As many of you have heard, this week a new organization called the International Confederation of Broomstick Athletes has joined the quidditch world. We at the IQA would like to welcome them, as we welcome any opportunity for our players to do what they love best—play quidditch. The ICBA was founded by a group of players mostly concentrated in the Southwest United States who want more opportunities to play competitively and didn’t feel that the IQA was meeting their needs quickly enough. It is inspiring that so many people have fallen in love with the sport of quidditch that we have not one, but two independent groups working for its validation and development. The ICBA’s concerns are valid. As an all-volunteer organization that has experienced growth of over 100% per year, the IQA does not always have the resources to move as quickly as our community would like, and it’s not always easy to figure out exactly what the majority of our players want and need.

But since the last World Cup, we’ve been working hard to change that. After World Cup over fifty new dedicated volunteers joined us, and starting March 1 we’ll be starting a lot of new developments, including voting rights on rules changes and the location of regionals and World Cup if there are multiple competing bids, training and a certification test for referees and snitches, an easier way to schedule official tournaments and games, and a new dedicated Membership Services department headed by Katie Stack that will roll out a new membership plan with benefits and price points based on the results of a survey we sent out to official and unofficial team captains. We’ll be announcing our complete plan for the 2012-2013 season on March 1.

We respect anyone who wants to spread the love of this game and we’re grateful that the ICBA is another voice providing valuable feedback that we are able to consider and incorporate. It can be hard to sift through dozens of facebook pages, groups, and tumblrs to gauge the opinions of the league collectively, and to know what issues are the most important. If you have more questions or concerns, please email alicia.radford@internationalquidditch.org. For more on the IQA and ICBA, listen to a segment on this week’s Off the Pitch and Off the Air (available as a podcast) with Michael “Meowmers” McKenzie and Eric “BearTrain” Andres.

Brooms Up!

Alicia Radford
COO

Alex Benepe
CEO

Dan Panzarella
CTO

Will Hack
Game Play Director

Harrison Homel
Western Regional Director

Aimee Howarth
Development Director

Kristen Howarth
Teams Director

Max Kaplan
Marketing Director

Winter Schwaid-Lindner
Human Resources Director

Katie Stack
Membership Director

Alex Terry
Board Member