With the Genesee Region United States Bowling Congress Association annual team, doubles and singles tournament on the horizon, now is as good a time as any to check on the organization’s progress.
GRUSBC President Paul Spiotta spent about 20 minutes on the phone with me Tuesday night, answering the following questions about the association, which formed two seasons ago with the merger of the American Bowling Congress, Women’s International Bowling Congress and Young American Bowling Alliance.
Here’s part one of our conversation. Part two will appear next week.
Q. Do you see the association, which consists of men, women and youth bowlers from part of four counties, coming together? If so, what obstacles have you had to overcome and what challenges lie ahead?
A. We’ve seen slow but steady progress. The board has known from the onset that the transition to a merged association would take quite some time. During 2006-07, we worked to provide as transparent a change as possible to all members and try not to impose a tremendous amount of change all at once. Many longtime league secretaries had been used to dealing with former longtime association secretaries such as Ange Bell, Bob Goodwin and Karen Henry. However, our association manager Steve O’Dell was able to step in and provide stability, which eased the transition.
The main obstacles are providing effective communication to our members and attempting to get more people involved. With respect to effective communication, the association web site is a great starting point. There already is a great deal of information a member can find by accessing the site, but so much more can be added.
Unfortunately, I would guess that less than 50 percent of our members know that www.geneseeregionusbc.com even exists. People involvement is another big concern – we need help getting the word out about association-related events. It’s disappointing to know that we have over 3,000 members but less than 100 have any type of active involvement to better our association.
Q. Do you think the size of the association, geographically, hurts to some extent?
A. Yes, to some extent I believe it has, particularly with today’s price of gas. A trip from Dansville to Albion or vice versa to bowl in a tournament could possibly dissuade someone from participating.
However, with that said, the benefits of a merged association outweigh the negatives from an administrative and financial standpoint. I’m extremely pleased that we’ve been able to maintain the adult certification fee at $15 and the youth fee at $10. Although I don’t have the research to back it up, I assume our fees are on the low side compared to other New York State local associations.
If you recall, prior to the merger, many men and women had to pay two local certification fees if they wanted to bowl in leagues that were in different associations. Now that we’re merged, they only pay one fee.
Q. How effective has the board been in making connections with the bowling center proprietors and managers? Do you feel you have the support of the association’s halls?
A. I feel we have the support of the association halls but there is definitely room for improvement. From a tournament standpoint, the board is committed to rotating all of our sponsored tournaments across the association centers so that there is equal representation throughout the whole territory. But we need to get more involvement from the board as well as the proprietors and managers in an effort to make the association better.
We have one proprietor who is currently a board member – Joanne Van Duser (of Perry) who has done some pretty good things relative to her position as one of our youth representatives. We have one open position on the adult director’s side, and there is talk of bringing on another bowling proprietor who is interested in that position.
Q. Do you see any conflict of interest in having a proprietor on the USBC board?
A. That was actually discussed. There was some concern by a few board members, but a majority of the board felt that there would not necessarily be a conflict of interest. They feel if there was a proprietor who was on the board and was trying to sway certain things his way, there would be enough board rejection to prevent that from happening.
Currently, the president of the national USBC (Jeff Bojé) is also the former president of the BPAA (Bowling Proprietors Association of America). From a national standpoint, you know about the push for the coming together of the USBC and the BPAA.
Q. What new programs does the board plan to implement, if any?
A. We’re working on, well, the name of the program is Genesee Region USBC Volunteer, and we’re asking for the assistance of association members and centers to basically see if there are people who bowl at a particular center that would be interested in providing a volunteer or two to help with various ways of getting the communication out (to our members). There are eight items we’re asking people to help us out with.
Number one, to help us in getting leagues certified by delivering supplies at the beginning of the year (and) answering questions when asked by bowlers regarding benefits and certification; two, keep in contact with the office, particularly if there are questions you can’t answer; three, support USBC and the Genesee Region as a public relations representative; four, make award presentations during the year; five, assist with lane certification if they so desire; six, promote tournaments by helping to distribute entry blanks …; seven, to assist in the distribution of awards to secretaries and bowlers throughout the year, and eight, to generally promote the sport of bowling and be available to help with the PR and distribution of materials wherever required.
I don’t know how that will go over because my biggest concern is the apathy that seems to be pretty prevalent across the group – as far as getting people involved. But we’re going to make it available and see what kind of response we get. We’re going to request bowling center manager to ask their bowlers; they know their bowlers better than we do. They should know at least a few people that could help us out.
That’s one thing. The other two things are just reinstitution of things that have been done before. The first one is the Hall of Fame. Last year, we tried our best to get a Hall of Fame criteria set up to have some people to induct and we didn’t get that done. We’re working hard to have that together so when we have our banquet later this year we will definitely have some people to induct into the Hall of Fame.
The other thing is the reinstitution of the girls scholarship awarded to a senior (12th grader) girl who is interested in pursuing a college education. Right now, it is only a girls scholarship because the money provided to fund this came from the old Genesee Valley Women’s Bowling Association.
(Mike Pettinella’s Pin Points bowling column appears every Thursday during the bowling season. If you have an item of interest for his column, please contact him at mikepett2002@yahoo.com or at 343-3736 or by mail at 55 Edgewood Drive, Batavia).