At the end of each six-week training course, our GURLS participants design and complete service projects that embrace our values of Generosity, Unity, Resilience, and Leadership, as well contribute to the development and expansion of Ultimate in the Bay Area. All service projects are open source, which means they are available for anyone to use to better support their players, teams and programs. We also want to note that some of our service projects use terms like girlx and womxn, which were historically used as a way to include trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming and gender queer individuals. While we no longer use these terms, we wanted to keep projects in their original form to honor the intentions and work our participants accomplished.
All of our service projects are categorized by GURLS Year. You can also find our full list of service projects on our Medium Page. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected].
Year One Service Projects
GURLS Year 1 focuses on the theme: Inspire. Participants learn how everyone has a unique leadership style and there are many different types of leadership roles one can take in Ultimate: a captain, coach, organizer, mediator, and project manager.
Articles and Guides:
Inspiring New Ultimate Players by Nora Zitnick. A guide to the beginning of an Ultimate career. Nora addressed the issue of a lack of knowledge for new players on how to grow an Ultimate team.
Club Team Survey by Nora Draut, Mrida Sadhu and Imogen Gatewood-Wolfe. A study using throwing among the genders as a metric to determine mixed team equity. Their data showed that male-matching players throw to one another 3x as frequently as they throw to female-matching players.
Gender Equity in the Mixed Division by Lianna van Hout and Elizabeth Kibler. An article tackling the issue of gender inequity in the mixed division through the lens of Bay Area high school Ultimate players.
Equity Drills by Sushma Delaney Johnson. Drills for gender equity designed to create understanding about gender equity, and a follow-up survey to assess the drill’s success.
Gender Equity Guide for Mixed Teams by Kelsey Viadro. A guideline to encourage gender equity on mixed league Ultimate teams, a unique take that offers the option of useful techniques and ideas to make a step in the right direction.
The Pipeline Project by Chuc Luu. A research project attempting to discover what keeps youth from staying in ultimate to apply meaningful change to the community and establish a pipeline from elementary school through to college.
Women in Open by Logan Gade and Tanya Bearson. An article discussing what it is like to be a woman playing the Open Division and best practices to support them.
A Guide on How to Approach Gender Equity by Mia Beeman-Weber. A deep-dive into framing gender equity discussions, including best practices for how to engage boys on this topic.
Community Building:
Buddy System Group Chat by Rowan Nykamp. A buddy system/group chat for beginner players to partner up with more experienced players. This group chat is a safe space and way to ask questions without any judgement or learn more about ultimate from other girls.
Media:
High School Player, Coach and Alumni Interviews by Tenzin Tsering. Asking players from the Albany Cougars team what makes them love the sport of Ultimate and the influence on the players' and coaches' lives. A partner project of Mixed Team Yearbook.
Mixed Team Yearbook by Ahella Gaber. Through interviews and photos, the yearbook captures insight from the Albany Cougars team in the first season as a mixed high school team. A partner project of High School Player, Coach and Alumni Interviews.
Beginner Frisbee Guide Website by Jacqueline Shim and Rachel Chang. A website that encourages and prepares new female ultimate players to try out for a team.
The Ultimate Sportby Yoonha Park.A children’s storybook about how frisbee is a game fit for anyone, encouraging children to learn more about the amazing sport.
What is Ultimate? Flyer by Lila Trautman. A flyer that acts as an introduction to Ultimate, including rules and a personal essay, plus resources for playing opportunities.
GURLS Project Video by Mathilda Myerhoff. A highlight reel, including information about Ultimate and how to play.
Ultimate in the Bay by Thais Thomas and Valeria Gaona. A video highlighting fun questions and answers from Bay Area ultimate players.
Presentations:
Analysis and Insights from Survey Results on Girls’ Participation in Ultimate Frisbee by Maia Doezema. This survey was designed to investigate the motivations behind girls’ initial involvement in Ultimate Frisbee, the factors that contribute to their continued participation, and the key reasons for their eventual dropout or continued participation in the sport.
Equity and Leadershipby Lauryn Bailado and Lian Noble. A presentation on equity and leadership for both boys and girlx.
Workshops and Curriculum:
How to Teach Ultimate Frisbee by Ally Duff. A 12-week curriculum designed for middle school PE teachers to help them implement Ultimate Frisbee classes at their schools. Comes with lesson plans and diagrams
Breaking Gender Barriers Through a Frisbee Clinic by Tanisha Shanbhag and Frances Lee. This clinic sought to increase visibility of the sport for younger generations and build a pipeline from middle school to high school.
Tryout Skills Clinic by Julia Segre and Sanam Rozycki-Shah. The clinic was designed to develop the confidence and skill of young players and encourage them to tryout by teaching them “tryout skills” and building community through gender equity spirit circles.
Confidence Workshop by Katharina Leitner and Lydia Crook. A curriculum for a confident-building workshop for girls who play Ultimate, a classroom-style lesson on skills that are important for self-confidence and exercises participants can use to build confidence.
Are we as equitable as we say? by Ursa Kaiser and Goodness Nwakudu. Two surveys, one for male players and one for female players, that assessed how male mixed team players on Oak Tech’s high school team thought they acted and spoke around female players and how they were perceived by female players.
Confidence in girlx playersby Sammy Chen and Shannon Burks. A guide based on the results of a survey given to youth players on a girlx team that seeks to boost confidence in players.
Gender Equity In Ultimate Frisbeeby Sophia Ware.A course designed for coaches and players to work hand-in-hand to build an inclusive and equitable team.
GURLS Clinic by Eliza Lerman and Jayna Frank. A summary and debrief of running an elementary school girls clinic.
GURLS Service Project by K. Liza Gull. A brief summary of hosting 3 20-minute presentations about ultimate to middle schoolers.
El Cerrito Girls Survey by Emily Denio. An analysis of responses by female and female-identifying athletes who played ultimate with El Cerrito during the 2017-2018 school year.
Year 2 Service Projects
Year 2 focuses around the theme: Build. Participants learn important soft skills to understand how they can be effective and powerful leaders. They also work together in larger groups to complete a human-centered design project that addresses a challenge currently facing Ultimate.
Researching Connection, Support and Differences in Playing Experience in Mixed Teams
In Fall 2024, Year 2 participants’ service project explored the question, "How might we create connection between female-matching players and male matching players in high school mixed Ultimate?". They had noticed challenges on their own mixed teams and wanted to learn more about the experience of both player groups so that they could build a solution. Using a human-centered design approach, they reflected on their own experiences in mixed Ultimate spaces, created a survey to get a sense of how their peers felt and conducted interviews with FMPs, MMPs and coaches to dive deeper into the why and how behind the survey data. The 2024 Year 2 cohort of of Frances Lee, Samantha Wulkan, Mrida Sadhu, Imogen Gatewood-Wolfe, Tanisha Shanbhag, Ruby Chen and Nora Draut created a presentation, sharing findings from their research process. Their work went on to inform a survey for the wider BADA community.
In Fall 2023, Year 2 participants’ service project focused on the problem framing and discovery research portion of the challenge, “Given that there is a lack of participation of young girls in Ultimate, how might we better advertise and provide resources about this sport so that they'll be interested in joining Ultimate and feel confident about staying in the Ultimate community?” The 2023 Year 2 cohort of Alexandra Le-Khamnouane, Eva Levenson and Kaila Bounthavy created a presentation, sharing their process and the insights they uncovered.
For Fall 2022, the Year 2 cohort focused on finding a solution to a real challenge in the Bay Area Ultimate community. The cohort examined data on female-identifying player participation trends and asking the question, “Why are high school female matching players not returning to Ultimate or playing Ultimate over the course of the last 2-3 years? How might we support female matching high school players to stay, return or first come to the sport of Ultimate?” 2022 Year 2 Cohort: Lauryn Bailado, Sanam Rozycki-Shah, Alexandria Duff, Julia Segre, and Lila Trautman
In the fall of 2020, one of our project groups made a workshop guide with the goal of supporting high school teams in discussing barriers to diversity, equity, and inclusion within their own programs. 2020 Year 2 Cohort: Ada Rauber, Goodness Nwakudu, Gabriella Lerman, Lianna van Hout, and Sushma Delaney Johnson
GURLS Year 3 focuses around the theme: Connect. Participants learn how to build their network and connect with prospective allies to support their cause.
Physical Education curriculum for elementary school Ultimate
In Fall 2024, the Year 3 cohort created and implemented their GUPPIES (Girls Ultimate PE and Promotion in Elementary Schools) project in certain East Bay elementary schools.
They spread information about opportunities for youth in Ultimate, as well as creating and sharing an elementary school Ultimate physical education curriculum. This project was informed by the research gathered surrounding their original question, “Given that there is a lack of participation of young girls in Ultimate, how might we better advertise and provide resources about this sport so that they'll be interested in joining Ultimate and feel confident about staying in the Ultimate community?” The 2024 Year 3 cohort of Alexandra Le-Khamnouane, Eva Levenson and Kaila Bounthavy also presented their process and outcomes.
The 2023 Year 3 cohort organized and oversaw a social event aimed at building community and providing representation to younger players. The mixer for female-matching players was designed for all age ranges and playing experiences. 2023 Year 3 Cohort: Sanam Rozycki-Shah, Alexandria Duff, Julia Segre, and Lila Trautman
For our Fall 2020 Year 3 GURLS project, our GURLS Year 3 cohort created a podcast called Raising Allies, which focused on conversations with a diverse group of ultimate frisbee players to unpack the importance of intersectionality and learn to engage in meaningful allyship.
2020 Year 3 Cohort: Mathilda Meyerhoff, Emily Denio, and Mia Beeman-Weber
In November 2019, our Year 3 GURLS cohort designed and facilitated a Gender Equity Workshop, which primarily focused on helping leaders (coaches, captains, team admin etc.) on mixed teams better support and empower girls and women on their teams. The workshop was open to leaders across all divisions: High School, Middle School, Adult Club, and Adult Recreational.
The workshop weaved together powerful stories, discussion, activities, worksheets, and group scenarios so that participants walked away with immediate and long-term tangible items to implement on their teams or in their communities.
2019 Year 3 Cohort: Chuc Luu, Eliza Lerman, Jayna Frank, Liza Gull, Thais Thomas, and Valeria Gaona
