Carleton Ultimate Friends – The Carleton Class of 2023(!) is already on campus and the remainder of students are arriving back to Northfield this weekend. As the school year starts, The Carleton Ultimate Fund (CUF) wants to update you on some of our work as well as provide some fun information on what your fellow Syzygy & CUT players and alums have been doing. Below are: an update on our current CUF financial status; a report from our German correspondent on U24 Worlds; and a hot off the press update on the USA Ultimate Hall of Fame candidates (TWO Carleton alums in the finalist pool!). Please read through the updates when you can. You can take action by 1) making a donation to CUF and 2) providing supporting information to our Carleton HOF candidates. Links to both are provided below!
THE FINANCIAL STORY
CUF is extremely grateful for the generosity of the Carleton Ultimate community. Your support of Syzygy and CUT on the sidelines, at Alumni Weekend, on social media, and financially is what keeps Carleton’s ultimate tradition strong. With transparency in mind, here’s a quick financial summary for the year ending June 30, 2019.
Donations were $74,210, which is 74% higher than the prior year’s record. With $84,572 of expenses, CUF’s year-end cash balance dropped to $22,222.
The surge in donations is primarily a result of the 2018 year-end fundraising campaign for the Carleton Ultimate Endowment (CUE). CUF added $45,000 to CUE last year, 53% of expenses.
CUF gave $14,000 to each team for the 2019 college season. Other expenses included youth coaching grants, legal fees (associated with our Trademark work) and PayPal fees.
For 2019-2020, we are projecting a drop in donations but we are increasing our support to CUT and Syzygy to $15,000 for each team. If total donations drop back to $45,000, the grants to the teams would be about 67% of total fundraising. Twenty-two percent will go to CUE and other costs would be $5,000, or 11% of our budget.
Of course it’s possible we could maintain last year’s record donation pace thanks to the growing base of donors to CUF. In the last fiscal year, 66 CUT alums and 48 Syzygy alums made at least one donation to CUF. As of June 2019, 65 donors were making regular monthly contributions totaling $1,382 per month.
In addition to our base of GUT and Gyzygy donors, CUF received donations from current parents, parents of alumni, and even professors over the last year. In total, CUF received donations from 102 individuals and families in the last fiscal year. The Endowment Campaign attracted some of these donors. As the Carleton Ultimate community grows, we hope more of you will choose to support Syzygy and CUT by donating to CUF.
According to the current teams’ treasurers, it costs about $75,000 to field a competitive Division I ultimate program. CUF is now supporting about 20% of their budgets, with the College kicking in another 10-15%. As you evaluate the organizations you support with your charitable donations, we hope you will consider the important support CUF provides for our ultimate community. Please sign up to be a monthly donor or make a one-time donation here.
Carleton Ultimate Dominates U24 Worlds!
Fortunate timing of European travels this summer allowed Rexy (Brent), Sarge (Jenny), and the whole Nystrom family to make a trip to Heidelberg, Germany for a day to watch the three Team USAs participate in the U24 World Ultimate Championships. We rolled into town via train and within 5 minutes had inadvertently walked into the Men’s team waiting for their transportation to the fields and got hugs from our Carleton reps on that team. Carleton alums and students made up 5 of the 24 spots on the men’s team, 2 of 25 on the women’s team, and 4 of 26 (counting 1 on injured reserve) on the mixed team. That means nearly 15% of all participants on these rosters were part of our own small Ultimate community! An amazing testament to the strength and competitiveness of Carleton Ultimate. We were able to see all three teams play on that one very full day, including an exciting showcase event where the women played an evening game on the stadium field against Columbia. All three teams went undefeated for the tournament and won World Titles; the teams played with skill, class, and terrific spirit of the game. The Nystroms were proud to be there wearing our CUT and Syzygy jerseys and rooting for the USA (and of course for our Carleton players in particular!).
ULTIMATE HALL OF FAME
Breaking news from USA Ultimate – On September 11th, USA Ultimate announced the finalists for this year’s Ultimate Hall of Fame which includes Carleton Ultimate alums David Boardman-CUT ’95 and Deb Cussen Scheibe-Syzygy ’98. The full slate includes 7 men and 7 women, and a panel of current HOF members will select up to six finalists for entry. We want more of our Carleton community in the Hall! You are invited to provide any feedback on any of the candidates by completing this Google Form Let’s pack the form with info on our favorites. You can find all the information about the Hall, the selection process, and check out all the candidates and their playing history here.
Carleton Ultimate Fund 