Questions for the TBA @ the AGM

[wchester]

There will be an open forum at the TBA's Annual General Meeting next month in Sydney. Whether or not I'm elected to the board of directors, I will be posing some questions at that time. If there is anything you wish to ask or say to the TBA board please post it here or send it to me in a PM. I'll do my best to get some answers.

 

[AGE]

What questions are you already planning to ask??? by the sounds of this post you already have a few questions in mind.

with all the negativity you are getting lately maybe this would be a good time to get all the positives that you think you may be able to implement out in the open.

this is not an attack on you or your motives Wayne ( as I have questioned some of your posts in the past ) but more of a question of what you would like to do for the bowlers out there.

I guess what I am asking wayne is if you get on the board of directors, what are you going to do for us???

 

[JWhitty]

I guess what I am asking wayne is if you get on the board of directors, what are you going to do for us???

I don't think that was quite the point.

There is a forum coming up where people with the time and passion will have the opportunity to speak up for us, and hopefully get the board thinking or moving.

As unpopular as Wayne has become on this forum (and I grant he suffers from a similar disease to myself, in 'speaking' without thinking about how others read it), he's trying to take a message to TBA. That message, correct me if I'm wrong, is "We (the bowlers) are here. We make this sport what it is, we have opinions. We want to be heard."

Personally I've forwarded Wayne some material to consider in this instance, and I'd encourage anyone else who isn't making the trip but has an opinion about something that will actually advance the sport to send it to him.

 

[AGE]

I don't think that was quite the point.

well its precisely the point. Wayne is asking if we want any questions raised but by the sounds of the the post there are already questions that he is going to ask.

the original statement that I made was what are the questions he already has in mind. from there anyone else can elaborate from the original questions that he is going to raise.

granted I did go that 1 step further but I think that anyone who wants to be on the board should state why and what they stand for.

 

[wchester]

To put it in a nutshell, what I represent is a person who has done and seen just about everything having to do with tenpin bowling. I’ve been a teacher and a student of the sport for my entire adult life, and now I want to share some of my knowledge and help in leading Tenpin Bowling in Australia back onto the right path. We can still grow as a sport. There is no need to panic. It will take a lot of hard work and determination in order for bowling to regain its place in the sporting world.

I have the time, the knowledge and the drive to initiate plans, and to keep my finger on the pulse of our sport, just as I do now. I read anything and everything about bowling. From here in our own backyard to many overseas publications on the Internet.

I will be accessible to ALL BOWLERS via email, the internet, and telephone. Ask me a question and you'll get an honest and straightforward answer.

For any of you who aren't aware of my background, I’ve been a serious fan of this sport since I first laced them up in 1962. Much of my youth was spent in and around bowling centers, and at age 14 I was fortunate enough to represent my hometown of San Francisco, in the first ever United States Youth games, held in New York City. As time went on, I set a number of scoring records for my age group and in the back of my mind I dreamed of being a Professional Bowler. This dream was realized when at age 22, I became a member of the PBA. Three years late I captured a national PBA Tour title and went on to a long career as a part-time professional bowler.

When I wasn’t bowling in tournament, I sought employment within the Tenpin industry. First as a desk person and eventually as a general manager, with a number of intermediate stops in between. I spent two years working as an account executive for a large chain of bowling centers and over the course of 20 years. I operated pro shops in four different centers. Moving permanently to Australia in 1999, I was employed during 2000-2001 as the general Manager of Echuca's Kingpin Bowl. Today, I spend much of my time working from home on the computer as the owner of a small home based collectibles business.

I have quite a few ideas on how to set our sport back onto the right path, but it's not about me..It's about you, the general bowling populace....what would you like to see the TBA do for you?

 

[wchester]

Please ..all of you..
step forward and ask questions. This is your big chance to get straight answers from the TBA regarding our future.

One of the hard hitting questions I will be asking is 'what does the average bowler get in return for his TBA membership/registration/sanction/ fee?"
i know the members of this site have opionions and questions they'd like to see answered, so please post them here or send me a PM through totalbowling.

 

[Troyza]

I think that's going to be hard, it seems when some people post their opinions on here, they get shot down by a few people.

I have a question. Apologies if there is already an answer to it. What is TBA doing in regards to publicity of the sport? Will there be more publicity in the future, or less publicity, & if so, what will be done to further advertise this great sport?

 

[plpatford]

I also have a question and this may also have already been answered. But what is the TBA doing to help juniors in regional areas? The Juniors are our future and as a parent it doesn't seem to me that there is much being done to assist our juniors to progress in regional areas.

 

[philby]

Hi Wayne

I respect you as a bowler and hope that you can bring change to the sport we all love.

My question

What can TBA do to keep juniors in our sport once they graduate to youth and beyond. It seems that so many of our junior bowlers just disappear after leaving juniors. Scan the all star lists from President shield to see what i mean. I have my own ideas as to why this happens.

Our Junior bowlers should be encouraged to participate in open events not frowned upon. If you have spent as much time watching high profile tournaments you will know what i mean.

regards
Phil

 

[Andrew S.]

One of the hard hitting questions I will be asking is 'what does the average bowler get in return for his TBA membership/registration/sanction/ fee?"

And thats a hard hitting question?
We all know what we get in return. Its not a lot, but $12.50 doesn't go very far.

You really need to come up with constructive suggestions that help. Its very easy to question the status quo but it takes a real candidate to come up with alternative policies and if you're after votes it might help if you were to openly publicise your policies.

So how about I ask you to answer the really important questions such as

What would you make the membership fee?
How would you allocate that membership money?
What would you do to increase membership numbers?
What would you do to revive flagging State and National Championships?

I've got lots of other questions but that should keep you going for now.

 

[RobbieB]

One possible option for a membership fee...

Charge $2 per league set as TBA fee. For this the bowler gets one free game voucher, transferable for use by any TBA member.

Most people won't miss $2. Keener bowlers who bowl more than one league pay more but get the benefit of more practice games. And anyone who simply doesn't want to bowl practice games ever can sell their vouchers if they want, especially in centres with expensive practice rates.

If the average bowler bowls 50 sets per year, thats $100, x 20,000 members = $2million/year. 50% to tba, 15% each to local and state associations, 15% to advertising/TV., 5% to Nationals

As for revitalising Nationals - no disrespect to John Coxon, but it needs the services of a professional management team. Nationals are too big for one person and volunteers to reasonably handle.

To the tournament itself - get a travel company to put together a National Bowling Holiday package together, where participants bowl their events, but also do the major tourist events/sights in the venue area. Then sell it to the bowlers as their chance for a great holiday as well as a bowling trip.

Add in some relevant seminars/coaching opportunities/pro-am events, and TBA can start value-adding. Would it matter if the tournament ran for an extra week if it was full and TBA could pick up an extra $100K from clinics and courses?

Make the bowlers there feel special - they might want to come back then. Announce every group onto the lanes. Add titbits like - welcome to Doris from SA, this is Doris 25th Nationals, woot woot etc.

Have a cash prize, presented then and there, for the best series each squad - most over average. Presented on the apprach with a bit of fanfare, every bowler in that bowlers centre will hear about it. It's about raising the profile.

Rachuig - I'd love to see a pre-Rachuig Baker format tournament, with all 7 bowlers having to bowl each game. Pick your best 3 for the clutch shots at the end. A 9-game round robin would be great spectator fare, and over in 2 1/2 hours, or 3 hr with a top-4 knockout for TV. $70 bucks each prizemoney gets the winning team $5k - bit of incentive. And bring back the sledge just for this event

Flame away

 

[sampson1791]

Wayne

When is the TBA going to step up and put forward a similar program to AFL's AusKick or Milo's Have a Go Cricket?

Are state associations going to be funded (under the TBA banner) to support local programs, country clinics and school programs?

And possibly getting the 40 frame game up and running as a national tournement

Jason

 

[wchester]

You really need to come up with constructive suggestions that help. Its very easy to question the status quo but it takes a real candidate to come up with alternative policies and if you're after votes it might help if you were to openly publicise your policies.
So how about I ask you to answer the really important questions such as
What would you make the membership fee?
How would you allocate that membership money?
What would you do to increase membership numbers?
What would you do to revive flagging State and National Championships?
I've got lots of other questions but that should keep you going for now.

Thank you for asking Andrew., but before I answer your questions, I'd like to ask you if you've posed those very same questions to some of the other candidates for the TBA Director postion. Instead of revealing their identities on this forum, I'll PM you and let you answer. Then, I'll give everyone my views on your questions. Just to let the general bowling public know..the TBA board members are the only ones with votes, and I know I face an uphill battle in convincing the current TBA board members to vote in an "outsider"

 

[Andrew S.]

I've got a pretty good idea who the candidates are Wayne, and yes those questions have been put to some of them.
I'm also surprised that the names of the candidates haven't yet been announced on the TBA web site. The applications closed 3 weeks ago.

 

[Shoey]

I also have a question and this may also have already been answered. But what is the TBA doing to help juniors in regional areas? The Juniors are our future and as a parent it doesn't seem to me that there is much being done to assist our juniors to progress in regional areas.

and what is being done is done to assist the elite junior who is close to ageing out and who really has very little left to learn about the sport and not to help the younger "elite bowler of tomorrow" reach that status.

i guess the question is posed why do we continually throw money at training camps etc for the elite when 90% of our bowlers are not in this bracket. sure continue to work on honing the elite's skills but why not also work on the remainder to make our elite bracket of bowler bigger. we could even have our elite bowlers work on a program for this and also enable us to keep coaches like Chris Batson in this country rather than allow them to go overseas. if other countries can see the value in our top coaches why can't we.

 

[Shoey]

i have another one - is TBA going to do anything to shut down the seemingly endless number of organisations, committees and sub committees we have. seems like there's plenty of chiefs and not too many indians in our sport.

we need TBA to stand up as the national body running and controlling on a national level with state committees under it running and controlling on a state level. lines of control need to be clear and distinct not all over the place with the countless number of organisations running off in different directions using similar but separate resources for what they all see as the common good of bowling

we also need those willing to be on committees to have modern ideas not ideas that worked in the 70's and 80's

 

[Shoey]

Thank you for asking Andrew., but before I answer your questions, I'd like to ask you if you've posed those very same questions to some of the other candidates for the TBA Director postion. Instead of revealing their identities on this forum, I'll PM you and let you answer. Then, I'll give everyone my views on your questions. Just to let the general bowling public know..the TBA board members are the only ones with votes, and I know I face an uphill battle in convincing the current TBA board members to vote in an "outsider"

why not reveal their names, i challenge all who have nominated to step up and reveal yourself. let the members of TBA know who you are and what you stand for.

why do these things by PM Wayne, you opened this thread asking for questions etc, why then go and cloak and dagger it. the questions have been asked in a public forum and should be answered in the same public forum.

what, worried that the board who vote you in or out may dislike your reply and totally overlook you or something. your past posts on this website alone would more than likely done that for you already.

 

[wchester]

why not reveal their names, i challenge all who have nominated to step up and reveal yourself. let the members of TBA know who you are and what you stand for.
why do these things by PM Wayne, you opened this thread asking for questions etc, why then go and cloak and dagger it.

The reason why I haven't revealed the names of two people who I've "heard' are running against me, is this..
I don't know for sure that they even ARE candidates for the director position. I've only heard rumours. The TBA has not made any names public, nor have they told me who my opponents might be. So you see, it's not me who is doing the cloak and dagger dance.

 

[willey]

Shoey and others talking about keeping the Elite Juniors in the Game. Here's the Facts of Life, when they reach the Adult status and are earning thier own Money, they always find other things to spend it on, Cars, Girls, Drink, its all good when Mommy and Daddy are spending thier Precious Mullah but when the real world hits they always disappear from the Game. This I have observed over 40 years, the only time I seen a follow through of Juniors was when the age was increased to 21, than we had the likes of Fred Alsopp and a few Bowlers of his Generation come through.

So the Bottom line is, the Game is too Expensive!

willey

 

[Shoey]

The reason why I haven't revealed the names of two people who I've "heard' are running against me, is this..
I don't know for sure that they even ARE candidates for the director position. I've only heard rumours. The TBA has not made any names public, nor have they told me who my opponents might be. So you see, it's not me who is doing the cloak and dagger dance.

yeah you are, you've been asked questions, have PM'd the poster of those questions and not advised the rest of us of those answers. why?