It's About Participation …

As I’ve said before

As FIOFAFI is aimed at working adults and promoting health and fitness, I’m very accommodating of irregular participation or withdrawals due to work and social commitments, illness and injuries.

Ultimately however, FIOFAFI is about participation. I wouldn’t continue with scheduling regular sessions, other activities and this blog, if no one participated.

With this in mind, last month, I renamed “The Contact List” as “The Participant List”.  I’m not looking merely to keep a list of contacts who may or may not be interested in sport, football or futsal.  It’s about participation.

Since the start of the year, I’ve been adding everyone who plays in a regular session to the list.  Currently, there is no other way to be added to the list.

Anyone added to the list will remain on the list as long as they play from time to time.  It’s flexible.  As described below, even playing only once in six months to a year might suffice to keep a participant on the list.

The Participant List still includes your year of birth, and states whether I have your e-mail address and contact number on file.    If I don’t have these details, I’ll ask you for them.  Since the end of January, I’ve also started including each participant’s nationality.

If you provide me with your occupation and the club you follow, I’ll add those too.   I have the club followed for many of you.  I’ll include it even if I pick it up from casual conversation.  On the other hand, I’ll add your occupation only if you specifically provide me with it in writing (either by e-mail or on the blog).  So far, only Boris and Neil have done so.

Since Andy M raised the issue, I’ll also add a column for ethnicity.  Again, I’ll only include it if you specifically provide me with the information in writing (either by e-mail or on the blog).

Once you’ve been added on the Participant List, I’ll keep you there as long as you fall within any of the following:

• You participate in a regular session from time to time.  If, at the end of a quarter, you haven’t played in that quarter or the preceding quarter (the end of that attendance period), I’ll remove you from the list.    However, if I have your year of birth, e-mail address and contact number, I’ll keep you on the list for a further quarter.  Therefore, you could go more than 9 months (and up to almost a year) without playing and still remain on the list.

• You comment on the blog (other than merely to confirm for a session) or participate in other FIOFAFI activity from time to time.

• You’ve been added as an author, and you add a new post at least once every three months.

• You’ve introduced someone within the last 12 months who has played in the current attendance period.

Apart from playing in a regular session, participating in other activities, contributing to the blog or introducing new people is participation as well.

Everyone on the Participant List whose e-mail address is shown as being “On file” will continue to receive the regular Updates and occasional Extras from me.

If you introduce someone new by e-mail, I’ll add them as guests to the Updates and Extras for a while or from time to time, until either it becomes clear they’re not going to play with us anytime in the near future, have no interest in FIOFAFI, or they ask me to remove their name.  Once they play in a session, I’ll add them to the Participant List.

If anyone on the Participant List informs me that they do not want to receive the e-mail Updates or Extras anymore, I’ll take them off the mailing list, but they’ll remain on the Participant List as long as they meet any of the above criteria, or they specifically ask me to take them off the Participant List.

With effect from 1 April 2009 onwards, if anyone no longer meets the above criteria and is therefore no longer remains on the Participant List, or asks to be taken off the List, I’ll take them off the mailing list as well, but they can continue to follow what’s going on on the blog or through the Facebook group.

If they later come back to play, they’ll be added to the Participant List again, but the month they return will be shown under the column “First Participated”.  They might also have to provide me with their details again, if I don’t still have them. 🙂

In the end, no one has to worry about any of this.  It’s more for me, as I have to decide who to keep on in the Participant List when I review the list at the end of each quarter. As the list is about participation, I wouldn’t want too many people on the list who haven’t played for a long time.

The list will be re-made again on 1 April 2009.