Latvia is not on the list yet. @Kristaps
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Tbh I don‘t understand the legitimacy concerns- if there is enough participation!
Fraud on a scale that would matter would mean risking being hated by everyone for eternity and it would be very complicated anyway.
10% fringe cases who should maybe not be elligable and who might have different results probably won‘t matter so much
Worst case and the result COULD MAYBE have been different with better setup: still not the end of the world imo.
I still want to stress: no other ehbc formats have been put to vote, so how it could be worse this time I don‘t get?
To me it‘s a bit sad that we tend to keep initiatives down by finding flaws. I personally think it‘s great if people
-do anything
-even more if it‘s in the name of participation or democracy
I also think this effort is highly professionally and constructively organized.
But in the end, thank you to everyone for expressing your opinions in a civilized matter 
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Ohhhh yeah !!! Historical moment 
Thanks for everyone putting the effort to organise this vote ! Whatever the outcome is, it is very important to do it ! Wether it is to move forward on that question or not.
A single comment from me.
Level ? What’s the purpose? Traditionally, or should I say, in a capitalist way, level in sport is justified to make the show with incredible talent, so it attracts people aka consumers and make money from them. Is it the logic on which bike polo runs today ? Do the futur of bike polo depends on this logic ? Do bike polo still exist today because it makes money to survive or is it thanks to it’s community?
It is not black and white of course, events/clubs should at least not loose money but ideally make some, and clubs require money to grow. But I do believe if we have to choose one, the most fundamental, everyone’s instincts will lean on the second option (community)
So…why do we want a top level for some obscur reason (since it isn’t really for making money for the community) but that doesn’t promote the full community ? (This is one reason, to me, why some potential partnerships such has UCI, redbull etc doesn’t proceed: the risk to loose the community is too big even though it could bring money)
Plus, gender question and athletic level is a question of individual performance. We are a team sport. I think we all realise that individual performance only doesn’t make you a EU winner.
You can argue effort are happening from the bottom: clubs recruitment, Flinta sessions, small tournaments… It is the most important and effective one, I agree. Doesn’t mean it has to be the only thing to do. Ask yourself: can you estimate the pace of the change ? Can you say when mixity at Euro or world will have enough Elodie, Liza (etc, won’t make an exhaustive list here 
) level Flinta ? In 2060 ? Is it satisfying? Can’t we do something more to make it happen in 2030?
What about those who are dropped but have potential for EU champs ? EU champs is anyway dropping “70%” of the community…
I think it is time to recognise, despite being a mixed sport (no official barriers) that social-cultural structures do repeat themselves into polo ant that just a mixity stance isn’t enough.
It is partly symbolic, I understand. It doesn’t mean it is meaningless. This vote has a high symbolic value, on top of a technical question about euros, it is a test of how truly we are a community oriented sport, and build it that way.
And you know what to vote to send a positive signal.
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Hi folks, I thought I’d share some of lessons learned from a similar discussion that the NAHBPA (often referred to in its shorter form as the “NAH”) have had over the last few years and where we are currently around the topic of mixed mandatory in case anything is helpful for you all.
I’m Jenny, the former President of the NAHBPA and now the Communication Director. For anyone who doesn’t know, the NAHBPA (website: hardcourt . com) is the governing body for North America, which includes Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States. We are organized into 10 Regions that cross country borders. Each year, Regions host a qualifying tournament that qualifies top teams to our annual North American Championship. All regions have a Representative who is responsible for talking to their region’s clubs, coordinating the qualifying tournament, helping collect club votes, and advocating on their clubs’ behalf, etc.
Now back to the topic at hand, mixed mandatory…
A few years ago, the proposal for mixed mandatory for NAH qualifying tournaments and the Championship was raised as a way to drive more inclusion and participation of WTFNB (women, trans, femme, non-binary) folks in NAH competitive tournaments. The assumption was that by requiring teams to be mixed it would encourage teams and clubs to invest in WTFNB players in the sport and also give existing WTFNB players the opportunity to participate more in competitive tournaments.
The NAH allowed each Region to collect votes from their clubs to decide if they wanted to require mandatory mixed for their Region’s qualifiers. The first regional votes were in 2017 if I remember correctly. Some Regions decided to make their qualifiers mixed mandatory, some did not, but after the first year (and over the years since) more feedback started to come in from players, clubs and Regions who had concerns about the unintended consequences and viability of mandatory mixed NAH tournaments.
Top Concerns and feedback:
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Requiring mixed mandatory makes some trans players feel uncomfortable and/or unsafe to participate. Specifically, some trans players felt they shouldn’t have to “out” or gender themselves to participate, particularly given the rollbacks on trans protections under the Trump administration in the United States. Not all trans players feel this way, I want to make that clear, some do support mixed mandatory teams. People have different risk tolerance, lived experiences, level of visibility, resources and live in different states/provinces that have varying social and political climates that impact how safe people feel. For some trans folks, mandatory mixed did not make them feel more safe or more comfortable, it did the opposite.
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Some players also felt mandating mixed teams created the illusion of progress but without doing any of the real work needed to build capacity at the club level. Mandatory mixed teams were supposed to encourage investment in WTFNB players over the coming years, but how? Magic? What was the plan? Some felt that more time was being spent on arguing about mandatory mixed instead of exploring options for how we’d actually get more WTFNB players to play at the club level. They wanted more discussion focused on identifying barriers and needs and then shifting to developing an actual plan and execution strategy.
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Along with that, we also received feedback from players of color (POC) who felt that if we were going to focus on improving the inclusivity of marginalized players, race and not just gender should be part of the discussion. Bike polo is very white, like many other cycling sports. Black folks and other players of color brought to our attention that they felt left out of discussions around diversity and inclusion, and wanted to see a greater effort to make race a part of the discussion and focus when working to improve diversity in our sport.
Some lessons learned:
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A democratic vote does NOT work well when the results are asymmetrical and disproportionately impact a minority group’s safety or access, meaning the minority bears the (often unintended) consequences of the outcome.
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A democratic vote is better for when the outcome affects all participants roughly equally (i.e. deciding on reffing rule changes, scheduling meeting times, choosing between two equivalent venues for a tournament).
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A democratic vote on a mandate is not as useful as voting on a plan.
How NAH responded:
In light of the feedback received, the NAH recommended Regions to begin by engaging in dialogues with their local clubs. These discussions were meant to prioritize minority players’ concerns and perspectives and to include race, gender and anything else the community thought was important to fostering more diverse teams. The NAH also provided Regions with a registration method for their qualifier tournament that allowed them to prioritize “diverse teams” but not mandate them. These local and regional discussions need to happen continuously as needs and concerns evolve and change and so should how they address them. This year, no NAH Region required mixed mandatory, instead they used the diverse team prioritization reg method that NAH recommended (link above to see more details about this method).
Next? Building and voting on a plan, not a mandate
Looking ahead, what I hope to see happen next in North America is for the NAH to help develop a plan to achieve more diversity. The way we get there is by taking a ground-up approach where Regions facilitate discussions with their clubs. We need to understand problems players and clubs face, identify barriers, needs, and issues, and then explore possible solutions, while creating spaces for clubs to share strategies and methods that are already working. From there, we can build a clear goal and vision for “diversity” and then create a plan to get us there and that addresses the unique needs of different regional clubs. We should vote on a plan, not a mandate.
An analogy: how cities tackle environmental problems
When a city commits to reducing its carbon footprint, they don’t just vote on the mandate to lower the emissions by X%. Instead, they vote on the transition plan and the strategy itself. First, they assess the problem, like identifying the top contributors to emissions. They assess who is most impacted and what effects the problem is having, like identifying and talking to the communities most affected. Then they map out a targeted goal with concrete steps, like investing in public transit and bike lanes or building renewable energy grids, and set clear milestones along the way. They also explain why that target matters (i.e. cleaner air reduces respiratory illness, protects vulnerable communities, etc.). We need that same intentionality in polo: understanding the problems and needs, defining where we want to go, exploring the solutions, voting on a plan, and then putting in the actual work to build the sport we want to see in the future.
I’m happy to answer any questions or provide more details, I’m not on Poloverse a ton so feel free to also send me an email if I can be of any help :) jenniferjspencer@gmail . com
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Thanks a lot @Jenny for taking the time to write this.
I’ve learned about this discussion yesterday and I started to gather my thoughts in order to write a long message about what I experienced on that topic while I was in the US. But then I saw your post. And like in the old time, you are way better at this than I could ever be.
For those who don’t know, @Jenny created one of the biggest Bike Polo club in the USA with more than 50% LGBTQ+ at the time in addition to be one of the female players with the most success at tournaments. She might also be the teammate I played the longest with.
Thanks again for taking the time and saving me time.
Come see us in the south of france.
Thank you for sharing the experiences on the other side of the pond.
My experience is that Europe took a really different approach and it is actually working. Since Berlin mixed started sooner or later most nations started to organise their touranments as mandatory mixed, now days you don’t even need to say a tournament is mandatory if you state that it is mixed, it is normal. Not to mention these tournaments are the most attended also.
My experiance even 10years ago when tournaments were just open, there were many places that I would be the only, maybe a part of a small number of Flinta players. It was discouraing, I know many FLINTA players who just stopped. This has massively changed in Europe, definitely in the UK.
This push from the top created need for change. Yes, there were times when it was harder and tokenisation has been a problem at the beginning, but it has definitely changed. Many teams now even have multiple Flinta players in their teams. Also in my experience it has encouraged trans people participating in the sport also. When issues come up, at least in the UK level, we are just trying to talk and make it work, finding a solution.
Mixed tournaments all over Europe are hard to get in, levels are super high and definitely brought FLINTA player’s levels up, created an opportunity, that some of us have never been able to imagine. I have never thought to play higher level, as back in the days you never even could get to higher part of a tournament and gain actual winner’s bracket experience. BUT now we have that, which implies that the first steps have been done right and FLINTA players are on podiums even when a tournament is not mixed anymore.
Also in the last few years conversations started everywhere about how to involve any other type of minorities, race, person of colour, low income players etc. Which has been pushed by the first step of changes because of what we achieved on the gender side.
Berlin Mixed is the biggest European competitive tournament, full respect for them for waking up Europe and trying to make a change again.
They worked hard to reach out to every nations, which finally created a channel of communication which we have been missing for a long time in Europe. Created a democratic situation, instead of few people just deciding about everything, we are actually asking the community, how they would like to see their sport evlove. The vote sparked so much action, so many interesting talks, already created initiatves for a greater change, without this we would not be here. I would like to say THANK YOU for all, who helped to make this step.
Also I don’t really see what we can loose with if we try, why are people so scared of having something new? (not that new) Many mixed sport has got the European championships in mixed format, not even a question. Also this is a decision for one edition, which we can then evaluate.
Sad to see how further South of Europe it created a scared movement, listening to FLINTA chats in Southern countries it is really disappointing what is happening there. Maybe this is really the push we need.
Over the last month I had many discussions about the topic and I wasn’t even decided which way I’m going to vote. Thank you for everyone, who calmly managed to have a sit down and have patience to understand both sides. I hope you can all have that and noone is facing discrimination or harm because they think one way or the other.
Please respect eachother’s opinion and let the vote decide what’s the next step. Either way it goes, please try to do something about inclusivity in your club. These conversations have been going around for decades in FLINTA groups and I’m really grateful, that it is fully out there and makes people think, maybe even imagine, what it is like to be a minority. (I can’t even say anything, as I’m still white, but I am still a minority in the country I live in)
Thank you for listening.
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