OKEMOS ATHLETIC BOOSTERS MEETING – Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Present: Julie Staky, Tom Keenoy, Lisa Plascencia, Karen Cohn, Lou Nigg, Karen Fraser, Vicki Mead, Betsy Meschke, Steve Karlzen, Ira Childress

Call to Order: 7:10pm

Approval of Minutes –

Minutes from the April 2016 meeting were reviewed and approved as is.

Athletic Director’s Report –

Spring sports are pretty much done and we are into the post-season.

OHS is hosting the first round of regionals for Boys Lacrosse - dates TBD.

We are also hosting Girls Lacrosse regionals next week. The first game is May 26th.

Last week was a really big week for Okemos Athletics! We won CAAC titles in Boys and Girls Lacrosse, Girls Soccer, Girls Tennis, and Boys and Girls Track. We also won a District title in Girls Water Polo. Softball and baseball are still in season.

OHS will be hosting the Michigan Volleyball Coaches Clinic next fall. Over 100 coaches from all over will be attending. The day after the clinic we will be hosting the MSU/UM volleyball match at the high school.

Okemos will also be hosting a High School Football Satellite Clinic on June 16th, from 6-9pm. It is open to all, not just Okemos students. OHS coaches plus many mid-Michigan area college coaches will be running the clinic.

Ira received a request from Pat Saucedo (swimming coach) recently, stating that they are in need of a piece of timing equipment. There is a certain type they need, with touchpad. OHS has 2 sets, but they are 10 and 18 years old. Ira will direct Pat to complete the OAB Supplemental Funding Request Form so that the Boosters can properly evaluate the request.

Treasurer’s Report –

Lou presented an updated balance sheet. Not too much has changed at this point in the year. We currently have $54K in the bank.

The year-to-year comparison shows that concessions income is down 9%, but we also reduced our expenses 8.8% so close there.

Of the $22K we pledged to pay for uniforms this year, $18,800 has been paid out so far, so potentially another $2K or so due there when requested.

Current payout to teams for concessions sharing is $9918.

President’s Report -

Sports Physicals - OAB is looking to do two sessions this year so it won’t be so busy for the doctors. Looking to do one closer to the end of the school year, and one a week or so before fall tryouts. Julie will call Jeff Kovan and get some dates set up. When we send the info out, we will also include the form so it can be filled out in advance.

Fall Event - Julie Staky, Karen Cohn, and Kim Williams met with Tom Keenoy and Andy from Playmakers to discuss our Fun Run idea for fall. We want to keep it really simple to start with so that we have low costs. The goal is to start small, with a focus on making it a community event and not a huge fundraiser. No sponsorships (so no conflict with winter event fundraising), and a nominal fee to enter (maybe $10 for run and breakfast, $5 just breakfast).

There is already a 5K route on school property, using the High School and Hartwick Park, and a kids fun run could be added on the track. The positives are that this is an athletic event, family-oriented, and also involving the community. The plan is for it to be more for fun, and not super competitive - no runner numbers or posted times, but there would be a running clock at the finish so people would know how they did. We are targeting the Saturday morning of Homecoming Weekend, on 9/24. We could have fun things going on at the mile markers (i.e. drum line) and possibly incorporate the Homecoming floats somehow (run through them at the finish?). Discussion took place about passing a certain number of tickets out to the athletes to sell ahead, and how else to promote sales.

New Business -

Options for handling concessions -

The current 2-year plan of a payback system worked to an extent, but we are still having a lot of the same problems/concerns. Tom Keenoy presented an idea to partner with Rainbow Homes (housing and services for adults with cognitive disabilities) to supply concessions workers. Rainbow Homes would provide a staff member and residents, and we would provide NHS students to work with them. Pros - it’s a cool thing to partner with them / Cons - do we want to leave it completely in their hands. A suggestion was made to possibly share the load, so RH would do some and OHS would do some (we would especially target Varsity Football and Basketball for ourselves, as they are the busiest). It’s typically easier to get volunteers in the fall and for those bigger games. For the ones that OAB handles, we could assign dates to teams as we used to.

Another idea would be to just contract the concessions out completely. After discussion, it was determined that this was not a popular idea.

Tom asked Vicki (Volunteer Coordinator for Spring Concessions) to gather some info re: how many concessions dates, how many total people needed, and approximately what hours. Then he can discuss with the Rainbow Homes group (they work with Peckham). He will let us know what he finds out.

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, June 14th.

Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm.