Fairfax County Flag Football League

Josh
asst commissioner

May 11, 2016
2:07 PM

ANNOUNCEMENT:

;

Members of the IFFL/FCFFL Community, I wrote to you all at the end of March to address the current state of our league and to pledge to you that we would start taking actions to bring much needed change to our league. Today, I’m writing to update you on the steps we’ve taken and where we plan to go from here.

Per my letter in March, we conducted a survey looking for feedback on how we are doing. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond! I want you to know that I read every response and took every suggestion seriously into consideration. The survey focused on communications and brand value as well as asking for suggestions on what you would like to see improved. Overall, the results showed that one of the largest issues impacting the league is a lack of reliable communications. My belief is the root cause for the communications issue is mainly due to one single point of failure and the need to implement better communication tools.

To address the single point of failure, I have established an initial Board of Directors. The charter of this Board initially is to be an advisory committee to the league and represent you, as players, in all decisions affecting the league going forward. Along with me, the following members of our league now represent you on the Board:

• Carlton Raymond
• Louis Demos
• Michael Katterjohn
• Cody Williams
• David Whitted

We held our first meeting on April 22nd and discussed the results of the survey as well as perceptions from around the league on what needed to improve. We also discussed moving to the new website as one of the key pieces of improving the communications tools. I encourage all of you, regardless if you are planning on playing this Summer or not, to go ahead and register with our new website at http://fcffl.leagueapps.com. This will allow us to take advantage of new tools on the website to better keep you informed. These tools include site messaging, text messaging and announcements. The new site will also automatically remind you of games, handle accounting and invoicing of teams for captains more reliably and will allow us to produce a schedule in a more expedient way in the future.

The other major topic from our initial meeting was price point going forward. As we have always said, the IFFL/FCFFL is not a “for profit” venture; it is a league for the players and is in place to allow us all a great way to enjoy playing flag football. As such, the Board decided to lower our entry fee going forward to $650 for Early Bird registration and $695 for regular registration. This allows us to offer a great product at $175 less than similar leagues in the area. We believe this is a great offering and hope that we’ll be able to continue to maintain this price point for the foreseeable future. Our next meeting will be on May 20th. If you would like to attend, please reach out and we will provide the info.

I also want to remind everyone of upcoming events. First, Early Bird registration for our Summer league (Sunday nights and Weeknights) is now open. The Early Bird pricing expires on the 13th, so I encourage you to sign up before the prices go up on the 14th. If you have questions about our Summer league, please reach out to me or one of the Board members so that we can make sure you’re questions are addressed!

Also, Patriot Bowl (formerly Bark Bowl) will be on August 7th this year at Lake Fairfax Park. We have a new sponsor this year, Patriot Appreciation Program (PAP - www.patriotappreciationprogram.org). The PAP is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit organization providing support to military members, their families and disabled veterans. Their mission is to provide members of the military community opportunities to participate in activities with minimal cost or stress in order to allow them to focus on the more important things. We are working together to bring more excitement to this year’s event and I’m extremely excited to have them involved! Registration for this year’s Patriot Bowl will be opening on June 1st (http://fcffl.leagueapps.com/tournaments/92589-patriot-bowl-formerly-bark-bowl).

Finally, IFFL/FCFFL will be hosting this year’s Virginia State Tournament on December 10th and 11th. Some of the changes we’ll be bringing to this year’s tournament includes online registration and payment and early registration. We’ll start opening up tournament registration on June 3rd to teams who have qualified. Look for more info coming soon!

In closing, I want again to say thank you to everyone for the feedback and I want you all to know that these are not temporary stop gap measures. I intend to continue to work to improve our league, help it grow and put it in a place where it is truly a league for the players and run by the players.

Thanks again and good luck in all your games!!

Josh Richardson

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