Grant Zellner PDGA:
A number of candidates are vying for your vote in the upcoming 2023 PDGA board of directors elections. One of those candidates with us today, James Koizumi out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, James, a lawyer by trade, PDGA number one, two, six, oh two seven. Something of a world traveler to James. You've played disc golf, I think, as of a few weeks ago, or maybe a few months ago, you played in something like 21 countries, which is, let's just say I'm jealous already before we get started. But James, welcome. Why don't you go ahead and fill in the gaps for us, let our listeners know a little bit more about yourself.

James Koizumi:
Awesome, Grant. Well, thank you very much for hosting and doing everything that you do. Again, James Koizumi, I just got into disc golf five years ago and, you know, loved the wild adventure that it's taken me on. You know, starting throwing discs initially to asking questions about how could I get involved because we play this beautiful sport often for free and it's brought so many positives into my life as well as loved ones around me. jumped into the community and started going from there. I guess, as you mentioned too, big passions traveling. I've traveled to 70 countries and love taking my discs now. And it's a great way to connect with people. So not only playing those courses, but meeting members from the communities and trying to work through hand signals and Google Translate to talk to each other.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
That's really interesting stuff, getting to play in all of those places, but you're also heavily involved in your local community, putting courses in the ground, leading your local club area club there in Calgary. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing in those roles?

James Koizumi:
Certainly, well, we've been blessed with some great founders and people have taken so many initiatives, not only in Calgary, but in Alberta and Canada in general, and learning lessons from them. And then also coming in with a new energy. I mean, they've put in so much time, so much effort. And I feel like, as a part of a group of a number of people that started before around COVID, picking up that torch, bringing the energy. working together as teammates. And so, you know, from a fresh approach, asking questions of why can't we do things differently, you know, taking a more professional stakeholder approach with our cities, our municipalities, our recreations, our parks departments, and then also from the membership side, realizing that this game is for everyone. This game is for families, this game is for all ages, wages, stages. and trying to find ways to share that and grow that. And I think that's kind of been the pieces of our local success. That and finding ways to just leverage the energy of everybody else that realizes that they want to get involved and do what they can to grow and build the community.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
As you know, James, without members, we don't have a PDGA. Membership is key to our entire organization and our entire community. We are always looking for ways at the PDGA to increase membership and retain existing members because disc golf is a game for life. When it comes to that core focus of the PDGA and that major emphasis of all the things that the board does, can you talk about your own? We could call them, they're more than ideas. It's almost like your own platform, your own priorities. What you intend to champion, should you be a board member when it comes to developing memberships in perhaps underserved communities, perhaps youth, perhaps internationally, what are some of the things that you hope to bring to the table?

James Koizumi:
let's go, that's awesome. You know, aside from just the ideas in general, maybe talk about some of the things that we implemented and have in success. And I think one of the things that the PDG in general, as an organization has to be ready for, if I come on the board. is that curiosity and some of that challenge to the change. Again, fully respecting everything that's been put in the place, but also asking why or why not. And so some of those things specifically around membership, for example, what we've done in our community, just to give you perspective, before I started on the board, we were the two previous years, I think we're on 120 to about 160 members. And then obviously during COVID, but through some of the methods I'll talk about here, we went up to over 800, around 850 for both years. of years. I think we're on track to beat that here probably already halfway through the year. So we'll see what the final numbers are. But essentially also to give you perspective too, I believe in last year and the year previous, maybe last year was the first year that PDGA, the membership in our province or state, finally matched the membership that we had in our actual our city. The year previous we actually beat them. So we had more members in our city club than PDGA had members in our province combined, active.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Huh, okay.

James Koizumi:
So on that note, a few things. Let's talk about key focus absolutely. gender and youth and we need more women and more juniors playing this game because disc golf is a family sport. So from the juniors perspective what we did is we took some of the conventional membership ideas and we said, hey let's make a membership class case for juniors on one time feed that they can be a member of our club until they turn to become an adult.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Okay.

James Koizumi:
So you start your son or daughter in disc golf and you join our club. Our membership. they start at the age of 11, they have that membership and they're a part of our community until the age of 18.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Okay.

James Koizumi:
So they become an adult. I think another thing that's great in terms of understanding disc golf and memberships particularly sort of from just an overall family holistic perspective is that we created a family classification for members. And whether it's yourself playing or your partner that's playing. Disc golf is a community aspect because whether it's the support for the people that are allowing that time to play or their other involvement in the community that might not have made competitive level, we want to reflect the fact that membership is a family thing. So we've created family memberships and provided sort of a discounted fee arrangement around that and then also the program to support that whether that's lessons, clinics, social events that aren't necessarily purely high level competition focused. of those aspects, some of the things that I would love to bring directly to that. And then from an international perspective, you know, we might have seen sort of in sort of the tapering of the exponential growth from COVID perspective, but understanding that you go into some of these communities and they are hot like fire in terms of their growth and the way that their communities are growing. So finding ways to make that. in particular, more affordable. For you and I, Grant, $25, $50 American, it's a couple of discs, might be a dinner out, but for some of those families and communities that I've been to around the world, that's like a working family's disposable income for a week. And understanding that that sacrifice that then they have to make for their family to then join the PDG or another organization on top of playing etc. That's a difficult thing. So finding ways to allow global members to join into our community, become a part of that and being understanding of the realities that they're facing. So those are just a few of the ideas but again I take it further than just ideas and pie in the sky. I would challenge some of the traditional membership models. that we have to be able to get there because membership, the people of our community is what makes our game great and from that you get more ideas, you get more resources, you get more energy, all of those things get volunteers, you get more players to compete against, that all comes from a greater membership and so those are the ways that I would look to be able to create that greater membership.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Good summary thoughts there. Absolutely. Now let's let's bridge this, James, from membership to competition. Competition, obviously a focal point of the governing body, the sanctioning body of the sport worldwide. It's the most obvious benefit, I think you could say, to being a PDGA member, getting to play in actual events against other members. and having the understanding that those events have a certain amount of quality associated with them, we're always trying to increase the number of events and increase the level of quality of those events around the world. So what ideas and thoughts do you have, would you champion when it comes to increasing events and their quality?

James Koizumi:
Okay, well let's start with a little bit of a bifurcation of the definition of competition. So, we, maybe you and I, typically think of competition more as tournaments, sanction events, high level activities. You and I both know that disc golf is an activity that's best enjoyed together. And what do competitions do, or tournaments do? They bring people together, they bring community together, they get us together. The bifurcation that I'm talking about, and I learned this and it was amazing, was when I went to Finland and I've been there a couple times. In Europe, typically they view competition as a way to sort of get people together to play competitively. That doesn't necessarily have to be fully sanctioned events or everything else like that. So... The competition being the larger umbrella and within that larger umbrella you have, for example, like what you're talking about, and we'll place this aside for a second, the sanctioned high-level professionally run events.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Okay.

James Koizumi:
So I think the PDGA in terms of what we have as a part of the roles is to facilitate all aspects of competition because what it's doing is it's providing the opportunity for that community to come together and grow opportunities. And that can be your local tag leagues, that can be sort of a small club event, that can be regional competitions, that can be competitions of small groups with your buddies, finding ways to make those things work because that is bringing people together, playing our sport. And then also understanding the broader definition of competition that also, you know, attracts or collects our high level professional events. And in that, in doing so, you know, cultivating the future leaders that are going to be caring for those events. Because a lot of the people that have run these great events, I mean, I haven't talked to them personally, but I would imagine that they're tired. They would love fresh energy, they would love somebody's support or learn from them or share in their experiences and work with them. So as we're growing some of these smaller events and community challenges and getting people together, that's also sort of the foundation or breeding or training grounds for the people that will be coming and uplifting and helping some of the people that are running our major events. And so I think we have to start building that and understanding that pipeline, that competition stretches beyond without that support. I think we're going to start running dry in terms of the people that have the knowledge, expertise, and experience to continue the high level of, of tournaments. And let's call it sort of global or national or regional type competitions that the PDG is known for.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
So how do we recruit and then train future, we'll just say TDs just as a general term for those. We know that there are also sometimes staffs and volunteers, but how do we recruit and then train and then put those TDs out there? What kinds of ideas do you have in that?

James Koizumi:
I think it goes back to what I was talking about before with the broader definition of competition because let's say there's a format or a form of event that has less of the formalities, as you would

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Okay.

James Koizumi:
say, for an event that allows for a new TD or somebody like that that's interested in trying to do that to start getting their feet wet in terms of some of the key aspects of what would be involved in doing that.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
I see. Okay.

James Koizumi:
as a trading ground, as a breeding ground, just to get your feet wet, the PDJ can provide guidelines and support, but not necessarily be like, you know, like move it into the, you know, the tiering level system, for example, of the teething world. I think that's one place. It's because... somebody that gets an experience will not only find out that they have confidence or have some learning experience, but they're also going to meet people along the way. So I think that's one component. And then I guess the second component too, and I think we find this in the volunteer capacities, usually the people that are doing a lot of the work in the volunteers are honestly too busy just doing the work to find other people. So even just an open call, for example, like a volunteer job application work right on the PDGA site, for people in their own region have these events, you know, just like answering this call to the board of directors position, to apply or submit their name forward to come help out at TD or take on a role or shadow. And then through that experience, then getting into those circles and seeing some of those types of experiences to then build. Because let's face it, and being somebody that's new to the sport and the game and recently going to the event, you and I were both at the tip, Salinski and Eugene, Oregon. It's a big bite for some way that maybe has ran a couple of local C tiers and a couple of goalies or tag leagues to then go, geez, I'd really love to step into the shoes of Rebecca and Callie and try to run a major event. And that's deterring. That's deterring for any of us in any of our aspects in life. And I think finding ways to build the knowledge experience, but most importantly, confidence in relationships will help get us that pipeline of our future event organizers.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Thoughtful there, James. You've got my wheels turning, just just putting together what that can look like, creating those kinds of pipelines. That's interesting stuff. I don't want to not give you the chance to highlight any priorities that you personally have. This is your chance to tell the potential voter. Here are the things that I, James Koizumi, will be focusing on on your behalf if I'm on the board. Is there anything we haven't covered yet that you want to make sure that that the voter knows you're going to be focused on.

James Koizumi:
First of all, Grant, I'm really appreciative of this opportunity. I feel honored to be nominated and selected and also to have this chance. This disc golf adventure has been incredible and sometimes I don't even believe it. I think a few things that come to mind for sure is I feel like our game is a global love language and we need to get out there and share it. Again, I've mentioned across ages, but genders, across borders, across cultures. Um, you know, it. It connects, our game connects without words. And the hugs, the fist bumps, the friendships, that made locally but now also globally for me, there's a lot of joy in that. So I think increasing the membership, but with a particular focus on that, and honestly, not just the growth rates. I know we're proud of the growth rates within, for example, juniors, women, but we need real numbers because again, you know, this game is for everybody and it should be representative of the population we have. You know, I think second of all, one of the things I've coined locally is I want to be in this to actually grow the future. I want to find, I want to inspire, I want to motivate, I want to cultivate future leaders that are going to take this game forward. I'm here to put my brick in the wall and do the best job that I can. But as a part of that, you know, make sure that our game and our future is in good hands. And by that, I feel like we're still in the stage, Grant, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, volunteers, then we are a thousand rated players. And those are the people that are going out tirelessly for the dredging ponds, marking lines, cutting grass, volunteering their time and money, getting their company involved, sacrificing family time. you know, that's the foundation of our game. And we will get there. And I think the pros hopefully will support that as well, understanding that through that and through that increased effort sort of from that volunteer side. We're going to attract more people to this game. We're going to get more resources. We're going to get new ideas, energy, volunteers, but we're also going to get through that better training, better instruction, better future pros. I think probably the last component is the collaboration. As I mentioned before, we've got people out there busy, tirelessly doing things in their local community or globally. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to experience that firsthand with organizations like Uplay and what they're doing and going out and making sure that the world is learning this global love language or directly with the Paul McBeth Foundation through the Columbia Project, which was a country that I visited. was one of the first people that sort of ever was a foreigner that played disc golf in Columbia and was able to follow through with PMF, you know, organizations like UDisc, which are leading us from the technology side, disc golf pro tour, of course our media coverage on and on. So, The collaboration aspect is there is so much growth and so many things happening that we can't, there's no one body organization that can tackle it all at once. And we need to really work together as a team for the benefit and growth, the overall growth of this sport. and be comfortable with the fact that once we live in this world of abundance, we can figure out how to sort it out later. But until then, let's put our heads down, let's work together, and let's grow this thing as big as we can.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
He's James Koizumi, PDGA 126027 out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He's running for your vote. in the 2023 PDGA Board of Directors elections. James, thanks for chatting with me today and best of luck in the uncoming elections.

James Koizumi:
It's been an honor and pleasure, Grant. Thank you for all you do.