AYSO Region 300
August 8, 2013
7:36 call to order
AGENDA
Everyone Plays*Balanced Teams*Open Registration*Positive Coaching*Good Sportsmanship*Player Development
1. Welcome. Everyone did a quick introduction of themselves to welcome the new people.
2. Old Items:
July’s meeting minutes were approved. Meeting minutes will be posted on the new website. Archived minutes will go back as far as we can, about 3 years.
Board member orientation was a good time. Hopefully we convinced some people to join the board.
The new website is not up yet due to the developer being behind and our importing of data is not complete. We hope to have it done later this month.
3. Regional Commissioner Report: RC had all board members present verify their contact information and preferred email address.
It is crunch time. There is much to discuss in preparation for the season.
August 19 is new parent night, 7:00 in the La Grange Park District Ball Room. The presentation will be an overview of the AYSO philosophy and basic soccer information such as, how to put on shin guards and when you can expect to hear from your coaches. The Soccer 101 slides will be put on the new website for those who can’t make it. Any board members who would like to come and help out are welcome.
RC will send out the reminder email to all families reiterating the no jewelry policy, which includes no earring even if ears were just pierced.
Should fields have a Kid Zone, posters place in the grass reminding parents how to behave?
Silver Brick game is 9/28, will contact the LT boys soccer coach to get involved early.
September 28th will be the Fire Family Game. There will again be a tailgate and we will have the picnic are with tables but families should bring chairs also. A flyer will be put in the coaches’ boxes to be distributed to the players. This year we may not have any kids on the field.
4. Assistant RC Report: ARC could not be here but would like to discuss combining nets and goals and striping into one bigger better department. Thoughts?
5. Treasurer’s Report: Treasurer could not be here. John confirmed there is a positive balance in the account and all bills are current.
6. Registrar Report: Colleen gave the report. There are still some kids on the waitlist. We will try to place as many kids as we can. If your teams are already built you do not have to place any more players. Colleen passed around the waitlist to the DC’s present to confirm who had kids still waiting.
For some reason the boy or girl option is being chosen wrong when registering.
99 new players still need to supply birth certificates. Colleen will email the families.
Refunds will be done automatically through the new system. New AYSO refund policy. Before July 1, full refund, Between July 1 and August 1, ½ refund, after August 1, no refund. After August 1, teams have been built and uniforms ordered.
Current total we have 2,423 players. Last year we had 2600 at the end of the season. We had picked up 100 over the summer.
We have lost more players than ever to the club teams. RC had a meeting the Celtics. They are trying to cooperate and coexist with us. They have asked their players for a much higher commitment to play with them. They have not explicitly asked their players to not play in other leagues but it is understood. Celtics did offer to ask their parents to be referees in our league. Don’t think they will have any takers but they are attempting to reach out. Additionally, they asked if they should give their players a discount if they played in AYSO, Bill declined saying that we only want them if they WANT to play AYSO. Club players can be more trouble to a team as they are sometimes less committed.
7. Coach Administrator Report: Coach training will be August 10 at Spring Rock Park, the make up date is August 17 at Westmont Yard. Again, doing the “live” training as opposed to the online training is a much better program and take away.
Coach Certification courses are required for U5, U6, U7, U8, and U10 coaches and can be done online. Would make sense to do the level above where you are coaching, if coaching U5 do U6 training.
Assistant coaches don’t do much training. We do need to make sure they complete Safe Haven. Don’t know if people are having trouble with eAYSO and that’s why they aren’t doing Safe Haven training?
Drew will try to schedule during the week training, will let the DCs know.
In the new database, question about who gets the emails the Coach Administrator sends out, all coach volunteers, all coaches with a child preference, do you wait until a coach is assigned?
RC note: In Leagues has an email manager, you can pick who to send emails to and the system will send an email to every email address that that person entered when they registered. Just another good reason to use In Leagues.
Drew notes that far more people are backing out of coaching this year, stating they are too busy. RC has asked for a list of those backing out so they can volunteer for another position.
8. Referee Administrators Report: Referee Appreciation Night will be Wednesday, August 14 at Irish Times in the cottage from 6:30-9:30. All are welcome.
Referee certification will be the primary focus. The goal is to have all refs certified. One of this year’s incentives to do so are male and female jerseys. If a ref has a blue or pink jersey, they are certified, yellow is not.
Safe Haven training, the other main focus.
Ordering $9,000.00 worth of equipment including uniforms
Referee training as follows:
8/17 is section-level training at Westmont Yards, not run by us.
August 25 at Spring Rock Park, Tim will paint a proper field to review with the refs and they can pick up equipment. Training is run by us for U7+ full certification with the National test
August 27 U5 & U6 training. Those coaches will be offered to do certification training but it is not required.
Tim asked if there was anyway for the database to distinguish if a ref was fall only? RC will look into.
RC Note: we are the one of the only large region does a Fall/ Spring combo season. (The only inLeague user.) The others do a separate registration for Fall and Spring. This is why the system does not handle more clearly.
We are very low on referees. U8 and below need 1 ref. U10 and above need 2 refs.
RC suggested emailing all parents and ask them to be referees.
Suggestion made that going forward, in order to have the coach, assistant coach and player on the same team, need to have a referee as well.
Make sure parents know they will be trained (and get a whistle). Dave will forward to those who want it a very successful email he used to get volunteers.
9. Division Coordinator Reports:
U5g: 18 teams with 7/8 players
U5b: 20 teams with 6/7 players
U6g: 24 teams
U6b 28 teams
U7g: 18 teams with 10/11 players. Have enough coaches and plenty of assistant coaches. Short of refs. Beth needs confirmation of teams with 11 players so can order more uniforms.
U7b: 22 teams. 17 teams with 10 players and 5 teams with 11. Teams will be done tomorrow. Will need to order more uniforms. Let Beth now asap what to order.
U8 g: 18 teams. 11 teams have 10 players, 7 teams have 9 players. Need 3 refs, need to work on the parents.
U8b: down 50 players from last year. We are at 174 players which is a huge drop off. Still need head coaches. Can’t build teams until have all the coaches.
U10g: 22 teams. Everything is good, almost done with the teams. Good on the number of uniforms
U10b: 22 teams of 14-16 players. Have coaches, short refs. All teams have one ref but division is short 7 head refs and 14 assistant refs. Suggestion made to let people know refereeing is a once a week commitment, not twice like coaching is. Potential spring problems with number of kids.
U12g: down 30 from last year. 8 teams of 13-14 players
U14c: 5 head coaches, 14 assistant coaches, 13 refs
Team building is hard and auto builder doesn’t work properly when the coaches don’t submit player ratings. System doesn’t know what to do with the unrated. If you would like to know the previous year rating for a player, email Drew and he will let you know.
We need to get the schedules started but need teams built first. Please let Bill know when you are done team building.
The new system allows the DC to print all rosters, a medical release form for each player and a statement of health. Do we leave that responsibility with the DCs to print or pass on to the coaches? Will decide at future date.
Fall Org Day is August 24. DCs are encouraged to be there. It will be free play day at the same time. Drew will email the coaches this weekend as a reminder.
Discussion about when the coaches will get their rosters. Complaints made they need more time to decide when and where to practice. How are we doing practice reservations?
Rosters are not to be released until the RC gives the go ahead. We will shoot for the 16th or 17th. All rosters are to be released at the same time.
If you are questioned about practice scheduling, the response should be” what did your team tell you”
Practices will start after Org Day. Can be sooner, up to the coach.
10. Changes to field size/goal size: Tabled until after meeting.
11. Uniforms: August 16 & 17, 3:00 to 6:00 at the shed. Beth will pull the uniforms and count them. Please have the teams done by then.
Extra uniforms will be given to the DC’s to police. Only AYSO registered players can play in a game even if short players on any given week.
12. Fields: If you see any safety issues on a field, let the park district trustees know about it. They will get it fixed.
All fields are properly reserved. Rocktoberfest will be an issue as always.
Overuse of Spring Rock Park is being investigated by Western Springs.
Should practice assignments be limited to on the hour or ½ hour? No 15 or 45?
Kevin is ready to stripe the fields. Just needs to know what size where. RC will get Kevin the help he needs.
13. Org Day/Shoe Exchange: We have a volunteer to organize the shoe exchange. This our first year. If it goes well, we can grow it into something bigger and better—more shoes.
14. Photo Day/Pass Back: uniform recycling will be on Picture Day. We will get a flyer to be put in the coaches boxes.
15. Miscellaneous Business: U5 Jamboree, David, Jen, Drew and Bill need a separate meeting to decide if it will be done.
A jamboree is an event that has 1 master coach who goes over a skill with all of the players and then they split into their teams to practice the skill and play games.
9:50 Bill Reilly requested a motion to adjourn meeting, motion seconded. Meeting adjourned.