Board of Directors

I was first introduced to Ultimate at King's College London in 2010, and I have since developed a deep appreciation for the sport's benefits both on and off the field. I enjoy Ultimate in all disciplines, and have played mixed with Flump, ABH, and Zoo. I also led the women's development team Discie Chicks for 7 years, with a focus on guiding players at Club level competition.

In 2015, my involvement with the UK Ultimate began as a volunteer for the Women's Committee. Subsequently, I assumed a role on the Board in 2018, and in 2021, I created and co-chair the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee. As a part of this committee, I actively contribute to organising UKU MESH, an essential initiative aimed at highlighting and supporting players from Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

Looking forward, my commitment to fostering meaningful conversations, facilitating effective decision-making, providing support, and ensuring the community's needs are met remains resolute. My aspiration is to create an inclusive environment where everyone can fully enjoy the sport of Ultimate.

I’ve been very fortunate to have a very long playing career at all different levels and for pretty well all the divisions that I could have qualified for. From trials as a junior to great grand master level; indoors, grass, beach; from informal games in the park to several World finals. I captained the GB Masters team for many years on both grass and sand, including leading the team to success in the 2003 European Championships and runners up at the 2007 World Beach Championship. I've also been on winning teams at UK Nationals in Open, Mixed and Indoors. In 2011 I was part of the GB Mixed Masters team that won the World Beach Championships.

Off the field I am a charity head of finance and I have been the treasurer of UK Ultimate since around 2010. I was also the first treasurer of UK Ultimate's predecessor. I chaired the UKU Spirit of the Game Committee for 2 years. I also spent a couple of years on the BULA Beach Ultimate Committee

My body now limits my Ultimate to two or three beach tournaments a year (pandemics permitting) and am more likely to be found playing disc golf.

Before taking on the Director of Safeguarding role, I had been part of the UKU Safeguarding committee and therefore transitioned well into the position.

I predominantly play within the Women's division, I am a handler, and am more likely to be known as "Trebbs" in an Ultimate context. I have had the opportunity to represent GB, as well as play at club worlds.

Outside of Ultimate I am an NHS Speech and Language Therapist. My work is varied, but I mostly work with children and young people who have profoundly complex medical/health needs. I am a dysphagia trained therapist, which means I support feeding/swallowing difficulties as well as communication.

The children and young people I work with are often extremely vulnerable and therefore safeguarding and safeguarding practices are ingrained in what we do. I receive regular safeguarding supervision through work, have been involved in child protection conferences and am CRB checked for both children and adults.

I started playing Ultimate as a student at Leeds University in 2000 and have since played with teams across all 3 divisions in UK events including LLLeeds Open and LLLadies, Bliss, Jeremy Codhand, and Nice Bristols. I have also been fortunate enough to play at multiple European Club tournaments and at 4 World Club tournaments; twice in Mixed and twice in Women’s. I started my GB career in 2003 and continued through to WUGC in 2012, winning 3 European Gold medals on grass and 1 World Beach Silver medal. After retiring from GB in 2012, I became part of the GB Oversight Committee and in 2018 I was asked to take on the voluntary role of GB Performance Director. I currently sit on the Board of Directors for UK Ultimate and for WFDF, where I hold the role of Chair of the Athletes’ Commission.

Outside of Ultimate, I completed a PhD in 2008 and have worked ever since at the University of Bath where I teach and research in sport psychology. I have also worked with a number of sports organisations including the Premier League, Sport England, UK Sport, and UK Anti-Doping.

I started playing Ultimate at university in 2001. Since then, I’ve been an active club player at the non-elite level, mainly in London & the South-west, as well as spending time playing and coaching in Bolivia. I’ve previously worked with UKU in the London Development Officer role, delivering summer and winter leagues alongside Tournament Directing at numerous Open, Women and Mixed tour events. More recently, I have been lucky to be part of the Local Organising Committees for WU23 – 2015, WUGC – 2016 and WU24 - 2023.

I currently represent the Mixed & Open teams as captain for Brixton Ultimate and play social in both the senior and GM age brackets.

I have a strong interest in the growth and development of grassroots community-based Ultimate and I believe that accessible and well-run community clubs are best placed to ensure continued access to the sport for new and existing players. I feel that our competition structure should be reflective of our player base and should continue to grow in a way that supports both elite level and grassroot clubs alike. We should strive to continue the evolution of our domestic calendar: offering both elite playing opportunities that attract the best teams domestically and from Europe, as well as ensuring the future of our “Tour events” to allow players from across our community to come together to compete, socialise and enjoy Ultimate in large scale settings. Together with this, I hope to see an increase in smaller regional and single day events that reduce barriers to competition and encourage more players than ever to compete in sanctioned events. I see these smaller, less costly and more geographically convenient events as key to engaging and growing the frisbee playing community both from existing teams and those groups that currently operate outside of existing UKU structure and governance.

Away from Ultimate, I work as the Director of Operations for a small independent pub group as well as running my own hospitality consultancy business.

I am a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. I have played ultimate for 3 years, having taken it up in my second year. I have played for SCRAM and Dark Horses, and I am President for Dark Horses this year, continuing in the role from last year. In addition, I am currently on the UKU DEI Committee. I want to help university Ultimate teams feel heard and to support them through anything they may need.

I think that being a university Ultimate player and having run a club, I know of a few of the struggles and wish to try help right them. One of my main aims would be to help further the relationship that regional coordinators have with teams in their district, to try and better support them over the coming year and beyond. It is important that teams feel they are supported by UKU over the coming year, as we all figure out the impact COVID has had on our teams. Further to that, I want to continue the development of the BUCS Women’s outdoor league, by listening to teams on what did or did not work for them with the aim of making the game accessible to all women.

I started playing ultimate in 2012 at the University of Southampton. Since then I’ve played for a variety of clubs and teams from around the UK, and have been involved in running both local clubs and teams aiming to compete at a national level. From this I’ve seen a wide variety of ways of running things, and the challenges different clubs face. I’ve also photographed various tournaments along the way. I moved up to Edinburgh in 2020 and since then have been involved in running EDI, and in running tournaments in Scotland. I’m interested in trying to provide some input from both Scottish and “challenger” clubs into the UKU decision making, and how we can encourage more local events to reduce barriers to playing ultimate.

I am excited to stand for the Without Portfolio role on the UKU board, bringing 12 years of playing experience in Russia and the UK. From clubs like Iceni, Deep Space, and LMU to representing GB in Mixed Masters squads on the beach, I have a deep passion for Ultimate.

Outside of the game, I have a career in media and entertainment companies, where my roles are business development and sales related.

While I don't have a specific agenda in mind, I am committed to promoting women's sports and advancing gender equality within the ultimate community. Preserving the self-officiation principles of Spirit of the Game also sets Ultimate apart. I firmly believe in upholding values of respect, fair play, and self-regulation. As a UKU board member, I will champion self-officiation at all levels of play.

I would be honoured to serve and bring my skills, enthusiasm, and dedication to the betterment of Ultimate in the UK.

I'm Serena and I've been volunteering with UKU since tearing my ACL in 2014. I started by helping support Tour tournaments, and then volunteered on the WU23 and WUGC events in London before joining the women's committee in 2015 and eventually the Board! From a playing perspective, I started at Oxford (including winning 2015 Uni Women's nationals!) and then have played Women's and Mixed with Reading since 2015 including WUCC and EUCF.

For me, getting more women involved in Ultimate is critical to the sport's long-term success and so I hope that along with the rest of the women's committee we can continue to facilitate and promote playing opportunities across the UK across divisions, geographies, abilities and ages.

Since picking up Ultimate as a junior at college in 2005, I have been lucky enough to play at all levels with club and national teams, in the UK and around the world, making lifelong friends within an amazing community.

In my professional life I help organisations to define their goals and create structures that enable their people to effectively make decisions, be innovative and solve problems. I am keen to help UKU create and implement strategies that ensure the long-term success of the sport at both the grassroots and elite levels, so that Ultimate players in the UK continue to have great opportunities to play in a way that works for them.

One area I would like to explore, is how UKU and the UK Ultimate community can grow the game sustainably through creating positive, rewarding experiences and feedback loops for coaches and community organisers - the people that are the lifeblood of our sport. I believe there are opportunities for us to learn from other sports and ultimate communities around the world to establish a model that puts in place the structures to support these people who make ultimate accessible and fun for everyone.

I’ve been playing ultimate since taking it up at York in 2017, and now play my club ultimate with Manchester, where in addition to playing, I sit on committee as the club secretary. I first got involved with UKU in 2019 when I started as a spirit of the game committee member and spirit of the game representative on the university committee. I now sit on the uni committee as open division coordinator, and also on the scheduling committee.

I’m running for a ‘without portfolio’ position, and I’d like to be on the board because I enjoy the ins and outs of working on the various committees I’ve already sat on and think I’d be able to bring something to the board. I love playing ultimate, and have been involved in organising ultimate at various levels for several year now and would love to be able to continue to do that as part of UKU’s board. As someone considerably younger than many of the current board members and still very involved in the playing community, I think I’d bring some potentially useful different perspectives to those already on the board.

I also would like to try to increase UKU’s engagement with the wider ultimate community. A lot of our members only encounter UKU when something goes wrong at a UKU tournament they’re playing, or they have a complaint about the scheduling. They don’t see the tireless work that is put in by staff members and many unpaid volunteers to make our sport possible, and I’d like to be able to show that to the community more.

After UK Ultimate had appointed a full-time CEO for the first time, it was decided that role should be a permanent, appointed member of the board of directors.

I run UK Ultimate and am proud to have been doing so for quite a few years now. You've probably seen me at a tournament before - I especially like to be in the car park waving at everyone as they arrive. I used to play a lot more but haven’t been able to do that for the last couple of years. If you want to talk to me about UK Ultimate, please email, call, or grab me at a tournament. It's not always possible for me to stop what I’m doing and talk right away, but I'll do my best.