June 6, 2013

ICC and Fundraising for Table Tennis

ICC (India Community Center) has set the modern bar for raising money for table tennis in the U.S., raising $100,000 at a fund-raiser on June 2 in Milpitas, CA. Here's the article! "This annual event, which showcases the program’s homegrown talent to raise funds to nurture tomorrow’s champions, was attended by over 200 diehard table tennis players and fans. ICC’s junior players riveted the audience with their technique and passion during the talent exhibition. There were also celebrity challenge matches featuring former California State Controller and ICC Trustee Steve Westly, ICC Co-Founder and Trustee Anil Godhwani and 2012 Men’s & Women’s National Champions and 2012 Olympians Timothy Wang and Lily Zhang."

I'm no expert on fund-raising, but I have dabbled in it. I did get a $7000 sponsor for the 1993 Junior Nationals, which I ran in Maryland- that's $11,264 in 2013 dollars. The sponsor was Janlibo, a Chinese soft drink that was trying to expand into the U.S. market, starting in Maryland. Ironically, they wanted to increase their sponsorship the following year, but without checking with me or Janlibo, the USATT board of directors decided to recombine the Junior Nationals with the Junior Olympics, as it had been in previous years. They assumed Janlibo would go along with it, with the Junior Olympics moving to a different city each year. Janlibo had no interest in that - they were focusing on the Maryland/DC region at the time - and so the Junior National went from $7000 ($11,264!) in 1993 to $0 prize money thereafter. Alas.

There have been some titanic battles on the board over USATT fundraising. There was a period in the early/late 2000's where two board members had diametrically opposed ideas on how to do it. (I attended nearly every board meeting back in those days, and was a witness to all this.) One believed that we should hire a full-time fundraiser. The other believed we should hire a big-time fund-raising company. They had extremely sharp debates. The board was unanimous that we needed to do one or the other, but since they couldn't decide which to go with, they ended up doing . . . neither. Alas.

The last two times USATT had major sponsors that I know of were the late 1980s and early 1990s. The first was with Brother Corporation. USA Olympic table tennis players Diana and Lisa Gee helped bring that sponsor in with a Comdex exhibition, with USATT Program Director Bob Tretheway negotiating and closing the deal. (There was also a Ground Round Restaurant sponsorship that Bob brought in. And thanks to Sean O'Neill for aiding my fuzzy memory on some of this.) In the early 1990s, Dan Seemiller (and others - not sure who) brought in Dow Chemical as a big sponsor for the 1991-1992 U.S. Opens in Midland, MI. I believe both of these deals were over $100,000, and considerably more in modern dollars. I don't think USATT has had anything comparable since. I know recently-elected USATT board chair Mike Babuin is very interested in the fund-raising aspect - hopefully he'll break through on that. As to table tennis clubs, in addition to ICC I'm told that Lily Yip has also done well in local sponsorship for her club (and especially her tournaments) in New Jersey. 

At some point we probably should do one at MDTTC, my club. But as I noted above, I'm not an expert on fundraising. Alas.

Serve Practice

Here's my periodic note on this - have you practice your serves recently? Just get a bunch of balls, and practice! It's one of the most under-practiced aspect of the game, with more return on investment than just about any other aspect. How many times have you lost a match "because of his serves"? Well, become that guy "with the serves"! Don't have good serves; have great ones!!! You don't need to be a superstar player for this. Here's my article "Practicing Serves the Productive Way." In the Articles section here I have an even 20 articles on serving. But don't just read about it - study the top players, perhaps get a coach, and practice!

Kenta Matsudaira - Japan's Next Number One?

Here's the article from Table Tennis Master.

2013 National Junior Disability Championships

Here's their web page. They are July 6-13, 2013, in Rochester, MN. Sports include: Swimming, Track & Field, Table Tennis, Powerlifting, Archery & Pentathlon.

Incredible Pingpong Skills

Here's a trick-shot video that's pretty good (2:39). Anyone know who the player is? (I'm bad with faces, but it's not Jun Mizutani of Japan, as one commenter asked - he's a lefty.) The comments are almost as funny as the video.  

Waiting to Play

Here's what happens when there's a long line to play at your club. (If you can't see the Facebook picture, try this.)

Non-Table Tennis - Tenant Termination and Credit Ratings

On June 3 I had that short blog where I explained the problem I was having with my tenant downstairs. Last night we had it out. He has only paid $400 of the $1080 owed, and insists he explained in a "detailed note" two months ago why he hasn't been able to pay the rest. I don't think he thought I'd kept the note. As I showed him, the note actually says 1) he was having trouble getting an advance on money owed and so was having trouble paying the $500 he still owed on that month's rent, and 2) that while he had lost his full-time job, he wrote "My part-time job will now be full time." We argued for a long time over this - he claimed those words do not imply his part-time job ever became full-time, and kept quoting himself as saying, "My part-time job might be full time." I had to keep referring to where he wrote "now," but then he claimed that didn't change the meaning of the note, which of course is completely wrong. "My part-time job will now be full time" "My part time job might be full time."

He said the part-time job never became full-time, though he did get another full-time job shortly thereafter. As I pointed out, he not only never told me any of this, he told me last month (when the rent was also late) that he had extra income now and wouldn't be late on the rent again. Then I pointed out that none of this explains why he hadn't paid this month's rent (due May 28), or more importantly, why he had refused, despite multiple requests, to say when or if he'd pay. He insisted that the part where he wrote he hadn't been able to get the advance two months ago explained that. Again, it didn't make sense - that part of note explained why he hadn't been able to get an advance to pay the rest of the rent two months ago, but says nothing about this month's rent. He kept insisting this like it had just happened, when it was two months ago, and (as he admitted) he'd long ago received the money owed from back then. If this doesn’t make sense to you, it doesn't. I kept wondering if he was drunk or something since his arguments made no sense, but I don't think so.

I finally had to do something I've never done - I gave him one month's notice. I should have done this long ago as we've been having these spats over the rent over and over, with him rarely paying on time and refusing to ever let me know when or if it would be paid when it was late, and acting insulted when I asked. Ultimately he had to go because of his struggles to pay and his credit rating (which predicted he'd eventually burn me), but the reason I did it now was because of his insistence that it wasn't his responsibility to let me know when or if he'd be able to pay rent, and because of his incredible temper - he was screaming at me about how I was reading his note wrong, how I wasn't being fair, etc.

A year ago someone checked his credit rating for me, and it turned out to be incredibly low, something like the bottom 1%. (I forget the actual number.) Not checking his credit rating (and judiciary record for domestic violence and a few other things) before renting to him was a huge mistake that'll never happen again. (He was from the same high school I went to, three years ahead, though we'd never met.) I checked my credit rating yesterday - mine is 822 (from Equifax). I've never missed a payment, whether on my house, car, credit card, etc.

Anybody looking for a room or two floors to rent in Germantown, Maryland, about ten minutes from MDTTC? If so, contact me.

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