Let's us say "hypothetically" that we are going to establish a TRAINING GRANT to accumulate money to fund training around the state of Texas. These training programs would be in addition to the annual officials school that each official is required to attend, and in most cases for an experienced official, would be optional for an official to attend. The training would be a requirement only after a local association has deemed it so.
Note: This specialized on-court training would also be a good training school for officials who need refreshing and/or have had complaints filed against them.
Note: It might work best if there were a Texas Section Training Coordinator who would be responsible for coordinating the training efforts throughout the state. This person would also be responsible for submitting the pay vouchers for the trainers.
Back to the discussion of the TRAINING GRANT, and specifically how to fund it. One hypothetical idea would be the following:
* Use any leftover money in the officials budget of the Texas Section. This usually is at least $2,500 annually.
* Cut the officials committee back to one meeting (the annual Texas Section meeting when all other committees meet) per year. Require that any other meetings be done by conference call, email, or internet meeting programs.
* Here is the approximate amount of money that would be gained by this new policy. (Remember that travel expenses to meetings are not included in the officials section of the Texas Section budget).
18 officials (average number who attend the semi-annual meeting)
$300 average amount spent on each official including meals, mileage, hotel, and transportation.
$5,400 Amount of money to be gained by deleting the semi-annual officials committee meeting.
ANALYSIS OF AVAILABLE MONIES
$5,400 Money to be gained by deleting the semi-annual officials committee meeting.
$2,000 Money to be gained by deleting ad hoc committee meetings.
$2,500 Amount of excess money in the Texas Section budget.
$9,900 Amount of money available with these changes.
What that means is that there would be 550 HOURS OF PAID TRAINING IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE (at $18/hour for the trainers).
Note: With these changes, the trainers could be paid for their efforts (that they are currently doing for free) and there would be a much larger number of trainers available. With that amount of money available for training, we could easily increase the training programs throughout the state without any additional budgeting.
Just a HYPOTHETICAL THOUGHT for the day. We would welcome yours...
5 comments:
Randy, you fogot to add in monies to provide for LUNCH!!! in that training grant budget.
That's true!
You've got to be kidding! (I think your outline has a great deal of merit.) Nothing is going to ever change while the current people are in power. "We've been doing it this way for ___ years so it must be the right way." Any change is uncomfortable and threatening to anyone in any setting. It doesn't matter how wonderful the change is; or how much an improvement the change is. Any change creates anxiety. Once we humans get set in our way, we see change as a negative.
Again, nice idea. A groundswell of public outcry will only be met with a defensive response to justify the status quo and keep everything the same. But as long as there are human beings involved, nothing will change.
The best change would be a new Sectional Chairman. Maybe then we could see some constructive changes.
It may be a matter of the more seasoned officials thinking they are better than they actually are and therefore don't require re-training on a yearly basis.
As a seasoned official, I always find it welcome to get together on a yearly basis and gain a better understanding of the nuances of the myriad tennis rules and interpretations. A lot of my cohorts are more interested in getting the classes over with so they can go out and each lunch together.
This mentality MUST change.
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