Clause 3cv: Members acknowledge and agree that: Their membership is conditional upon their participation in competition and training exclusively for NRD and it's various team therein
Clause 3cvi: Dispensation may be granted to train on a semi regular basis or to play on a loanee basis for external leagues/teams with their coach and/or the committees permission.
> Removal of clauses 3cv-3cvi
> Additions of clauses:
a. NRD members acknowledge and agree that they may not be a member of or chartered with any other WFTDA-aligned team (with the exception of challenge or international teams).
b. Members must not share confidential NRD information with anyone who is not a member of NRD without approval by committee.
c. Sitting committee members cannot be members of any other Roller Derby league.
The clauses outlined above do not align with recently ratified league mission statement:
The mission of Nottingham Roller Derby is to grow our supportive and inclusive community, driven by team spirit and shared enjoyment of roller derby.
In addition, they fail to align with our league values, specifically 1, 3 and 5:
1. We champion inclusivity: We value the diverse experiences of our members and work towards creating a place where everyone feels comfortable.
3. We are competitive: We strive to be our best, whilst prioritising well-being.
5. We love roller derby: We work to share our sport with the community.
In Feb 2023 the MRDA changed their policy preventing skaters from being on multiple charters. In April 2023 the WFTDA followed suit. At this point, no roller derby association places any restrictions on appearing on rosters under any other association.
We reached out several WFTDA aligned leagues in the UK for their stances on appearing on rosters under different governing bodies. Of all the respondents, the majority had no policy at all on the matter, and of those that did have an existing policy, all of them allowed membership of multiple leagues under different associations.
With the split from SSB the option for OTA training and games within our own league is no longer available. This change would go some way to rectifying this loss of training opportunities within the league.
A sizeable percentage of the people who currently belong to a MRDA aligned team and would be also eligible to skate with us under the WFTDA-aligned gender policy with us are LGBTQIA+. As a league committed to diversity, we should be finding reasons to welcome these people, not deny them access to our community.
This change makes us a more attractive option for more potential transfers. We are currently having to turn away skaters, and given we are still depleted in numbers compared to before covid, this is not an ideal situation.
Allowing our skaters to experience a wider range of roller derby gameplay and training allows us to broaden the depth of knowledge and experience brought to our training and games.
As a committee member, you are in a unique position to make decisions affecting the league which creates a responsibility that being a member of multiple leagues could compromise. Committee members also have no additional oversight.
For example, if a local venue closes and multiple leagues are looking for a venue, you may be put in a position where you need to choose which side to favour. Committee members also have unique access to member personal data and are expected to be unbiased arbiters in certain complaint procedures, which could be complicated by multiple league memberships.
No other position has the same scope and ability to affect change as committee members. All other positions are overseen by the committee, and the committee has the power to investigate and uphold any complains made against members serving in other elected positions.
Captains do not have access to the same personal and complaint information that committee members do and serve shorter terms. If a captain is acting out of the best interests of their team, there is a complaints procedure governed by the committee to deal with this. In addition, captains have no unilateral decision-making power to abuse - team selection is done though conversations with the captain, vice, and the coaches, which provides a system of checks and balances. Additionally, by excluding those members who belong to multiple leagues, we run the risk of adding other biases to the team selection process, particularly from those who may have strong opinions about those members.
Specifically regarding coaches:
From a team perspective, we currently track attendance and have attendance targets for our members. Members that aren't living up to these expectations are less likely to be selected to play. Additionally, all our members already have multiple commitments to other things, be it work, family, other sports and other hobbies, and manage to make enough time to attend bouts and training.
From a league perspective, most of the work is already done by a minority of members. If members don't want to help out, having 1 more option of things to prioritise over the league is barely a difference. Ideally, we should be asking ourselves how to incentivise helping out, rather than attempting to ban members from doing other things until they have nothing else to do but help out.
There's also another side to this argument - the league also gets more members, which provides more potential for league commitment. And as the workload doesn't proportionally increase as the number of members increases, having more members actively reduces the amount of work per member in the league.
Members who choose to do other things than be available to play games with us are always free to do so, but if that becomes a pattern those players are less likely to be picked to play in the future. If the problem we are trying to solve is not having enough players for a game, blocking members from joining the league seems a poor strategy to fix this.