Nouvelles

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As the discussions around Gender Equity in ultimate continue to be so prevalent in our community, we feel as though it's our responsibility to contribute.  First, it's important that our community knows where VC stands: We respect all people and believe that all people should be treated equally and fairly. We believe that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done around gender equality in both sport and the world at large.  We will work with you, our community, to help promote the values of equality and equity as best we can, in everything we do. In 2017, we put all of our online advertising partnership dollars in one basket: Exclusively supporting Ultiworld's coverage of the women's division, which allowed for more division-specific coverage than ever before. We checked in with Ultiworld on the effects of more women's coverage: There was a 2% increase in overall female viewers from October 2015-August 2016 to October 2016-August 2017. That's truly great when you are looking at over 2MM pageviews.  For new entrances to the site, we are tracking at 24.71% increase in the female category! This means that of the total females that go to Ultiworld each day, 25% are first time visitors! VC will continue to work with Ultiworld on this initiative for the 2017-2018 season, and share more effects/stats as available. VC Women's Development Sponsorship This past spring, we connected with a number of women's club teams and offered them a no-obligations sponsorship discount on their uniforms. This offer helped us to get to know a number of awesome women's teams that we hadn't worked with in the past and helped the teams get great gear while saving funds to be able to put them in to what matters most - tournament fees, travel, etc. Given the success of our trial run, we want to go bigger with this idea of a Women's Development Sponsorship. So here we go... For the 2017-2018 season, VC will offer all women's college teams a 20% no-obligations sponsorship discount on their team uniform orders, world-wide.  If your team has a coach, VC will also offset a small part of that investment for you and add a no-charge coach jersey to your order. What's more, if you're an open or mixed team actively working towards promoting equity at your school and in your community, we want to hear about what you're doing and help share your success. You will also be eligible to receive a Women's Development Sponsorship if your actions are tangibly making a difference in the support of female athletes in your area. How does it work? It's really quite simple. We'll ask you to tell us a bit about your team in this form and we'll be in touch to follow up within 1-2 business days. You can also drop us a line any time to get more information. Here is our contact info. A 20% discount will be added to any estimates we send you for your team uniforms and we'll walk you through the order process from start to finish. Other benefits: Free professional design help (up to 3 hours per team) if you submit your requests by December 1st. Individual team and player direct online ordering - check out our current system here, with a new and improved version launching by the end of August 2017! That's it, unless you want more... What more can VC do for your team? We are committed to working every day to be the best we can be, and that includes supporting the initiatives and values of our community. Some examples of what else we can do are: Promote your team and its initiatives via our wide-reaching social media channels Share your success stories and the successes of other teams to help learn from each other and inspire our community Offer your team Discs for Development, which allows us to offer Discraft practice discs for as low as US$5.50 / CA$6.91 per disc Most importantly, we'll continue to stand up and speak out for what's right and do our best to support and promote equity in ultimate through our actions, investments and our partnerships.  Here's that "application" form again, or drop us a line to hear more at info@vcultimate.com - Thank you!    

This statement has been modified from it's original version to reflect VC Ultimate's on going position on Gender Equity, as opposed to the situation-specific statement that was originally made July 7, 2017. For the original version, please contact us. Statement on Gender Equity It is essential that our community know where VC Ultimate stands on issues of equity and equality. As VC's leader, it is an issue I am passionate about and work very hard to promote in a positive way.  The voices representing our company must be united. We respect all people and believe that all people should be treated equally and fairly. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done around gender equality in both sport and the world at large.   Adriana Withers Founding Partner & CEOVC Ultimate Inc. For more of our views on gender equity in ultimate, specifically with regards to media coverage, please visit this Ultiworld article. For any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at info@vcultimate.com at any time. For more about VC Ultimate, please visit our About VC page.

We love travelling around the world and meeting players from so many different countries at ultimate events, as well as awesome individuals contributing from the sideline! In Poland last summer, we met a photographer so talented that we asked him to join our team for our next WFDF event. Please meet Andraž Kramberger... VC: Hey Andraž! We're really excited to have you as part of the VC Lookfly team heading to WCBU this summer. How did this all come about for you? AB: I met with VC and its crew at WJUC last year, where I was part of the Slovenian team as their photographer. While taking some photos from the finals I got into conversation with Adriana, got her contact and she told me to send her any "good ones" from the matches. So when I got back to Slovenia, I immediately edited the photos, send Adriana an email, she liked them and we remained in touch since. Earlier this year I was invited to be a part of the VC team at WCBU this June.    VC: What was WJUC like for you? AB: It was an incredible experience to be at such a big ultimate event with thousands of people from across the globe. It was very exhausting as well because I was at the fields from morning till late afternoon and then I edited the photos and videos of the day and uploaded them, which was a tiny bit frustrating with the speed and consistency of the internet at the dorm where we stayed. But all in all a really great adventure, 10/10 would go again. VC: What's your Ultimate background? How did you get in to the sport? AB: I played hockey for about 14 years and when I got to college I quit and since we were always playing ultimate at recess at high school, I though I would give it a try. So I joined the local team. I got a lot of new friends and connections over it (as one does in Ultimate) but with going to college in another town, I kind of faded out of actively playing and began to take photos at local tournaments. My former teammates then asked me to take photos of their tryouts and tournaments more often and I still go when I have time. VC: We've been using some of your photos - which are AWESOME - in our social media feeds lately. How does it feel to see your photos out there for more ultimate players to see? AB: It's an incredible feeling whenever I see one of my pics being used anywhere else other than my own social media. I never would've thought that Ultimate would be the one thing in life that propelled my photography out into the world. VC: What would be your dream with regards to ultimate and/or photography? AB: I'm not quite sure yet. Of course it would be incredible if I could do photography full time but it is a hard business to get a grip on and to make a living out of, especially if you don't really want to do wedding photography (not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just not my kind of style). VC: Slovenia is a beautiful country. Any tournaments that we should all keep in mind, or must-do's for visitors? AB: Slovenia is a very special place in the sense that you can cross it in about a 4-hour drive and on the way you can visit some really old cities (from roman times), the mountains and the Mediterranean shore. With its position on the edges of Italy, Austria and the Balcan there was a lot going on here over the centuries. So as a tourist definitely visit Bled with its castle and its lake; Piran, which is a tiny town on the shore; Postojna cave, which is one of one of our biggest tourist attractions, but really anywhere you'll go you could find something to see.  As a Ultimate player you'll hear more and more about our teams in the future because the players here are really working hard on the next generation with a nation wide high school league. As for the tournaments I would say Woodchuck is getting bigger every year. It's an international tournament on high intermediate level. If you're more a fan of an indoor Ultimate maybe take a look at Free As A Bee (FAAB for short). Slovenia is still getting of ground with its Ultimate scene but it is getting there slowly but surely. Follow Andraž Kramberger on social media to continuously be inspired by his beautiful work: https://www.instagram.com/krambergera/    

The World Junior Ultimate Championships in Poland was a whirlwind World Flying Disc Federation event in the beautiful city of Wrocław! Not all is as it appears however: Polish pronunciation was one of our favorite challenges of the event and by the end of the week we had down the the name of the city (pronounced like "frot-suave") and the word for thank you - dziękuję (pronounced like "jun-koo-ya"...sort of). Wrocław also happened to be the 2016 Capital of Culture which was a well-deserved title judging by the beautiful city, apparently constant events in the main square, and incredible street art all over! We were lucky to merchandise WJUC in such an amazing location! The week-long event certainly kept our staff on our toes. Our problem-solving skills were put to the test when we had to construct racks out of metal pipes that were sturdy enough for all the sweet VC and Lookfly gear! Not to mention weather ranging from hot and humid to chilly and windy to torrential downpour; we had to be ready for anything!   Two of our favorite things from the week: starting a VC Snapchat account (Follow us! "vcultimate") and giving away Trivolle sets all week to all the junior teams. Not only are these young athletes amazing ultimate players - they're also hilarious and very good at Trivolle! Thanks to Trivolle for donating sets to these teams from all over the world, they're definitely going to good homes. Best night of the week: trade night. A crazy downpour cut the night's activities short, but not before we got to run around in these crazy human hamster balls:  Finally, a great week in Poland was capped off with the Canada boys taking home silver and our Canada ladies winning gold in an exciting final against USA! So proud of our juniors teams. Thanks to everyone who helped put on this amazing event - we can't wait for another opportunity to visit Poland!

What's the best way to spend a Monday evening? If you're part of VC's Team Fun, it would definitely have to be giving away free swag to youth ultimate players! We surprised the Toronto Elites squad with an arsenal of mini games plus a VC tent full of swag to give away as prizing!  The kids weren’t really sure how to handle the news, with comments like, “It’s like Christmas came early!” and even “This is the best day of my life!” Games like the fan-favorite Spikeball, Flutterguts (where you flip the disc through the air and try to catch it one-handed), and a modified version of 500 gave the kids lots of opportunities to win swag. Our giveaway merch included some VC printed gear and some leftover merchandise from Worlds last year, but mostly tons of fully sublimated samples through our newest quick sublimation option – Pivot. The evening was capped (literally) by a pun-for-prize hat giveaway, a favorite of ours! Many laughs were shared but possibly the best joke of the evening was this one: “What’s the difference between a piano, a fish, and a pot of glue?"“I don’t know, what?”“You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!”“What about the glue?”“I knew you’d get stuck on that!” Thanks Elites for being such an awesome group, we hope you had as much fun as we did! You can check out Elites on Facebook here.