USQ Update
USQ Awards First Team Sponsorships
USQ is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2014-15 Team Sponsorship grant: UCLA and the Appalachian Apparators. The grant is given to two official member teams with at least seven registered players in order to help defray costs for an upcoming season of competitive play.
USQ is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2014-15 Team Sponsorship grant: UCLA and the Appalachian Apparators. The grant is given to two official member teams with at least seven registered players in order to help defray costs for an upcoming season of competitive play.
USQ will sponsor the individual membership dues for 14 registered players for a total award of $700 per team. All teams with at least seven registered member players were eligible to apply for the sponsorship. While this team sponsorship grant is available to all teams, USQ offers an equipment grant to first year teams aimed at the struggling new groups. The sponsorship applications were evaluated based upon not only the team’s need for financial support, but also what they planned to accomplish and their ability to do so (and to articulate it) over the course of the season.
“We received an exciting 17 applications for our inaugural year of the team sponsorship grant, the majority of which were impressively strong,” said Katie Stack, USQ Membership and Finance Director. “Ultimately, we chose the two teams with stand-out applications. Both of these teams are and have always been very involved with their communities; they both have aggressive competitive travel plans in place for the coming months; and they both are very aware of their funding needs and have additional plans to come up with the necessary capital.”
UCLA
While the UCLA team is undoubtedly one of the most established programs in the sport of quidditch, its prominence does nothing to eliminate its fundraising burden. In order for the UCLA quidditch team to be recognized as an official club sport, the team’s fundraisers and travel plans must be approved through the university administration, a lengthy and at times costly process. The team receives no financial support from its university because UCLA expects club sports to fundraise through their alumni networks. As a new sport, quidditch does not yet have the alumni network necessary to make this strategy successful.
UCLA’s quidditch program has been a positive representation of the sport since its conception in 2009. UCLA advanced to the finals of World Cup VI in 2013 and keeper Alex Browne, one of the founding members of the team, was named one of UCLA’s Athletes of the Year. This fall UCLA will be featured as quidditch makes its big-screen documentary debut in “Mudbloods: A Film About Quidditch." The team regularly participates in the school’s annual community service weekend, and plans to expand on its efforts this year through a kidditch event reaching 500 elementary students. The event, in addition to reaching the community’s youth, will raise money for Project Literacy, a group dedicated to ending illiteracy in the Los Angeles area.
“We stress the importance of academics and friendship while maintaining fierce competitiveness,” UCLA wrote in its application. “As a team, we endeavor to integrate ourselves into the community….Our goal to spread the welcoming spirit of quidditch involves an array of activities spanning from teaching kids how to make brooms to raising money for various charities, such as Project Heal.”
APPALACHIAN APPARATORS
The Appalachian Apparators, a community team located in Boone, North Carolina, was originally associated with Appalachian State University. Founded with seven players in 2009, the Apparators decided to welcome additional participants from the greater community in 2011 after some trouble with its school’s club sports board. The team now has over 70 members and two competitive squads; the USQ-official squad qualified for World Cup VII this past season. ASU is one of the most cost-effective universities in the state of North Carolina and attracts many low-income students, a great number of whom are first-generation college attendees. The Apparators do their best to fundraise in order to help, but as the program size has grown, so have the fundraising challenges. As a community team, they must raise all financial capital and resources on their own.
“While our first and most pertinent goal is to introduce as many people as possible to quidditch and to get them playing, AAQ has other objectives as well: we want to give back to our amazing community, [that] has supported us by attending our games and buying our merchandise; we want to choose a local [charity] and host fundraisers for them; we want to inspire kids to read and be active through kidditch; and we want to continue to grow and be that ‘place’ for new members of our quidditch family,” the Apparators wrote in their application.
In addition to integrating themselves into the local community, efforts which include kidditch demos and a potential spring charity tournament, the team has an impressive fall schedule approaching. The Apparators will compete in at least seven tournaments requiring travel by one or both of its squads. The official member team plans on once more qualifying for World Cup, and “making an impact” in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
“Going by just these 17 applications and the season plans of these teams, I know that US Quidditch has an incredibly exciting year ahead,” Stack said.
The Appalachian Apparators also submitted a short video with their application that can be viewed here.
