For those not checking eJuggle it looks like there is now a lot more info about the upcoming IJA festival.
Which also marks the start of the much talked about New! Sparkly! IJA website! https://ym.juggle.org
Looks like it is running an off the shelf package from Your Membership which offers a lot of behind the scenes stuff for managing member registrations by the sounds of things but as a user using an up to date browser (completely mangled in O12, I know I can't really complain anymore but if you are going to use an xhtml doctype you should at least *try* to write valid code...) I'm not seeing a great deal of improvement between the old & new site. The instructions for how to log in don't exactly say, "easy to use". It still feels corporate, it's not immediately obvious what the IJA is or does from the first page.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
That whole website is one of the most embarrassing clusterfucks I've seen for a while. There are now three (or maybe more?) websites crammed together in the clunkiest way possible.
The main site at https://juggle.org/ is the definition of shabby, and makes dead websites like the Juggling Information Service look modern and uncluttered by comparison.
Then there's the eJuggle subdomain at http://ezine.juggle.org/ which looks better, but still has a mismatch of design elements and shoddily made adverts shoved into the layout without any design knowledge.
The new https://ym.juggle.org/ subdomain is a whole other new thing? I went through the steps to sign in, but I've no idea what this part of the website is for, or what it replaces, or why it exists.
The more links you click, the more depressing the whole site becomes. There's a forum? Well, that link takes you to https://www.juggle.org/drupal/ and tells you "Login - Username is the same as eJuggle" but also says the last post was "By Bob Neuman 10 months 4 days ago".
Someone needs to sit down whoever is in charge of the IJA and give them a good talking to. Or at least swear at them a lot.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Or volunteer to help solve the problems!
lukeburrage - - Parent #
No. The problem isn't lack of volunteers to help contribute to the website. The problem is nobody is in charge, and everyone who volunteers just gloms their new project onto the mass of previous volunteer efforts. Someone needs to be given the power, or take the power, to cut the Gordian knot. They need to do away with all the old cruft and commit to a new system. And then pay a proper designer, and not let non-professional looking stuff be shoved into the sidebars.
But is there any sign that the IJA will ever do this? Nope. Which is why I'm staying well clear of the entire mess.
I appreciate the sentiment but this is a simplistic response. What exactly is the problem? Luke complains that the IJA websites are all very messy. I completely agree but I think the websites are simply a reflection of what the IJA is doing generally. It is a melting pot of a lot of projects. I've said it several times before but I still don't know what the IJA is really for. There are descriptions & mission statements but they are all a bit vague. To promote juggling? How? To provide regular meetings? How? The only obvious thing you can do on the new website is join the IJA. Why? I can't think of anything that the IJA does that *needs* a membership based organisation to do it.
It's difficult to help when you don't know what you are supposed to be helping with.
As a good example of how to run a 'program' to use IJA parlance take a look at Fight Night Combat. Luke has wanted to raise the profile of one on one combat. To do this he has developed a format for a tournament that is exciting & entertaining to watch for spectators & fun & challenging for competitors. He has produced materials that help others to run their own tournaments. He now maintains an online archive of results & rankings to give competitors something to strive for. You can go to the FNC website & it is immediately clear on the front page what FNC is all about. The online presence is a relatively recent addition to the 'program' added at a point when the popularity of FNC events has grown to warrant it. From the website you can see clear evidence of success: a large list of competitors & their results, lots of photos & videos from tournaments showing lots of people enjoying themselves, & for those of us that have watched/participated in FNC tournaments it is obvious that the level of play has increased in the time that Luke has been promoting FNC tournaments.
Compare this to any of the program pages on the IJA website. What exactly are they doing? Where is the evidence that the money/time being spent on them is making a difference?
Luke is already "promoting juggling" & "providing assistance to jugglers" in a very effective way in my opinion.
Everyone wants to put something online these days, most of the time they screw things up by making things as complicated as possible. If you want to stick something on the web this is a good place to start.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
To be fair to the IJA, I started the FNC website as a personal project to help me learn programming and website development. I'm also a bit of a sports and statistics nerd. And I really enjoy playing combat (though I like Team Combat more than one-on-one matches). And organizing stuff at conventions. It's like a perfect zen diagram of stuff that makes me want to put in hundreds of hours of work into it just for fun.
But I'm not sure there's a single person within the IJA who cares that much about the IJA itself, let alone the IJA website. As you said, it's really hard to work out what they do. The only benefit I get from being a member is access to articles and videos on the eJuggle blog. I can understand someone caring about that, but all that takes is a Wordpress blog, at most, and some writers and editors. Certainly not a paid membership organization.
As you have thrown down the gauntlet, i need to say i am the IJA webmaster and i do care about the website. I hold the bag and the keys for the website and have kept it on the web serving what the IJA desired, as indicated by its boards of directors. juggle.org is a complex website serving many functions and constituencies. ym.juggle.org is a step towards unification, today ym handles member and festival registrations, which required two separate logins in previous years.
The IJA has been a membership organization longer than any of us has been on the internet, and, yes, I care about the IJA and I know there are many others who do as well. It has and does promote juggling. It was the parent of the BJC, EJC, JJF and WJF and many others. It has and does provide a space for those who want to render assistance to fellow jugglers. Some of those have been publishers, the IJA started the hardcopy juggling periodical era and continues as the most comprehensive juggling ezine available today.
You may care more about the FNC than I care about the IJA and its website, it would be hard to test that hypothesis, but I'm pretty sure I've put in more hours and paid more dues than you have. And I'm not the only one or even close to being the most caring IJA member.
I'm confident you were bashing the IJA and not me personally. Thanks for the :)
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I didn't mean it as a competition, I was just responding to Jon's comments. And I certainly don't mean to target anything I said to you personally, or anyone who volunteers to help the IJA.
The problem isn't with any specific efforts of any one person. Even you seem to admit, how much you can change (or fix) the website is restricted by a board of directors who obviously don't give a shit about the website. If they did, you'd have already taken the original website offline. Because if you are in charge of the new ym subdomain, I know you think that front page is pile of shit in every way. I encourage you to do all you can to delete it from public view as soon as possible, as every day it remains it damages the image of juggling in general, not just the IJA.
I'm not in charge of ym. I too took up IJA web mastering as a learning experience and it has been a good one. ym is a proprietary SaaS that I have not much more interaction with it than you have. I believe the only thing to learn there is how to deal with a help desk.
I share your disappointment with the esthetics and information content and have expressed that to the ym builders. I don't think I could have done much better, given the box they are in. There is a lot of overhead, simple things require filing request tickets. There is no shell access, no open source, no opportunity for programming at the level it is done here or at the base juggle.org site.
ym promises to automate many of the tedious services surrounding registration of members and festival attendees. It also offers mailing list service, forums and ecommerce. If all this works, I think it will be good for the IJA. In the first four days it seems to be working.
The place to address your suggestions is ijaboard@juggle.org or ijaboardplus@juggle.org. The latter includes me and about a dozen "key" volunteers, the former is just the board itself.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Then the whole situation is worse than I could possibly have imagined. Good luck sewing your pigs' ears together!
Also, the place to "address my suggestions" is right here. If the IJA board gave even the tiniest of shits about this, they wouldn't need emails from me or anyone else.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
At least two members of the IJA board care quite a bit about this. I know this having spoken with them and attended the general business meeting.
Insulting the quality of results is one thing, insulting intention is another.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Okay, so how can we see the intention of the IJA board? Where on the website do we find the intentions of the IJA board? Can you link to a place to read anything like that?
Do you see the problem?
I get the IJA newsletter as PDF! When the first one arrived I thought it must be some kind of mistake. Of course I didn't read it because of the text formatting and layout was too painful to read. But let's check it out now:
It's nine pages long! Two and a half pages are links to eJuggle articles. Another page is the contents, and the message from the Chair is pretty much a recap of the contents. Another is a list of festivals. One and a half are promoting juggling events. Another full page is taken up with asking for funding or volunteers. That leaves a message about insurance issues and a book review. If those last few things had been articles on eJuggle, then all the work put into the newsletter could have gone to something more helpful. You know, like writing more content for eJuggle.
It doesn't matter what the intentions of individual people might be when it comes to insulting the IJA. Scott and David and others are doing a fantastic job with eJuggle, but a few jugglers running a good blog doesn't mean that the core of the organization isn't broken or incompetent.
https://www.juggle.org/ija/boardminutes/
It's under Members > Business > Board Minutes in the main drop down menu.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Ha.
"AMS Report (Mike Sullivan)
Discussion:
Mike says there are some problems with the vendor.
IJA 2015 fest website should be up and operational April 1st 2015
Veronique is waiting for the website to be finished so she can move forward with the 2015 Festival Registration and Promotion
Nathan is organizing a call to clear up festival/website information"
All my worries are laid to rest.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Nope. I looked on the YM website and couldn't even find pricing information. I already hear alarm bells. I predict that by this time next year the IJA will have a different website infrastructure and membership solution, and a new set of 12-step login instructions.
Festival pricing is on the about festival page and also on the festival pricing page, both accessible through the top menu.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I looked on the vendor page for the SaaS called Your Membership: https://www.yourmembership.com/
I couldn't find a price for the software, or the service, or anything else. This is why I think that in 12 months time, when the current contract is up, someone else will look at how much it costs and get a very nasty surprise. And then they'll find a new volunteer to make a new site fom scratch for free and the whole process will repeat again.
Prices probably vary, eg one pdf says $6495 per year while a press release says $295 a month.
But these are last years prices and there is no way of knowing how much any particular client might be paying.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Oof. That's about as I expected, but it's still a bit of a punch in the gut that all the money is going into a black box with no open source or other benefits. I hope an extra 10 people are signing up each month to cover it, or that such a website draws in many more festival registrations. That's a reductive way of looking at it, of course, but yet again I'm glad I don't have to try to defend the decision making processes of the IJA board.
You've probably already realised David that Luke was asking about Your Membership's pricing not the IJA festival.
Ouch, that's a lot of money to spend managing membership subscriptions. I still don't see how any IJA activities need or benefit from a membership subscription model.
Early on in the days of TWJC some of the committee used to spend a lot of time curating data of club members names, addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates etc. We had folders of paperwork including tick sheets showing who had a paid up annual membership & who had attended each week. There was a lot of chasing people throughout the year when their membership was up, we then changed all memberships to expire on the 31st of December to streamline that process (I remember this was the time that we all learned what pro rata meant!), later we dropped annual membership altogether. At some point there was either a change in or at least heightened awareness of data protection law which looked like a nightmare to me so when I became Chair of the club I simply stopped the recording of member details & disposed of old records which pretty much fixed everything.
Removing bureaucracy is a good thing (Although obviously TWJC is somewhat smaller than the IJA).
...& because predictions are fun I'll say that the IJA will be stuck with Your Membership for as long as they are a subscription based organisation because migrating away will be too difficult.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Your prediction is also depressing and swear-worthy.
I know the EJC started with IJA seed money. The WJF started because Jason Garfield didn't like the way the IJA competitions favour artistic performances over technical juggling, so I suppose you *could* say the IJA gave birth to the WJF, but not necessarily in a good way! The BJC was started to fill the void left by the Covent Garden festival & I see very little resemblance between how the BJC & IJA operate so how exactly do you see the IJA as a parent of the BJC? I know almost nothing about the JJA so would like to know the IJA's hand there too.
I may be skeptical about some of the content of that paragraph (I agree with the IJA's contribution to publishing online & offline) but it's nice to see someone stand up for the IJA & speak passionately & proudly about the organisation for a change. I like the message from the chair articles published in the ezine & I appreciated this brief visit from Dave Pawson.
Please don't take any of this thread personally. I for one am wary of *all* organisations. I'm still waiting for an explanation of some discrepancies in EJA business I asked about last year & I'm waiting for the BJC meeting minutes to find out how far the BJAG has or hasn't come along since the last festival! For your part in the machine I'll repeat that I know the IJA websites are a big mix of systems built up over a long time & I don't envy your task of trying to keep them held together. Unification will be a great improvement, I hope you can encourage the content contributors to use a more concise & less stuffy style going forward!
I wouldn't expect to see any mention of BJAG in the BJC 2015 Business Meeting Minutes. I don't recall seeing any sign of BJAG anywhere at BJC this year, but I may have missed it.
Which EJC and how did the IJA help start it? Did it help fund the first EJC in Brighton which had an attendance of 11 jugglers iin 1978 or something else. Genuinely interested (not IJA-bashing) and I can't find any information on EJA website (which is almost as out-dated as the IJA website).
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
It was called "First European IJA Mini-Convention", organised by " IJA member Lynn Thomas"
https://www.juggle.org/festival/IJA-EJC-Brighton.shtml
Mike Moore - - Parent #
The IJA has done a few projects that make me feel that my $30/year or so is well-spent:
1. Supporting David Cain's articles, which IMO is some of the best-quality juggling information on the web
2. Sponsoring some of the big names to create longish (25 min+) juggling videos
3. Supporting the Youth Juggling Academy
While all of these projects may have been possible individually, I think it's benefitted the content creators and the IJA general membership for this membership-based organization to exist.
Hopefully Mr Cain will pop up & be willing to share how exactly the IJA have supported his work. A couple of the stars who have made exclusive videos for the IJA are members here but sadly don't use the site regularly so are unlikely to be able to stick their oars in.
If you feel the YJA has been value for money can you tell me what it does/has achieved? My understanding at the moment is that achievement badges are sold to over 18s at a price that subsidises free badges for under 18s, under 18 badge winners also get entered into a bimonthly prize draw. I tried to find some metrics for the program. How many badges are sold vs awarded each month? What badges are being awarded (would give a basic measure of progress in terms of numbers juggling)? Who has won what (in the UK competition winners have to be published)?
I'm aware that I've been saying, "what exactly do the IJA do?" a lot in this thread, but this is because I genuinely don't know. This is a problem. I don't consider myself particularly far off the pulse of the juggling community, & I consider myself pretty good at using the internet. If I'm struggling it means a lot of people aren't bothering.
I've just requested permission to view some of the reports stored on Google Drive mentioned in the board meeting minutes (why aren't they openly accessible?) which sound like they should be able to answer some of my questions.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
The information that I read about support is largely from videos endings and Facebook statuses. I find myself on Facebook more than official archives[1] (though I certainly see the value in keeping thorough, up-to-date archives).
Wes and Tony's devilstick video was supported by the IJA:
https://www.youtube.com/v/JNFTNqgcSzs
The rights to Throw Joy were rented to the IJA (Wes posted this somewhere, sorry that I don't remember where) to make viewing free for IJA members. I believe Tony Pezzo's The Third and Eleven Shot had similar agreements, but that's speculation.
I do not have the information you're looking for with the YJA. I would describe it differently, as something along the lines of scouts, but with juggling. There are a little over a dozen American cities with YJA people, and those people have varying degrees of involvement (from Warren Hammond, Becka Smith, and Ellen Winters, who are all very involved, to people I probably haven't heard of who are less involved). Some run consistent juggling sessions, some do school workshops, etc. A little more information can be found here: www.yepjuggling.com (YEP changed its name to YJA a few months ago).
[1] - I did flip through some board minutes a month or so ago, and also wondered why certain parts were not public, without any explanation.
Oh I know there are a lot of exclusive IJA videos, I want to know exactly what support was offered. Was it financial, or just a distribution channel?
It's just really frustrating that no one seems to know any specifics about anything.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I assume it was financial because:
1 - Wes/Tony/etc really don't seem to need a distribution channel
2 - I was paid to make a two tutorials a couple years ago for the ezine, and I can't see nobody-Mike being paid when Tony/Wes/Nathan are not.
Unfortunately, I'm not particularly close with any of those three, but I'll be seeing (at least) one at a fest this weekend. I don't know about the culture across the pond, but it's kind of taboo here to talk about when money changes hands.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Oops, I should have mentioned this earlier:
I was thinking about doing a box tutorial series (still planning on doing this eventually...) and a couple memebers of the IJA caught wind of that when I looked to one of their members for critique (as a juggler, not as an IJA representative). They offered to sponsor the series, and to pay some amount in advance if I needed funds to buy recording equipment.
While I didn't need the funds up front, I could see that kind of offer making a project possible where otherwise it would not be, or be lower quality.
...I also need to repriotize my time, and see if that offer's still good.
That's the sort of thing I'd like to see the IJA being more up front about. All they need to do is say, "We commissioned so & so to make a video, here's what they came up with". I don't think there needs to be a dollar amount published anywhere on the website, but there should be an entry in the publicly accessible annual accounts for the few people that are interested in where their money is going. They are not far of from doing this, for instance you can see in the board minutes the budget for the ezine, & the output of the ezine is obvious to all (well done Scott & the team of content producers). They just need to apply this approach to all IJA projects. We spent money on this, this is what we got out of it.
Wouldn't it be good at the end of each year for there to be an article listing IJA achievements, "This year we commissioned x, y, z videos. We awarded x children with y achievement badges. We bought this for the historical archive. Your donations (any money from membership fees?) provided support for x performers to work with MMCC who taught y kids to put on a show for members of their community..."
There's a taboo over here about talking about pay in the UK too but this does not apply if it is your money that's being spent.
Little Paul - - Parent #
At the risk of getting dragged in to yet another ija thread (soooooo bored with this as it's been 20 years since my first one) I like the idea of an annual achievements statement. Sell success publicly!
"who got paid" is significantly less taboo than "how much did they get paid" on this side of the pond. I don't know what it's like in the states, but presumably it's not too dissimilar?
Welcome aboard! You know you're here because you're really good at these threads!
I think the root of this is that it's a volunteer staff. Tracking takes time. Without paid staff, a lot of stuff isn't recorded (or, if it is, it isn't passed along when a volunteer burns out.) Without tracking, it can't be reported. Without reporting, noone knows what the hell is going on.
Kind of a common thing in nonprofits in the US (and, I presume, lots of other places.)
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I've always read "supported" in this context to mean "commissioned", but to be a little more socially acceptable. More of a "this person wanted to do this thing, and we gave them some money to help" compared against "We got this person to do this thing by paying them".
A (well archived, and organized) list of achievements would be nice. I think that most of that information exists either scattered online, or is talked about in the annual meeting (which I think has a report, but I don't know how comprehensive it is - I haven't been bored in a while).
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
Hi. I was away for IJC and then overwhelmed by all the BJC and other posts here so only today braved skimming things over.
Yeah, I am an IJA supporter and I volunteer as editor-in-chief for eJuggle (http://ezine.juggle.org/).
Nearly all of the content on eJuggle is original commissioned pieces. Each month includes about 10 or so text articles, a great new podcast or two, and several tricks of the month videos. We try to have frequent major exclusive videos (by the likes of Wes, Tony, Jay, and others) for members only. See http://ezine.juggle.org/archive/ for a chronological list of all we've done.
There is occasional recycled content that was previously available outside of eJuggle, but was purchased to share with IJA members. Examples would be some of the Wes and Tony videos (though sometimes we get them to create specially made bonus sections exclusively for eJuggle).
Probably my favorite juggling video ever is Wes' HEPTAD which was made specifically for IJA members, but eventually made public for the benefit of all mankind: https://www.youtube.com/v/Q1hwb1h8R5s
We have a very small budget and really only pay token amounts. There really is no way I could afford to pay even minimum wage for all the hours that obviously go into many of these contributors' work. On the other hand, tons of people put videos online for free, right? Here at least we do pay something and we also work to promote the peoples' efforts.
-Scott
If you've been skimming recent posts I'd like to plug this one as worth reading in full! I think doing this would fix a lot of the problems with people's (mine included) perception of the IJA.
I wasn't involved when these decisions were being made, but I'm 99% sure it was financial.
If you're interested in learning more about the IJA's finances, there are reports on the website, as well as on their annual 990 (a form that's federally mandated to make public if you're a nonprofit.)
Only appears to have been made publicly available between 2003 & 2009.
Little Paul - - Parent #
That link seems to link to other years as well, including 2014
I didn't drill particularly deeply though as I can't think of anything more boring to do with my lunch break
Sadly I did drill down, the official 990 form only appears on the years I mentioned. The 990 form is not what I call 'accessible'. I see loads of figures that make me ask, "what's that?" a lot. The balance sheets are easier to read, but still, what are the $5k of professional services, $6k travel, $2k communications-other?
Nice to see the IRS is similar to HMRC in seemingly going out of their way to make things as difficult as possible for the people they serve though. Glad we're not the only ones.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Ahh, right. With you.
As far as I can tell, 990 forms are published centrally, and are available from various sites (they don't have to be published directly by the organisation that filed them)
However all the sites I found that claimed to show you 990 forms were either so badly designed they were impossible to navigate, or seemed to want me to pay money to see the details.
Which seems wonderfully capitalist to me
Thanks for your interest. I think this is the first time there has been more than one comment per year on these pages.
I just now cleaned up the sub-menus so it is easier to go from any year to any other. I confirm that only 2003-2009 form 990s are available at this time. Empty form 990s and instructions are available at irs.gov
Keep juggling :)
Yes, the IJA pays for me to write the articles I write, which do require a ton of time to research and create. They also sponsor certain video projects, the Latin American juggling competitions of recent years, the YJA, and World Juggling Day events.
David
The currently active programs are listed at https://www.juggle.org/ija/programs/ which is available as Programs on the main menu. I am in particular awe of the first one listed, I encourage you all to donate.
The first one, the MMCC, looks very worthwhile, but the next, the IJA Regionals, the website gives the impression that they last happened in 2011.
mea culpa The more recent history is in the ezine
http://ezine.juggle.org/?s=regional+competition&cat=all
Thank you for your interestinge critique. This is not a good day for swearing. Happy Easter.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
It's never not a good day for the IJA to do something that makes me feel like swearing :)
Trying to be fair to the IJA they have said that the main site & the ezine will be merged into the new site, so eventually there will only be one website. Also the forum you mention has been mothballed (admittedly not clearly). They are using a number of different CMS' combined with static content which is a mistake that has built up over a long time & is going to make managing content very difficult.
To stop being fair to the IJA, I have no idea how so little progress has been made over such a long a time. Even copying & pasting old content into a new format wouldn't take more than a couple of months, *if* there was a clear end goal. At the moment I don't think there is any such an end goal.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Someone needs to sit down whoever is in charge of the IJA and give them a good talking to. Or at least swear at them a lot.
Paging Dave Davies, paging Dave Davies ...
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Arf. This dialogue popped after *almost ten seconds* of intensive browsing :-
https://i.imgur.com/bJs2rTR.png?1
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I loved the IJA bashing already in the .rec days.. Not much changed :p
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Makes me wonder if there is also EJA bashing in the US crowded forums, jugglingRock perhaps?
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Not that I've seen...a very rare "pah, hippies" or something along the lines, but I think I've heard more complaints about that stuff from Europeans who were at the events.
The juggling subreddit also seems North America-focussed, and I haven't seen any EJA bashing (or IJA bashing, really) there.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Jugglingrock, yes. The juggling subreddit has a higher percentage of new jugglers, I'd say, and would guess that ~70 % of them know about the EJC, and maybe 20 % about the EJA.
That percentage is probably fairly close to how most jugglers know about the "governing" body of any juggling convention/association. I honestly thought a couple of years ago that the IJA dispanded on accounts of the state of the website (it looks* like a 90's site). Most people seem to think that conventions just happen...
*well still kinda does...