Monthly Archives: November 2007

Spirited Women Come Out to Play

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Image courtesy of freedigitalpics.net by Ambro.

Image courtesy of freedigitalpics.net by Ambro.

I spent a recent Saturday hanging out with some new gal pals. The “Spirited Woman of Enoughness” was there. So was the “Yes-I-Will, Yes-I-Will Matadora,” the “Self-Trusting Guruess,” and the “Diva of Humanitarians.” We played dress up, we danced, we laughed, we cried and we ate chocolate.

No, it wasn’t a 10-year-old girl’s birthday party. And no, it wasn’t an acid trip.

This was a different kind of journey entirely. One that involved immersing myself into a circle of spirited women, an inspirational group that has grown like gangbusters since founder Nancy Mills put up her first flyer in a downtown Santa Barbara restaurant five years ago.

Let me back up a minute and say that I have a love-hate relationship with the whole notion of self-improvement. I’m addicted to browsing the tables of contents of self-help books–it’s physically hard for me to walk by a self-help book without taking a dip inside. If a book is really good, I’ll spend an entire afternoon nursing a latte at Borders so I can actually read the entire thing from cover to cover without forking over $24.99 plus tax for titles like “How to Pee Standing Up: Tips for Hip Chicks,” “I’m with Stupid: One Man. One Woman. 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up,” and “How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic’s Guide to Spiritual Happiness,” any of which would be greeted by pure mockery if they were to find a place on my bedside table.

Given my tendency toward skepticism, I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive as I made my way to the Spirited Woman Workshop. But Nancy advertised it as being a “fantastic combination of creative playfulness, empowerment, and fun that reinforces that you are enough as you are.” Plus, I heard there might be chocolate, so I figured it was worth a shot.

And I knew I could get a column out of it.

I had Nancy pegged from the moment she greeted me at the door of a private home on the Mesa. She’s one of those people who is so genuinely herself, so obviously comfortable in her own skin, and so ready and willing to make an absolute fool of herself in front of complete strangers that the gamer in me won out over the cynic almost immediately.

I was completely charmed and about 87% ready to be enveloped in whatever the day might bring.

First, it brought dancing. A little “Celebration” on the CD player to loosen us up. Once I got over my self-consciousness–I don’t often dance these days unaided by alcohol or instructions from my 8-year-old son–I started tapping in time with the music and getting in touch with the “Dancin’, Shakin’, Rockin’ Woman” that Nancy says we all have inside of us.

I have to admit, I was having fun. And the other women were fascinating. When else would I ever have the opportunity to be in a room with three psychics? By the way, none of them wore turbans and there wasn’t a crystal ball in sight.

What there was instead was a lot of heartfelt sharing and conversation, with the whole focus on looking inside to find the strengths we already have inside ourselves rather than looking outside, or to the future, to find ways we can improve.

As Nancy says, “I am a Dancin’, Shakin’, Rockin’ Woman. I am alive with my spirit, I am the birthday girl of the universe, I wear a party hat, and most importantly, I am enough as I am, I am enough as I am, I am enough as I am.”

Did I mention she wears a pink feather boa when she says this?

Then she laughs, along with the “Spirited Woman of Enoughness,” the “Yes-I-Will, Yes-I-Will Matadora,” the “Self-Trusting Guruess,” the “Diva of Humanitarians,” and me, the “Formerly Cynical Columnist.” I laugh too–and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just the chocolate talking.

The next Spirited Woman Workshop in Santa Barbara will be held on Saturday, February 23. For more information visit www.thespiritedwoman.com or call 888.428.1234 or email NancyMills@thespiritedwoman.com. For more of Leslie’s columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on November 9, 2007.

Leslie Dinaberg Watches a Game With John Maloney

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Courtesy Freeimages.net by Naypong

Courtesy Freeimages.net by Naypong

Think herding cats is tough? Try organizing 2,900 kids into 268 teams, then dispersing them among 25 fields for games and practices each week. Once the kids are settled, then try keeping their parents in line. Sound like a challenge? It’s all in a day’s volunteer work for AYSO Commissioner John Maloney.

Leslie Dinaberg: When did you start volunteering with AYSO?

John Maloney: I started as a referee a long time ago, when I was 12.

I grew up around soccer. I played in college (at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA) and then when my youngest daughter Meghan started playing I started to ref and just went on from there, so that’s 12-13 years.

LD: And what was it like then?

JM: We had about 2,500 kids back then…we used to practice all over town and games were all over town. We didn’t have UCSB back then, Girsh Park didn’t exist, so on a given Saturday you had kids (all over town). You would have about one or two fields per location so it was tough getting goals set up and making sure we had refs at each field.

LD: What a huge logistic nightmare.

JM: We probably have actively involved over 20 people to help make things happen. Each age group has administrators that run it.

LD: How do people begin as volunteers?

JM: They start out coaching, and then they say “Have you guys ever thought of …” and we say, “No, how would you like to…” Suggestion is a great foot in the door to being a volunteer.

…We’ve got referee administrators for both genders. Making sure we have refs. …(There’s our) picture day coordinator, our volunteer coordinator, ….our party angels, that run the volunteer party at the end of the year. … People find things they like, you get them doing it and you try to get them to do it for five or six years so you get some consistency, and it helps.

LD: Do people generally stay for the life of their child’s involvement?

JM: Generally but … we get a lot of people who stick around after their kids grow up.

LD: What are the biggest challenges you face?

JM: There aren’t enough fields … we’re by far the largest youth sports organization in town. And for most kids it’s just from the week after school starts until the week after Thanksgiving, but for the talented kids that want to keep playing we have all-stars and that goes all the way to June or July.

LD: After all these years of involvement, do you think the girls and boys teams behave differently?

JM: Oh, absolutely. I’ve coached both and yeah, there’s a difference. You motivate them differently. In AYSO you don’t yell at kids, you try to keep it positive, but you can discipline a boy differently than a girl. … But both are really rewarding, especially this age group (8-10) because you see so much improvement throughout the year. You look at the first game and the last game and there’s a huge improvement. I just love to see kids when it starts to click for them.

LD: Do you have any tips for parents to be a better soccer/sports parent?

JM: Just watch. Every year we have problems with parents … the cheering stuff is good, but the parents that try to get into coaching that aren’t coaches … we get some that stand behind the goal and talk to the kids. We get some that counteract what the coach is trying to tell them to do. That’s kind of frustrating sometimes.

LD: I assume you’re not going to be the commissioner forever and ever and ever.

JM: Not if my wife has anything to say about it.

LD: What kind of advice would you give to your successor?

JM: Get a lot of people to help you, and don’t let things get to you. We’ve talked about mostly good stuff, but there’s stuff that I have to deal with every year that’s not too pleasant. We’re dealing with almost 3,000 kids, and 6,000 parents, and we’ve got divorces, restraining orders, one parent on the other, child protection issues come up.

LD: What’s your favorite thing about AYSO?

JM: What everybody says on the board is, “If I got paid I’d quit. You couldn’t pay me enough to ref this game with some of these parents. It’s a good thing I do it for free.” The board members get a really rough time at time. We’ve had these new coaches get hit with some of these parents who are just high maintenance…

For every little bad thing there’s like 20 good things. There’s so much. When you watch these kids just having a blast and get so excited at the end of the game is the best.

Name: John Maloney

Born: New London, Connecticut

Family: Wife Valerie and daughters Meghan, 17, and Carleigh, 14.

Civic Involvement: AYSO Commissioner; Sunday School Teacher at Holy Cross Church; runs the Society of Professional Engineers’ Math Counts Program for Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties

Professional Accomplishments: Electrical Engineer, owner of JMPE Electrical Engineering and Lighting Design with offices in Santa Barbara and Bakersfield.

Little-Known Fact: John’s first job after college was as a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey clown.

Originally published in Noozhawk

One on one with Rachael Steidl

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Rachael Steidl (courtesy photo)

Rachael Steidl (courtesy photo)

Recognizing the need for a centralized place for parenting information in Santa Barbara, Rachel Steidl created SBParent.com, which quickly became an indispensable resource for parents when it launched in 2002. Part Internet portal, part calendar and part bulletin board, today her business not only serves locals, it’s also the model for 18 other cities that have licensed the ParentClick.com technology.

Leslie Dinaberg: How did SBParent start?

Rachael Steidl: I was watching the frustration of how much work it was for parents to find resources. When I looked into it and tried to find out why it was so hard to get information, one of the things I realized was that advertising is so expensive and most businesses can’t afford to do it. My goal was to bring all of that word-of-mouth information under one central spot by making it affordable for businesses and nonprofits.

LD: How is ParentClick different than SBParent?

RS: Prior to (starting ParentClick) we were getting a lot of inquiries from people wanting to know how to get something like this going in their community. So we looked at what we had done over the last three years and decided that we could help fast forward them getting to where SBParent has gotten to by not having to do so much of the learning. So we created ParentClick. What we do is provide service agreements to these territory owners, which builds the technology for them, the website, gives them training and ongoing support, but they are in actuality their own business.

LD: So is it a franchise?

RS: It’s not a franchise in the sense that they have their own business name, their own business model, they set their own pricing. … We’ve also expanded services … for people who don’t have it in their city …we added travel with kids, children’s book and movie reviews, the recipe club and articles.

LD: Have you found that the other sites are different from Santa Barbara?

RS: It’s up to each territory whether they want it to make money and if they’re going to do sales, but to me, no matter what–and I have committed to this since the day I started, whether I was getting a check or not–is there will always be information for parents so that it’s not a waste of their time. Some territories are definitely stronger than others in terms of the consistency with which they are posting information.

But on SBParent, new information is going up every single day. When I was in Greece this summer I was posting information … we just don’t ever stop, because to me it’s a business, but we always look at it from the parent perspective.

… I would rather talk a potential owner out of doing the site than take a check from them for the wrong reasons.

LD: Is it still mostly a solo operation?

RS: Locally Julie Sorenson helps me, and she is really a huge, huge part of SBParent. But ParentClick has been solo. But we’re hiring.

… My daughter said to me the other day, “Mommy,” because she always told me she’s going to do my site when she grows up. She says, “I don’t know if I’m going to do SBParent.com when I grow up. I just think it’s too much work.”

LD: How and when do you work?

RS: My standard working hours, now that all my kids are in school, are really 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. I’ve gotten really disciplined, even though I still work out of the home, at not working on anything going on in the home–just working.

From 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. are my mom hours and then from 8 p.m. to midnight are usually work hours again. … My kids’ biggest complaint is my pulling up to pick them up from school on my cell phone, because I am literally doing calls until I pick them up. One of the things I tell a lot of the territory owners, as wonderful as it is working from home and as wonderful as it is being your own boss, it’s no less work–actually I think it’s a lot more juggling–it’s just that you get to control what those hours are.

I would not change it for the world because I get to be at all my kids’ things. … To me it’s worth working at night to be able to have that time with the kids during the day.

LD: Do you ever think it would be easier to have a job with set hours?

RS: Sure, but the funny thing is that even on my worst day where I’ll look at the big picture and go, did I make a mistake growing the company, did I make a mistake starting a business, I look at how it’s affected people and the emails we get or the great conversations with some of our territories, and I think you know what–I love what I do.

Vital Stats: Rachael Ross Steidl

Birthdate and place: 7/17/70, Los Angeles

Family: Twins Ashley and Whitney (9) and Emily (5); husband Jamie.

Civic Involvement: Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation, Board President; Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara, Oversight Committee; Santa Barbara Foundation, Katherine Harvey Fellows; Junior Philanthropists, Fund for Santa Barbara; Hope School PTA.

Professional Accomplishments: Goleta Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year, 2007; 40 under 40, Pacific Coast Business Times; ParentClick.com is now licensed in 18 cities, with more on the way.

Little known fact: Rachael’s parents had a great cookware store in Santa Barbara in the late 70s-80s called D. Crosby Ross, which was a cross between a Pottery Barn and a Williams Sonoma.

Originally published in Noozhawk