When Commissioner Jim first created the U.S. Steinholding Association in 2015, the goal was for the organization to be the governing body for the sport of Steinholding and to help standardize and share it with more people. In the early days, the goals were setting up the website, creating the official rules, putting together training tips, etc. Then the focus shifted to the next phase, which was organizing USSA-sanctioned competitions and the Venue Membership program, which eventually evolved into the State Steinholding Championship Tournaments that kicked off in 2021.
There is a massive amount of preparation and behind the scenes work that goes into running the State Tournaments, and with a few states it was initially a reasonable amount of work for Jim to manage with some targeted help from a few friends in the Steinholding community. But as the sport has continued to significantly increase in popularity each year since the launch of the USSA, there is more demand for Steinholding resources, more interest in being part of our existing State Championship Tournaments, and more people reaching out to ask us to bring a new tournament to their state.
This is all great news since it means that the organization's vision is coming to fruition, but the growth has also created an amount of administrative work that can no longer be managed without more help. Many Steinholding enthusiasts have reached out to us over the years with interest in getting involved with USSA, but we haven't had a process for bringing people into the fold. Necessity has now led us to finally figure out a good way to start moving USSA in the direction of becoming a more traditional volunteer-run amateur sporting organization with some of the responsibilities spread out among a team of volunteers who have a passion for the sport and want to see it continue to grow in popularity.
So, for 2024, to allow us to continue growing the sport and the organization, we are looking for volunteers to become State Steinholding Representatives of the U.S. Steinholding Association. These State Representatives will help with administrative activities (and in-person, hands-on stuff like judging matches too if they want) and serve as the point of contact between USSA headquarters and their state's competition venues and competitors.
We know that people are busy, and we will be grateful for any amount of help we can get, so we're taking it slow with what we are asking volunteers to do. During peak Steinholding season the ideal time commitment for a volunteer State Steinholding Representative will probably be about 1-2 hours per week, but depending on how much time you have available to help, we can accommodate the schedules of anyone who would like to get involved with more or less time.
There are a variety of activities that we need help with, and we will provide all of the resources, instructions, and guidance necessary to do these things based on the experience that we have gained and processes that we have built over the last few years. Every little bit helps, so even if you don't feel that you're able to do everything on the list below, no problem- we can still use your help and we will find a way to include you. We have found that there is essentially an infinite amount of work that can be done when it comes to building and maintaining an organization like USSA, but here is the list of core activities that we could really use help with:
If you are interested in volunteering, we would love to hear from you! If you are ready to dive in, please fill out the volunteer intake survey form linked below, and if you have any questions, please contact Jim at jbanko@ussteinholding.com and we can chat! Prost and thanks for your support of the World's Greatest Fest-Sport!
Steinholding State Representative Volunteer intake/application form
