Heading into the 2018 season, the Minnesota Wind Chill wish to improve as an organization and make positive change. We want to make additional efforts and further commit to strengthening the local ultimate community, working towards gender equity, and giving back to those in the larger community. We also want to support those who have been underrepresented in the sport or have yet to be exposed.

Reflecting after efforts were made in 2017, we want to learn, adjust, and grow heading into this upcoming season. With the recent change in ownership this past fall, the Wind Chill leadership expanded to include two passionate contributors to the ultimate community; Omar Ansari and Jim Mott. The Wind Chill hope to cultivate Omar and Jim’s enthusiasm to make a difference over the past decade, through Surly Ultimate, and provide even greater opportunities throughout our community.

The Wind Chill have already started their youth outreach program of 2018 by pairing with Love Your Melon and Masonic Children’s Hospital to engage with patients and provide donated beanies and discs to children in need. This is only one of what the outreach activities the organization wants to be active in this year. The team looks to expand on it’s youth offerings from last year with plans in place to operate new spring clinics in local schools to introduce girls and boys to the sport. Additionally, we will continue to focus on elevating and increasing the amount of exposure for local youth events and women’s opportunities through our platforms on social media and at games.

One of the top priorities is to make outreach efforts in equity initiatives, both for gender and minorities. We have made an effort to identify specific actionable equity deliverables, but recognize that we are missing critical perspectives necessary to develop a robust and well thought out plan of action. Therefore, we are seeking individuals interested in helping shape the direction of our internal equity plan, through the creation of an equity and community outreach committee.

We are looking for members of the community who are passionate about the issues at hand and are willing to help most effectively allocate resources and design opportunities to make progress locally. We have identified internal advocates who would like to be involved in this process, but we need both females and people of different ethnic backgrounds to be involved who can help the group better understand what we do not, and help create positive change.

We feel that in order to outline a complete plan for 2018 and beyond, we need to better understand, accept guidance from, and empower those in the local community. If you are interested in helping make progress with us and would like to be a part of our equity committee, please complete the following survey linked below. We hope to assemble the group and start discussions in the coming weeks.

Minnesota Wind Chill - Equity & Community Outreach Committee Interest Form

We are hoping to get started with this initiative shortly.

Please express your interest by Wednesday, February 6th.

While we work to form this new committee, we are also excited to announce that the Wind Chill will be sponsoring free women’s indoor pick-up sessions during the month of February at Augsburg College dome. We will be posting more information on social media with specific dates and information very shortly.

We love this sport, and we love our ultimate community. We truly appreciate your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
The Minnesota Wind Chill Organization