Welcome to sonomasoccer.org

7:00pm, May 6, 2009
At Common Bond. 172 West Napa Street, Sonoma

Directors Present (13): Lynn Abaté-Johnson, Karen Cline, Jean-François Ducarroz, Vikki Griggs-Demmin, Rick Hicks, Sam Honey, Teri Miller, Edwin Richards, Dino Rossini, Stacey Schoeningh, Deidre Verdu, Mike Verdu. Not present: Antonio Alvarez, Jim Van Sickle, Phylis Wakefield. Also Present:

Check Presentation and Donor Appreciation

Troy and Dawn Marmaduke of Ben & Jerry’s presented President Sam Honey with a check for $1070.75, proceeds from Free Cone Day, held on April 21, 2009. On Free Cone Day people are given free scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and invited to make a donation which goes to charity. Troy and Dawn had selected the SVYSA as one of the two non-profit beneficiaries of “Free Cone Day.” The SVYSA had provided volunteer scoopers. Troy singled out Sam’s scooping prowess for special mention. A good time was had by all, with 3,500 scoops of ice cream made.

Public Comment

None.

Apologies for Absence

Jim Van Sickle, Phylis Wakefield.

Mission Moment

The SVYSA had had a table at the Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the Plaza. Lynn had staffed the table with assistance from other volunteers, including players who needed scholarships. Lynn felt the League had a presence among people for whom soccer was an important part of life.

Another Mission Moment

Sam had attended a Presidents’ workshop. Core values had been reiterated.

It was stressed that the game was for all the kids and that each child was of equal importance.

Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve April 1 minutes proposed by Rick, seconded by Stacey. Carried with none opposed and one abstention (Karen, who had not attended the April meeting).

Minutes of April 5 Closed Meeting – Edwin pointed out that Antonio Alvarez needed to give his consent to the closed meeting having taken place. Edwin had emailed Antonio, but had not received any reply. Lynn remarked that Antonio had had a heart attack, but was now out and about.

President’s Remarks

Sam remarked that April had been a busy month. He thanked everybody, particularly Lynn for her work at the Cinco de Mayo event. He thanked those who helped with registration and thanked Stacey for bringing cookies to the Board Meeting that evening.

Vice-President’s Remarks, Including Bookkeeper Update

Vikki reported on the Greg Tatton case. Greg Tatton had posted bail and shown up for his arraignment, where he pled not guilty. A settlement conference, apparently standard procedure, was scheduled for May 13. Jake Vivien and Dave Thompson (Law Enforcement Officers) think there are other victims, but nobody has come forward.

Rick proposed that the board be able to go into “closed session” to discuss sensitive issues. Speakers would be entitled to a confidentiality confined to those present. This was to encourage openness and candor and enable discussion of sensitive personnel issues and legal issues. The bases are the attorney client and privacy privileges.

Seconded by Vikki Carried unanimously.

The meeting went briefly into closed session.

Bookkeeper Update

Vikki said she had been in touch with Leslie K. Vanoni who had expressed to Phyllis an interest in being the SVYSA bookkeeper. Leslie had written a letter and supplied a resume. She had expressed a willingness to work for free. Two other people had also expressed interest in the job. It was resolved that all candidates should be approached and interviewed by the Finance Committee, which would then report back to the board with recommendations.

Secretary’s Report and Hotline Update

Edwin had already commented on the situation with the April 5 meeting’s minutes. He noted that people were calling the hotline.

Risk Management

Vikki noted that Jeff of “We Print You” (the background check service used by the League) was a retired FBI officer with a specialty in pedophiles. She wondered if we could have him offer guidance on what sort of behavior we should look out for. Vicki thought that the Elk Grove League offered basic five or ten point guidelines on behavior that could indicate potential or actual deviants who posed a risk to children.

Deidre said she would speak to Jeff and report back via email.

Deidre again stated that she strongly recommended that any adult who was going to be heavily involved with a team be fingerprinted. We also needed to check the driving licenses of anybody who was going to be driving players. Any board member could check somebody’s driving license. The key point, beyond the obvious name and photo, was to check the expiration date. Self-checking was not acceptable.

Treasurer’s Report

Becky said she was writing checks and hoping somebody would take her job. The U11B debt was proving difficult to reconcile. The CPA had the information needed to file taxes.

Select Committee Report

Five teams are still holding tryouts. The Committee was working on a code of conduct.

Playing Up

Playing up, whereby a younger player plays in an older age group, was an annual issue and affected at least two teams for any given player (the team they played for and the one they didn’t play for). It was estimated that last year about 20 percent of players were playing up. It was agreed that the Select Committee should discuss the issue and generate philosophical and policy guidelines for the League.

Select Team Notification Process

Select team try-outs had recently finished for some teams and were ongoing for others. Coaches did not have a uniform process of notifying players whether or not they had been selected. Jean-François remarked that all the literature advised that the coach phone each player who had tried out to inform them of their selection or otherwise. Jean-François said when he had decided not to select a player, he telephoned immediately and spoke to the parent first and asked them if they wanted him to speak to the child as well. If Jean-François had selected the player, he informed the player, then the parent. However, some coaches just posted selection results on the website without speaking to the players or their parents.

Again, there was a need for a coherent policy that all coaches would be obliged to follow and the board asked the Select Committee to provide one.

General Code of Conduct

Lynn presented a general code of conduct which she had circulated online prior to the meeting and invited discussion. A copy of the code is attached to these minutes. Lynn asked for further input and refinements. The board responded positively to the code. Lynn wanted to put it in the SVYSA handbook, on cards, online and to translate it.

A motion to accept the code and have Lynn lead the strategy for dispersing it was proposed by Teri and seconded by J-F.

Referee Coordinator’s Report

The Referee refresher course had a good attendance. In addition 24 players were currently attending an 18 hour class for new referees.

Outreach

We needed more refs, Karen resolved to find out if it would be possible to hold a referee’s class in Spanish.

Registrar’s Report

Renee noted a total of 386 online and 476 non-online registrations had been received so far, making a total of 862 players to date.

Online registrations are collected by League One. To date they totaled $22,195.00. After League One fees and credit card fees were subtracted, the net total was $20,842.93. Three deposits had been made:

$6,890.89    3/16/09 to 3/29/09    (fee:  $439.11)

$7,100.67    3/30/09 to 4/12/09    (fee:  $454.33)

$6,851.37 4/13/09 to 4/26/09    (fee:  $458.63)

$20,842.93 net total deposits

Including online and manual registrations entered to date, income from registrations stood at $50,350.00. However, some deductions had to be made, including $685.00 in general donations and $1005.00 in scholarship donations. Net registration income stood at $45,875.

$50,350

-$685.00     (general donations)

-$1,005.00    (scholarship donations)

-$1,230.00    (undeposited checks)

-$1,555.00 (registered but unreceived checks)

$45,875.00 Net total registration income to date

There is a District Registration Meeting scheduled for May 16. Renee will attend. Sam may. Also, Renee is getting support on data entry from volunteers and announced she would like more people to help her by bringing laptops to her house and working there; supporting documentation for scholarships would be shredded/

Teri announced that 230 scholarships totaling $9240 had been awarded. For U6 and U8 age groups almost exactly the same number of scholarships had been given out as last year, among older age groups – less scholarships had been disbursed than previously.

Although walk-in registrations were over, Renee wondered whether an additional registration session might be appropriate. Lynn had spoken with a Director of La Luz during Cinco de Mayo. He had expressed willingness to encourage the Hispanic community to register. It would cost $40 to rent La Luz’s large room. Some additional scholarship money might be available. It was resolved to hold an additional walk-in registration session at La Luz on May 14 from 6 to 7 p.m.

Mike proposed the late fee be waived for registrations made before May 31. Lynn seconded and the motion was carried.

The scholarship process had worked out very well. Scholarship recipients and their parents are happy to be involved by doing volunteer hours and are also happy to get the scholarships. 924 volunteer hours had been pledged. Greg remarked he had already used 13 hours of volunteer time. Teri’s role in shaping and documenting the scholarship process had been central and she received a round of applause from those present in recognition of her efforts.

Coaching Coordinator Report

Mike announced that the NSCAA course is officially on for May 29-31 at Hanna Boys’ Center. 16 people had already registered, exceeding the minimum of 15. Housing for the coach instructing the course had been found (at no charge). The only outstanding requirement was that the field at Hanna would need to be lined.

Prior to holding an age-group coordinator (agc) meeting and a meeting for coaches, Mike and Renee are going to have a planning meeting to review what issues need to be covered at the meetings. While there will be one meeting for age group coordinators, Mike envisages having separate meetings for coaches based on age group divisions.

Greg Volker volunteered to 10B agc, filling the final agc vacancy.

Other reports

Youth Sporting Groups Meeting

There had been a plan to hold a “summit” for Sonoma youth sporting groups to discuss the possibilities of organizing. However since little action had been taken to identify who needed to be invited, it was decided to postpone the meeting. It was agreed that interested SVYSA parties should meet to strategize.

Equipment

Greg announced that the U10 goals had been well received. He stated that the U8 goals were unsafe and proposed purchase of two sets of U8 goals for a total of $4400. In addition he noted one of the U6 goals was broken. He proposed buying 2 x sets 6ft “pugs” for $600.

The motion to make the purchases was made by Deidre and seconded by Vikki. Carried unanimously.

Addtionally, Greg said he would like to make it a policy that coaches who took balls at the beginning of the season needed to sign them out and sign in when they returned them. It was accepted that some loss of inventory might occur, but it was felt important that coaches feel responsible for the balls in their charge.

Tom and Gaudencio did not want to use the power operated line marking machine which the League had purchased following a board vote (Rudy Bryson, at the time responsible for field lining, had strongly recommended that the machine be purchased, the board had followed his recommendation). A motion to sell the machine was carried unanimously.

Fundraising

4483 nickels ($224.15c) had been received by the League from Wholefoods’ “Nickel a Bag” donation program.

A Dine and Donate program could be held at Mary’s Pizza. The board agreed that the Mary’s in Boyes would be a better location that the Mary’s in the Plaza. Lynn would get a flyer out. .

The meeting adjourned at 9.30 p.m.