Directors Minutes (Archive) Minutes for the October 2010 Board Meeting
| Minutes for the October 2010 Board Meeting |
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| Tuesday, 09 November 2010 22:42 |
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Sonoma Valley Youth Soccer Association Minutes for the October Board Meeting 7:00pm, October 1, 2010 At Common Bond, 172 West Napa Street, Sonoma
Directors Present: Lynn Abaté-Johnson, Adolfo Contreras, Jean-François Ducarroz, Vikki Griggs-Demmin, Camerino Hawing, Sam Honey, Colleen Paul, Edwin Richards, Dino Rossini, Marc Sloop, Deidre Verdu, Greg Volker, Jim Van Sickle, Phylis Wakefield Also Present: Rudy Bryson, Renee Caruso, Scott Miller, Teri Miller, Jennifer Rochlin,
Public Comment: There was a question about vendors – do we have jurisdiction to allow them to attend League games or not? We do not. Vendors wishing to attend at an SVYSA Tournament need permission from the tournament director (Scott Miller). Apologies: Jaime Evina-Galindo
Mission Moment A player who had been late to join Greg’s team was taken off the team by the player’s father because the latter thought the team was losing too often. The father did not inform the child. Subsequently, following a discussion with the father, the player’s mother asked that the player be allowed to re-join the team. Greg granted the request and the player is enjoying his soccer with the team.
Approval of Minutes The minutes for the September meeting were approved following a minor amendment. Motion: To approve the minutes for the Vikki SVYSA September Board Meeting. Proposed by Vikki, seconded by Phylis; carried without dissent.
Action Items Edwin read the action item list from the last meeting and updated their status as follows: Action Items Arising From 09.01.10 (reference 090110- )
Action Items Arising From 08.04.10 (reference 080410- ) 080410-7 Sam to ask Bruce Weaver about the legitimacy of a winery offering a promotion in which for every wine sold, $1.50 is donated to the SVYSA . To do.
President’s Remarks Sam congratulated Scott on his fine organization of the recent Honey Tournament. Scott received a round of applause from an appreciative board. Sam reported that he had received the CYSA Certificate of Affiliation which he gave to Adolfo (Fields and Insurance Coordinator). Sam also thanked everybody for their hard work.
Vice-President’s Remarks Tom and Vikki’s teams held a car wash. Tom had been given a box of soccer equipment with Chevy logos on it. Action Item: Greg to talk to Tom about this equipment. The High School Boys are doing well, with the Varsity team 7 and 0 in league play, the best start ever by a Varsity team. The Junior Varsity team is undefeated. Most players on both teams have come up through SVYSA.
Treasurer/ Bookkeeper’s Remarks See later.
Secretary’s Remarks Edwin apologized to Renee for not having listed the Registrar’s Report on the agenda. Edwin asked board members how many of them knew already that they weren’t going to run for re-election. Seven board members indicated they were of that mind.
Action Item Edwin to send out an email alerting people that there would be vacancies to fill and encouraging people who might be interested in being a board member to attend a board meeting if they wanted.
Registrar’s Report 1309 players are registered. $127,720 has been taken in payments. Sam asked Renee how AGCs formed teams this year, since he had been queried. Renee replied that some AGCs used random (computer-generated) assignment, but others individually assigned every player. Renee said she had broken some of these non-randomly assigned teams as they seemed very divided along the basis of school attendance. Deidre remarked that this year too many requests for transfers had been honored: people called and complained about their child’s assignment and “we” switched them. It was too easy for parents to ask for movements. Transportation was often used as an excuse, even though carpooling was often a simple matter. There was a general feeling that policy needed to be followed. The general policy had been to use random assignment and to encourage diverse teams, reflecting all components of the community in which we lived, but this seemed to have been given less importance than accommodating complainers, in some instances. It was noted that at higher age groups a number of coaches had recruited players, which might affect the mix of a team in terms of skill level and ethnicity. Colleen said that in Marin, players were evaluated and carried a rating. It was pointed out that the SVYSA used to have coaches rank players on a five point scale, but there were problems with this: not all coaches did the evaluations, and the evaluations weren’t standardized – a player ranked “3” by one coach, might be ranked “5” by another. Some felt having a Rec coordinator would have been helpful, a single person to deal with all transfer requests.
Treasurer’s/ Bookkeeper’s Report Jennifer handed out August’s balance sheet for review. She announced that she was changing her “soccer day” from Thursday to Tuesday.
Action Item Teri to notifiy select coaches re day change. Greg said he had three years of old SVYSA documents in his garage, mainly receipts and asked Jennifer what he should do with them. Jennifer said the standard conservative recommendation for retention of documents was 13 years. Edwin asked Jennifer how much she would charge to continue being bookkeeper (after her current contract was up).
Action Item Jennifer to consider her rate to remain as SVYSA bookkeeper.
Minutes Phylis said she had consulted with Cam regarding appropriate minute-taking procedure. The conclusion was that there wasn’t a set procedure to follow, but that minutes should be consistent. Phylis said that she thought the minute-taking had been inconsistent. Edwin said that he usually named people if they said something like “I’d just like to say” or if it seemed like they wanted their comment to be noted. Lynn pointed out people could refer to Robert’s Rules of Order if they wished. She also said that when she felt corrections needed to be made, she contacted the secretary and he had been willing to make changes (Note: which he subsequently indicated to board members via email). Dino stated that if somebody wanted something changed, they should let people know. Marc said that it was important to name someone when they said something, but this could be changed to “a board member said this.” Obviously statements “on the record” could be recorded as such.
Field Marshal Phylis had drafted and circulated a document for field marshals. She had tried recruiting marshals for the Honey Tournament, but the process had been rushed. Many people listed as volunteers either didn't call back or there was difficulty because of the language barriers. It was agreed to enlist the aid of bi-lingual board members next time to overcome the language issue. It was noted there was a long list of volunteers with volunteer hours to fill, but getting hold of them wasn’t easy. It had been suggested that board members be the field marshals (exclusively), but many board members were already committed as coaches and managers and/ or had other time constraints. The proposed four hour shifts were felt to be too long by some. Speaking on the record, Lynn repeated a suggestion she had made before, that the SVYSA consider getting a paid club director, someone to be a point person. It was recognized this would require serious fundraising. Rudy thought the SVYSA was doing well, and declared no other city played all its games on one field as the SVYSA did at the High School complex. Because of the perceived difficulty of recruiting marshals, it was resolved that the marshal document be used as an emergency reference. It could be laminated and placed strategically, e.g. in the equipment shed, at the referee’s table. Camerino would translate it Board members were encouraged to don marshal vests when at the High School Complex and game days and do a quick tour Edwin wondered if some people didn’t know about the marshaling opportunities and offered to send a general email.
Action Items Edwin and Phylis to coordinate a general email, inviting people to be field marshals. J-F to set up the email address Fieldmarshal@Sonomasoccer.org Phylis to laminate sheets and give them to Greg for appropriate distribution.
Tournaments Scott reported that the Honey Tournament, held the 25 and 26 September, involving 30 teams, ended up with $2,700 profit. Organizing the tournament had involved a lot of work. (Scott estimated he had spent 200 hours on phone.) To save resources Scott had given out seven programs per team with the team packages and told people to ask for more if they wanted them. About 6 teams had requested more, most hadn’t. He had ended up with perhaps 20 left over. (Phylis and Teri had put the program together). He had also bought T-shirts for $8.90 each to sell and there were more SVYSA hats available for sale. Scott felt more volunteers were needed and that more should be done for rec teams. He will apply for 38 teams next year. He noted that some Sonoma teams expected to be in the tournament even without applying. Scott had not permitted this. There was one injury at the tournament. An incident report will be filed. Regarding a question about allowing non-SVYSA teams to participate in the traditionally SVYSA-team only Valley Cup, Scott said he had talked to Ken Stelling of CYSA about allowing other (outside) teams to participate. He learned he can charge up to $150 per team, the event wouldn’t be CYSA sanctioned and would have to be called a “jamboree,” rather than a tournament. Additionally he wouldn’t be able to give trophies to indicate who had won. While he won’t be inviting outside teams next year, he might consider it in the future, since it would allow Sonoma teams the opportunity to play different opponents.
Programs Halloween and Souvenir Brochures are due to go to print soon. Phylis requested that everybody on the board get one advertisement.
Action Item Phylis to write something on advertising for the website.
Silver Knights Sam received letter from the parent of a U12B team, the Silver Knights. The team had lost their coach early in the season. A young coach led them in practices, but his work prevented him from attending games. The absence of a coach had been demoralizing for the team, which had suffered many defeats. Having learned of the problem, other coaches had helped out this week and a plan was afoot to find a coach who could be present on Saturdays. Three Varsity players had also offered assistance. The parent also reported that on October 2, the Knights had had their game moved from the High School field to Adele with 15 minutes notice. The U12G select team had been scheduled to play on Adele, but Alison, the referee scheduler, had asked for the switch and Greg had granted permission. The Adele field had a six foot circle “coned off” with safety cones, because of damage caused by a tractor getting stuck. The incident raised at least two issues. Firstly, most board members felt that all teams should be treated equally and that if a field was unfit for D3 play, it was unfit for D4 play (this is in keeping with CYSA philosophy also, that all teams be treated equally). The Silver Knights and their opponents had been mistreated. Greg acknowledged to the board he had made a mistake in allowing the switch to take place. Secondly, the cones were potentially dangerous and the referee should have removed them. On learning of the situation, Rudy had replaced the pointed cones with flat cones for the following game.
Action Items Sam will respond to the parent’s email. Greg will speak to the parent in person and apologize to the Silver Knights.
Fields In September the fields had started to turn brown, so the amount of water applied to them had been doubled. Unfortunately, the sprinklers are programmed by an outsider (who? someone from the sprinkler company?). This means neither SVYSA nor SVUSD staff are able to adjust the program. In addition, one of the SVUSD groundsmen appears not to be doing his job. An indication of this was that three sprinklers were watering the same part of the south penalty area of High School East, and the north penalty area of High School West, resulting in very muddy areas. Action Item Greg to find out when the sprinkler system will be re-programmed. Greg reported that Scott Anderson had offered to aerate High School East for free. He was also interested in getting it rolled. It was acknowledged that Scott had contributed many more hours than he had been paid for and suggested he be thanked in the Souvenir Program. It was noted that Justin Frese, Deputy Superintendent of the SVUSD, had expressed frustration at only learning about field problems late. He had made his assistant’s phone number available in order that he be rapidly apprised of problems.
Referee Report Greg reported that the standard of refereeing was improving rapidly – Steve Larsen had been bringing in experienced referees to mentor our referees. There will be a refresher class at the end of the season, and perhaps a new referee’s class too. It was acknowledged that a small number of referees had not been doing a good job in keeping games safe. These referees had been put on probation. Rudy encouraged more to coaches to referee.
Action Item – 090110-8 Phylis had consulted Rick Hicks (attorney and former board member) regarding the codes of conduct. Essentially, Rick’s message had been that if we used written codes of conduct, we had to use them consistently and enforce them. Currently, only select teams had been issued codes of conduct. While all select coaches had returned theirs signed, player and parent codes were not uniformly treated. The plan had been to use select teams as a pilot program for the codes prior to adopting them league wide. It was suggested that player passes could be used to enforce signing of player and parent codes (no signed code, no pass). However, there was also the question of whether the SVYSA wanted to take on the task of administering and enforcing codes. It was decided to take no action on codes at present; their use could be reviewed later, for example at the end of the select season. Regarding the Stockton YSA code, it was fairly similar to the CYSA code, which some board members regarded as somewhat “boilerplate.” Neither code addressed alcohol use, although it was pointed out that there were laws on alcohol use. The meeting adjourned at 9.55 p.m.
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| Last Updated on Friday, 10 December 2010 15:14 |
