Winchester Youth Hockey Parents Association, Inc. Meeting of the Board November 16, 2015

Transcription

1 Winchester Youth Hockey Parents Association, Inc. Meeting of the Board November 16, 2015 Attendees: Dennis Nigro, Chris Parker, Dana Garmey, Brendan Monahan, Joe Vozzella, Greg Winn, Dave Challant, Denis O Donnell, Rob Mara, Brad Cutting, Kieran Brosnan, Steve Mix, Scott Ettenhofer, VJ Ladd, Chris Nixon and Mike Pimentel President Dennis Nigro opened the meeting at 7:02PM. By a poll of the 11 WYH Board members present it was determined that a quorum existed to allow for the transaction of business. Meeting Minutes The Minutes from the September, 2015 and October, 2015 Meetings were reviewed. Dana Garmey made a motion to accept the minutes, which was seconded by Brendan Monahan. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion. Mass Hockey/D9 The Midget 2 and Girls U18 teams participated in the State Tournament this past weekend. The U18 team lost in the semi-finals to Charlestown in overtime. Bantam playdown seeding meetings have been completed. Head coaches have been notified that the seeding meeting for all State Tournament bound Squirt, PeeWee and Girls teams will be held on November 23, 2015 at the Waltham rink. The importance of having WYH Board presence at the sign-in desk and in the timekeeper booth at play down games hosted by WYH at Flynn Rink to deal with and communicate with D9 about any roster questions/concerns, coach certification questions, or to manage games that may require overtime. Boys/Open Travel & Valley League WYH s Valley League representative Peter Albert provided the following update via in absentia. U8 team update WYH requested a VL swap of schedules of the Mite 4 and Mite Girls teams for the weeks of Nov. 1st and 8th. Games for both teams were more competitive. I spoke with Aimee Burke (Girls U8) and Tony Vozzella (Mite 4) they thought it was a good idea to continue. The VL has swapped them so the Mite Girls team has been moved down a bracket and assumed the Mite 4 teams schedule through January 3 rd and vice versa. Contributing to the sometimes uncompetitive games thus far, the Girls U8 have had some attendance problems because of soccer conflicts, but the coach expects that attendance will be better after this past weekend. No other teams have been moved in their divisions after parity WYH is following the PW 4 team closely. They are the only team that is losing by more than a couple of goals on a regular basis.

2 WYH has forfeited 10 games and other teams have cancelled 7 games against our teams. Many cancellations were due to playdown games conflicts. There has been concern expressed and some cancellation of 6:00 AM games. After the information above was shared, discussion continued by the board members present regarding the Girls U8 and PeeWee 4 teams, and consensus was that appropriate action has been taken and WYH will continue to monitor goal differential and number of WYH forfeited games of all WYH teams. Girls Only & MYCGL VJ Ladd indicated that there were no issues or concerns to report. Conduct Committee Chris Parker Conduct Committee Chair, has been working with Dennis Nigro to review a potential issue regarding a coach s identification of which players can appropriately be called up due to injury/conflicts. Dennis and Chris plan to discuss the issue with the coach to determine if any further action is necessary. Friends of Flynn Update Denis O Donnell of the Friends of Flynn (FoF) Board provided a detailed update on season number 6 of the FoF operating lease for the Flynn Rink that was extended by one year by the DCR this past spring. Currently there are 3 former WYH Presidents and 3 Melrose Youth Hockey representatives on the FoF Board who are not paid, but have each personally signed off on a line of credit that strengthened the financial position that allowed FoF to win the original 5-year operating lease, 6 seasons ago. Going forward Denis indicated that FoF is well positioned with City of Melrose mayoral support as well as the support of state representative Michael S. Day when it comes to the DCR initiating a bid process to award a subsequent operating lease (perhaps 5, 10, or more years) later this year. Denis indicated that while the DCR histoically ran the Flynn Rink at a loss in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (with some level of uncertainty about when the rink would open for the season), FoF has demonstrated to the DCR that they can improve the facility (e.g. provide new scoreboards, lights, benches outside the locker rooms, glass on the little rink and etc.) and at the same time run the rink slightly in the black. Denis indicated that FoF is interested in securing at least a 10 year operating lease, but since the rink is in need of a few million dollars of capital improvements (i.e. the type of coolant used has to be changed by 2020 per EPA regulations). Denis indicated that unfortunately FoF s well funded corporate competition would likely request a 20 year operating lease and possibly no capital improvements. Denis responded favorably to a WYH Board question that he previously received about whether or not FoF would be willing to sell on consignment for WYH in their skate shop excess inventory from that WYH purchased form its former on-line store operator. There was some discussion on WYH taking the step to do so, but WYH board is still considering raffling-off or giving the excess inventory away at events like town day or the adult social. Given the continued growth in WYH s number of teams, as evidenced by the purchase of additional practice ice time in Everett this season, Scott Ettenhofer inquired whether FoF would 2

3 consider selling additional little rink hours to WYH in future seasons. Denis formally noted the request and stated that he would have to bring this question back to the FoF board, but was optimistic that provided FoF wins a new operating lease that it may be possible for FoF to sell WYH more little rink ice time as long as FoF is able to give ample notice to the current groups who purchase little rink ice time. Ice Committee Dana Garmey reported that BBN and Belmont Hill rinks have opened and practices have started to be scheduled there. While we have lost some BBN hours we have gained some Belmont Hill ice time on Mondays. Chris Parker noted that with changes at BBN and Belmont Hill the addition of ice in Everett, the Ice Committee continues to make every effort to schedule around games and to allocate ice time so that all teams/programs share in the benefit/pain of the most/least desirable rinks and time slots. LTPH Brad Cutting reported that currently there are 75 LTPH players, with 20 players assigned to Bruins plus 5 teams of 11 players. Chris Parker reported that two families whose children met the criteria inquired about Sunday Night skills; they registered and were assigned to Sunday Night Skills. Greg Winn requested chest protectors for LTPH because all LTPH teams do not have access to them and the ones that we do have are old and often too big. While some discussion ensued about the necessity of having them after some discussion Dennis Nigro directed that VJ Ladd and Scott Ettenhofer review our inventory and purchase small-sized chest protectors as needed for LTPH, U8 and Mites. Introduction to Hockey Steve Mix reported that 35 players are registered for the Introduction to Hockey program. The first session of Intro was held on Saturday November 14 th. Rob Mara reported that he and Mike Burns have 5-6 parents who have volunteered to help run the sessions. Chris Parker committed to provide Mike Burns with the Santa suit and mini hockey sticks to give to the kids at as session close to Christmas time. ACE Coordinator Update Brendan Monahan and Dennis Nigro reported that they were tracking coach certification and would send out a reminder to all coaches who have yet to fully complete certification. The would also remind coaches that they must bring an approved hard copy of their USA Hockey roster to playdown games for sign-in purposes. Brendan Monahan reported that he and Dennis Nigro are committed to expeditiously addressing coach/parental concerns over Mite rosters sizes (currently 40 Mite players in total) with the upcoming full ice games and tournaments. If additional Mite travel players cannot be identified from the ranks of LTPH, or elsewhere and WYH chooses to consolidate from four Mite teams to three Mite teams (13, 13 and 14 players), the Valley League and District 9 will have to be notified in addition to the parents early in December before holiday tournaments and full ice games start in the Valley League. Dennis stated that despite WYH seeking to avoid the disruption of team dynamics and car pools etc. by consolidating teams, WYH may not have a choice but to 3

4 consolidate to three teams unless addition players interested in participating in Mite travel hockey can be identified quickly. In order to avoid a similar problem with Mite team sizes next season, where the parents of some players who attended Mite placements (and were placed on a Mite travel team) requested to revert back to LTPH, Dennis indicated that it will be made clear at registration time that any Miteage players who attend placements, will be told that they do not have the option of reverting to LTPH unless there is an extreme hardship or extenuating circumstance approved by the President and ACE Coordinator. Treasurer s Report Scott Ettenhofer gave the treasurers report indicating a checking account balance of $199, and $339, in CD's. Scott continued by stating that the accounts are ebbing and flowing up and down with ice bills, tournament, league bills were being paid and collections were progressing with 70 families remaining to make the September payment. Scott indicated that 15 LTPH families have yet to make the September payment as well. VJ Ladd moved to accept the treasurer s report and Steve Mix seconded the motion. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion. Long Range Planning Committee Steve Mix reported that the LRPC has had a couple informal discussions among individual members of the committee but has yet to be able to schedule a formal call of the entire committee. Dennis Nigro commented that he reviewed the 2011 Member Satisfaction Survey and suggested the LRPC update the survey so that we can send it out and re-assess the current level of satisfaction 5 years later. Online Store Scott Ettenhofer read through an update provided by Peter Albert in absentia regarding the Online Store. The On-Line Store (powered by Sports, Etc.) went "Live" in October. It can be accessed from our website in the same way as in the past. You just Click on "Shop" from the menu bar of our website (as one did it the past) After seeing how much space the photographer took at Flynn on picture night Sports etc. chose to make themselves available for a Sunday night Skills session on Nov 1st. Representatives of Sports etc. lead by Paul Stanton showed up with a bunch of apparel and stayed for 2 hours. Several members had placed on-line orders before the representatives left, so the visibility at Flynn seemed to be successful. Peter Albert received an from Denyse (Spankywear) that read " It has been a pleasure working with Winchester Youth Hockey. If things don't work out in the future I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Club again. Thank you for your support. Denyse. WYH collected (and paid for) all remaining WYH apparel and inventory from Denyse Miller of Spankywear and we are inventorying it and deciding how best to sell, raffle or give the 4

5 items away to the membership. As noted above in the FoF Update one option is to sell it at the skate shop inside Flynn Rink. Since the inventory collected from Spankywear is comprised of scattered items of various sizes and worth approximately $1,200 Steve Mix suggested that, the items be distributed at the discretion of the president. Noting that if WYH s current vendors are not working our for apparel, Dave Challant made a suggestion that WYH consider reaching out to the vocational trade school graphics department for a possible source to have apparel created for WYH. This suggestion was duly noted. Equipment The new contemporary designed sweatshirts that Tim Driscoll provided a sample of in August will be unavailable until late January since the manufacturer received an unexpected and urgent order for sweatshirts for NHL s Winter Classic game between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens. Tim had reported that he would like to get a sense for the sizing of the sweatshirts so that coaches can query their teams so that the sweatshirts can be ordered and received by late January. Dennis Nitro commented that this item must be resolved by the December meeting, an a decision must be made whether or not a more traditional design and other vendor might be used. New Business Chris Nixon offered that the Winchester School Committee would be willing to support the construction by WYH of an outdoor rink on a playing field as was done two years ago. Unfortunately despite Chris Nixon and some WYH members offers to help, the consensus of members of the board (many of whom were actively involved constructing and maintaining the rink the last time), that the amount of work and logistics to obtain approval and insurance coverage would be too challenging to commit to for this coming winter. An adult social is being considered and will be discussed during the December meeting, possibly at a new location in Winchester such as the The Waterfield Kitchen. Adjournment Steve Mix moved to adjourn the meeting. Scott Ettenhofer seconded the motion. The Board voted to adjourn at 8:35PM. Next meeting date: December 21, 2015 at 7;00PM at upstairs room at The Waterfield Kitchen 5