We need to organize for exactly the reason you are stating, we are not an unorganized mob! What happens if we grow our size over the next four years to.....??? We can grow, and I think we should.

I don't trust the CSA or Ticketmaster to do a thing for us 1 game from now or 4 years from now. We need an agreement/contract with guidelines from everything on ticket sales to security standards. If that is not possible, there may be no point in doing anything.

Organize = incorporate, not meant as a suggestion we were unorganized! Sorry, that didn't occur to me till I read the above!

[Winnipeg Fury]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

No one has said we have not achieved anything, or suggested we are an unorganized mob. Quite the contrary, the Voyageurs are the success of this round of qualifying and there is no disputing it.

As for your mood, I feel the same way which is why any such meetings must be delayed until next year.

We need to organize becauase we can't have our people continue to front large sums of money to buy tickets in bulk or rely on a code system that clearly does not work and creates serious security problems.

This will be a significant amount money which requires oversight/incorporation.

We need to organize for exactly the reason you are stating, we are not an unorganized mob! What happens if we grow our size over the next four years to.....??? We can grow, and I think we should.

I don't trust the CSA or Ticketmaster to do a thing for us 1 game from now or 4 years from now. We need an agreement/contract with guidelines from everything on ticket sales to security standards. If that is not possible, there may be no point in doing anything.

We have tripled in size over the past few months. I believe we are growing, and will continue to do so.

You may not trust the CSA or ticketmaster, but there's nothing to say that we can't achieve these goals under our current format. We have achieved far bigger goals, I don't see why this is any different. The campaign has not even ended and I think the CSA want to wrap things up before moving on. With no home games, I have no problem with that.

This was all going to be addressed prior to the Hex, but due to our crap performance, the urgency has ended. Let's keep in mind, we have really only just started. 4 games in three cities. It has been a steep learning curve for everyone involved and tons of work.

Our World Cup campaign was a huge accomplishment and success, but everyone recognizes there's room for improvement.

If people think we will achieve better results with official titles, I think they are out to lunch. That said, I would love to see some of the individuals that I consider key (and I would hope others would as well) get some official recognition. That's not to say it wouldn't be open to others or that these individuals would be interested. A few people I turned to over the months declined any response/involvement. For example, Brennan Fan (a relatively new member) did a bang-up job with the cash and orders. I have held the V money safe and secure since 2002, and it was a bit of a relief with so much going on, that I had someone that I felt complete confidence to turn to, and who subsequently followed through with a great job. So yes, there is always room for talent in the V's organization.

As for incorporation, that I believe is an expensive endeavor, and I'm not sure that equates with organizing. Not my area of expertise. We achieved some pretty lofty goals this past year without that, I'm not sure what we would have gained.

[River City]

quote:Originally posted by Winnipeg Fury

If people think we will achieve better results with official titles, I think they are out to lunch.

I'm not sure about incorporation since the most well versed in legal matters among us felt we didn't need it. But in regards to official titles, we need to be transparent as an organization.

As our numbers grow, everyone needs to know who is doing what and who is accountable for it.