Tri County General Meeting Minutes November 30th 2017
Call to Order:
Stacey Esposito, John Pilon, Jeremy Rowley, Adam Driscoll, Jason Horn, Kate Gross
Jason- Scott Haines has raised several questions on scheduling, and budgeting, and we need to address these questions and concerns.
John- Bylaws have not been followed properly, and we need to start following the bylaws properly to a “T”
Kate would like to make sure any documents are not included in the board meeting minutes email distribution unless, its been finalized and approved. Adam said Scott’s budget was included in the meeting minutes because he requested it to be included as estimated numbers for on both issues.
Hours not being listed was a concern because of the confusion from last years scheduling, it was decided but not voted on that they be removed because this year the protocol was 3 hours per week for house teams and four hours per travel team. However, its tough to make up for ice time if a weekend game/practice is not used. Jason said its really tough to make up for those missed times, for the most part. Adam said there’s ways, and if John could sit down with Scott Haines and Brian Dickinson to look at options and come up with other opportunities it should be do able. Jeremy said Fridays have not been used in the past, and maybe should be considered.
Jason presented a sheet with ice touches, meaning not full or half ice but numbers of time on the ice and that midgets have the least touches. Adam said that’s understandable, but that it can be figured out.
Ice time has not been evenly distributed and we need to look at alternate options to fix the distribution. Balance is the focus.
Jeremy- Last year same thing was ice scheduling, and this year same thing is happening. He is frustrated and so are his families. He’s been looking at other rinks as one option, and reached out to Brian Dickinson as well to see what other ice times might be available.
John-Clinics caused a problem, and there were mistakes made in November. November was not a good month but the rest of the months should be fine.
Kate- Walked everyone through an annual budget with annual budgeted expenses and income. Its not final and needs adjustments but from what she can tell, we will have a deficit of roughly $1500. We have roughly $19k in a savings account and we need to build up our reserves to be 25% of annual expense, roughly $42k. She suggested we start a reserves account to build up this so we have this in place.We can’t afford a scheduler, or extras. Ours hours billed are also not working financially, we are running a deficit. It was agreed we don’t want to cut ice down but realign and adjust to make it better balanced and not be so heavy for some in March. Kate said she would prefer not to have to pay a scheduler, to try reach out to the parents and see if we can find a volunteer. There are board positions currently that are very demanding and not necessarily fair to pay a scheduler. Adam said he’s been with the league for 15 years and its never worked out with a scheduler, but understand Kate’s point. But this opportunity to have an independent scheduler could hopefully put to rest the many complaints directed at John due to conflicts of interest and the imbalance.
We all agree to listen and vote on Lisa Cameleri (independent scheduler), on Dec 18th. She will be coming to talk with the board.
Several items budgeted could be removed to save roughly $2000-3000 just by Kate walking us through the list.
Jeremy made a motion to vote on the pictures for Color graphics, Stacey seconded it. Everyone voted yes to get pictures vendor approved.
Jeremy makes a motion for hours used on to be put on schedule, as stated on the bylaws . Will show current for the month and total for the year. Adam seconded it, everyone voted yes
Goal is to reduce the high usage team hours listed per Johns new spreadsheet while maintaining the 3 hours and 4 hours per week to have as equal balance.
Jason and John were looking at the schedule and had several ideas on how to improve the imbalance.
John will meet with Brian Dickinson and Scott Haines for review of schedule for remaining of December and remaining year.
10:20 Meeting was adjourned. Kate said she would like to have another meeting as there are additional items she would like to review with the board.
Added notes January 2nd, 2018—
John’s Thoughts:
1. Use what Friday nights are still available to us, to limit the amount of late night Bantam practices that we have
2. Try to cut back 10 to 15 hours of ice through the rest of the year to maintain our budget. December did have cut backs in it from the original plan.
3. To utilize more half ice and tri-ice to limit the hours
4. To try to make sure that all mite teams have the same usage by the end of the year, and that both squirt house teams have the same usage.
5. To list on the calendar the amount used that month/total used. This happened with December and will be on all the rest of the revised schedules which I plan to be able to release on Monday.
6. To maintain the 3 or 4 day practice schedule that was planned for house and travel while still reducing the higher usage teams.
7. That we know we didn’t vote on or include this practice plan in the minutes, but at the time it was discussed that was how we were running things. This 3 or 4 day plan fits more in to what we tell people when they are asking about the time commitment involved.
8. If we are going to go back to the hour system then the hours need to be changed to reflect what the league is actually changed to since these hours first came out – many years ago. This would include that mite games are now half ice instead of full and that bantam and midgets have been forced to add more games to their schedule.
9. To have a meeting with you and Brian about ice time availability that might still be available this year, and plans for next year that would meet our needs as well as the colleges. Brian did email about some extra openings in January that weren’t available when we received our ice blocks. This meeting would have to wait till after the holidays for me to be able to schedule since my work schedule doesn’t give me the time right now to do so during normal business hours.