Yankee
Board Meeting Minutes
Wednesday,
September 4, 2002
Board
Attendees: Judy Katalina, Joshua Wachs,
Joe Loyall, Debbie Finnigan, Ray Labbe,
Art Palmer, Ann Riedl
Other
Attendees: Dave Castanon, Tom Farmer, Lora Loyall
The
meeting started at 7:12 PM
Secretary
Report (Joe)
·
We reviewed the minutes from the last minutes and noted two minor
changes. The minutes were accepted with these changes.
·
Dan had to go to
Registrar
Report (Judy)
·
We discussed putting a box on the application to allow people to opt
out of the paper newsletter. It is going to be a lot more work to track those
people as members but remove them from the mailing list. This is not going to
be worth it if only a few people do it. We discussed how this would satisfy
notifying the membership about things that the Yankee Volleyball Association
By-Laws require (such as notice of the annual meeting). We agreed that it would, if we e-mailed the
newsletter to those members that opt out, which would require even more
administration, maintaining two distribution lists and having someone in charge
of e-mailing the newsletter upon publication. We did an informal poll of the
attendees to see who would opt out if the option existed and two attendees
indicated that they would. No one chose to make a motion.
·
Art asked whether a stack of membership forms could be available at the
draft for TDs that run early tournaments. Judy
indicated that the form is on the website. Art will print a bunch to bring to
the draft.
TD
Report (Debbie)
·
The Fall draft is next Tuesday, September 10.
Art, Judy, Debbie, and Ann will be there. Debbie will take notes for Joe, who
will be out of town.
Referee
Report
None.
Referee
Recruitment Update (Ann)
·
Ann would like to continue to offer incentives the incentives for new
referees. Judy and Dave need to get straight who is
paying for the shirts for new referees. Steve needs to provide enough clinics,
even if there aren’t going to be but 4 people there, because Yankee will cover
the cost. Steve is hesitant to offer clinicians for clinics in November,
because he says the clinicians won’t commit. Art wants to run one in RI. He’s
going to contact Steve to try to get a clinician. Western Mass and NH would
also like to have clinics. Ann has gotten e-mail from people in these areas
expressing interest. Ann has a clinician available for Western Mass, but needs
a place to have it.
·
All of the ratings letters went out. Two were returned. She posted them
to the BAVP.
Newsletter
(Tom)
·
The newsletter is set except for schedule. He is ready to drop the
schedule in and send it out when it is done. It is currently 24 pages. He will
have a slip in page for the registration form.
·
Tom had trouble getting Nationals photos from Judy’s webpage. But got a
bunch from some other people.
Web
editor report (Judy for Tom Sweeney)
·
Tom has received lots of e-mails asking for the new schedule.
·
The hits on our summer tournament page was
down about 40% this year. Generally
we've seen about 5K hits, this year only 3K. I think a good chunk of that
is due to the fact that many tournaments now have their own sites, so people
are going directly there instead of using ours for directions and the like.
·
Work has started on the on-line referee tests again. They were
very well received last year by the regions that used them, and this year most
if not all of the regions will be using them and paying us for their use.
This year, for the first time, National and Junior National referees will be
able to take the test on-line too.
·
We're also working on the on-line scorekeeping test, but with less
success due to the format of the test which is not at all web friendly.
·
The web page has been up and running without any problems. The
page is up to date except for some link requests from other new volleyball
related sites.
·
Tom Farmer asked where he can we get National’s results that are not on the Nationals site, such as Coed. Tom Farmer is
going to contact Tom Sweeney to see if he has them.
NERVA
Report (Judy/Dave)
·
Rulebooks are in. Dave brought a bunch to the meeting.
·
Insurance is going up.
·
NERVA is still debating whether to break off from the national
organization. The biggest impact is that we would have to run our own
championships (i.e., in place of Nationals).
Judy
thinks we have 3 choices:
Judy
thinks we shouldn’t have championships at all.
It’s just for bragging rights and people don’t remember. Ray thinks
championship tournaments are more memorable.
Judy
would prefer not to run championships, but Tom Sweeney has volunteered to do
so. However, it’s important for him to receive a stipend.
Dave
asked whether there was a lot more work with 2002 championships over 2001
championships. Judy responded that there was. In previous years, it was a
couple of weekends of work and then not a lot of work during championships. In
2002, the work started before the first qualifier and then there was a lot of
work steadily through the qualifying and championship seasons. The biggest
problem was having to take checks for two full months.
The administration was too much.
Dave
presented a fourth option: Go back to the system of 2001, but with drafting of
qualifier tournaments. This option eliminates two problems: that of forming
championship teams too early and that of not being able to run tournaments
during qualifiers.
We
discussed the pros and cons of this option. All checks for championships would
have to be in by March 1, so that would eliminate much of the administration of
2002, but qualifiers would be drafted allowing additional tournaments to be
drafted throughout the qualifier and championship seasons.
The
key is to try to keep what is good from the systems of the last two years and
get rid of what wasn’t good. Good: Extra tournaments in the spring. Bad: Taking
checks over a long period of time.
We
decided to address the fundamental parts of the options and decide on the most
important parts.
Motion
(Art/Ann): We
do have championships.
(5
for, 1 opposed, 1 abstain)
Motion
carries.
Motion
(Art/Ray):
Championships happen over 2 consecutive weekends.
Discussion:
Art’s reason for liking 2 weeks is a reduction in administration. He believes
that any system that spans over a long period will limit playing time. Dave and
Judy believe that the administration burden would be greater with the 2
weekends, because you have to guarantee a spot for any team that shows up.
There’s a large possibility of having an odd number (for pools) of teams and of
having enough teams that championships would have to be run in multiple sites.
(1
for, 5 opposed, 1 abstain)
Motion
fails.
Dave
asks whether it is necessary to have a March 1 cutoff for all levels or can we
have different deadlines for different levels, i.e., only those that we know
will have several qualifiers? Art would like to have an April 1 date.
Motion
(Judy/Joshua): No qualifiers will begin before March 1.
(7
for, 0 against, 0 abstain).
Motion
carries.
Judy
will look at things off-line with Tom Sweeney to work out a skeleton, team
numbers, dates, etc. and come back with some recommendations.
Fall
Tournament Draft
Art
will send a note to YankeeTDs and to the BAVP to
remind about the draft next week. The
draft will be held in a classroom at Lincoln Sudbury. Debbie and Judy will look at the skeleton for
the draft before the draft on Tuesday.
Dave’s
concern is that our team definition is very loose. Our conversion between B
teams and National’s B are redone every year, as we see what other regions do.
So, it is misleading to say a BB team is a bunch of BB players, because it’s
not every year. Separating the teams and player ratings is a good thing because
the player ratings will stay the same, even while the team levels change.
Motion
(Joshua/Judy): We keep the individual player rating levels and the team rating levels
as they are now.
(6
for, 1 against, 0 abstain)
Motion
carries.
Motion
(Joshua): Make
the player ratings match the tournament ratings one year from now.
No
second.
Motion
(Art/Judy): Accept
the 2002 Yankee Rules & Policies as the 2003 Yankee Rules & Policies.
(7
for, 0 against, 0 abstain)
Motion
carries.
Debbie
would like to revive the scramble tournaments and provide T-shirts with numbers.
Don
and Judy will supply gym space. The TD would run the tournament, but the Grass
Roots committee would put together teams and collect money. Art has some
questions, e.g., will Yankee guarantee that scrambles fill?
Ray
liked the clinics before. Ann indicated that they are time intensive and they
will have to find clinicians.
Dave
asked when were they looking to run these tournaments.
Ann replied that they would like to run them early. They want to run one in
September, because they have to join Yankee. They would bump past Yankee
members in favor of newbies.
Judy
will donate prizes. She has a lot left from last year. Yankee will compensate
if the gym doesn’t fill.
We
discussed whether referees will and should donate their time and whether the
scrambles could be used to allow new referees to practice. But if that were the
case, then we would have to wait until November to run them.
Debbie
will put together a proposal. She will ask Don, Judy, and Art about gym costs.
We could start the tournament at 11 and have a mini clinic from 9-11.
Dave
mentioned that if we run these as leagues (in the eyes of the USAV) then it
would reduce the costs, because it would only cost $6 per person for the USAV
membership. If people want to join Yankee full time by the end of the day, then
they just pay $26 more and become full members.
We
decided to post a note to the BAVP to ask people about providing designing and
providing T-shirts. Maybe have a design contest.
We
discussed advertising the scrambles to reach new members. We are looking at
BSSC, colleges, and YMCAs.
We
discussed how to draft scrambles. People that want scrambles
will get the first pick and we will have no more than two in this skeleton.
Rick
Pierce nominating committee:
Pauline
Jurasinski
Daryl
Bullock
Tom
Sweeney
Ann
Riedl
Patty
Desmaisons
Next
meeting will be November 4, site TBD.
Meeting
adjourned 9:15