Call to Order Welcome Additions to Agenda Adoption of Agenda Adoption of last meetings minutes Treasurer s Report (Ernie) Other Reports: Abbotsford Angels Hardball Association Executive Meeting Agenda June 13, 2016 8:00pm @ Birchwood Dairy meeting room VP1 (Steve) Director #1 (Colin) Director #3 (Brian) VP2 (Todd) Director #2 (Richard) Director #4 (Rob) Old Business: Information distribution throughout association Director reports to be to Sherri minimum 2 days following meeting Minutes to be completed within one week of meeting Posted on website and distributed to other Executive members within 2 weeks New Business: Summer Ball Fee Structure PeeWee A second team Baseball BC/Ad Hoc committee update Adjournment Abbotsford Angels Hardball Association Executive Meeting June 13, 2016 8:00pm @ Birchwood Dairy meeting room Call to order: 8:10 In Attendance: Mike Pratt, Steve Coleman, Dan Dick, Dawn Krahn, Ernie Wiens, Todd Boulanger, Colin Sexton, Rob Rabinovitch and Sherri Draayers
Additions to Agenda: Second PeeWee A summer team and BC Summer games Adoption of Agenda: Ernie & 2 nd Steve, all in favour Adoption of last meetings minutes: Brian & 2 nd Ernie, all in favour Treasurers Report: AAHA Treasurer s Report June 2016 Our current cash balance shows $28,211.35 as of June 10 th. Expenses that are still yet to be paid include: Umpires for June $ 4,000 budget from last year Field Costs for June allowance $ 4,000 Equipment Allowance $ 1000 due to new field usage Mosquito tournament costs $ - to be reimbursed Bantam AAA (coaching expense) $ 3000 July to December Storage $ 600 July to December Insurance (equipment) $ 1500 Projected cash balance remaining after expenses $ 14,111.35 Summer ball is expected to bring in roughly $27,675.00 with current projections as listed below. Summer ball fees are due in by the end of June and will assist in taking care of the rest of the year s budgeted liabilities. Mini-mosquito Mosquito PeeWee A PeeWee AA $200 ($2400) PeeWee AAA $225 ($2700) Bantam A $250 ($9250) $200 ($2400) $100 ($1200) ($2400) (two teams) $200 ($7200) $190 ($6840) (3 teams) $225 ($8100) $190 ($4560) (2 teams) Bantam AA & AAA $225 ($5625) Midget $240 ($3600) ($750) (tourney team, jerseys only) The numbers in black represent last year s fees and totals. The numbers in red represent proposed fees for 2016. Revenues are based on 12 kids per team. Bantam has 37 players over three teams as AAA is carrying 13. For Midget I assumed 15 players. Total Revenue would be $29,350. ($27,675) Gaming Grant:The application was due and submitted May 31, 2016. We submitted the grant application requesting a grant of $40,000. We should know if we will be receiving grant funding by September.
Summer Tournaments Fees: We have submitted tournament fees for various summer tournaments. The fees will be reimbursed when summer teams are formed. There are some items that have remained on the asset portion of our balance sheet for a number of years that are out of date and should be updated. In order to do this we would need to contact an accountant and request their assistance in writing these items off. Estimated cost $200-300. Treasurer s report moved: Todd and 2 nd Steve, all in favour. PeeWee A: Mike Pratt has stepped forward to coach our 2 nd team. We had 27 kids come to tryouts and we have decided to make two teams. Motion for second PeeWee A team to play in league play. Ernie and Todd 2 nd, all in favour. 2017 summer season Mike would like to try a possible 3 man umpiring system for the AAA teams. Our mosquito umpires this year are very good. 1 st VP Report- Steve Coleman Tournaments Tournaments are mostly booked for our summer teams. o I will begin working on a spreadsheet to better facilitate this process for Summer 2017 o Spreadsheet to include all tournaments Abbotsford typically enters at each level plus a listing of nearby hotels for each of these cities. This is to make the job of Tournament Director easier regardless of their previous involvement with AAHA. Abbotsford s 11U CanAm Midsummer Classic is moving ahead nicely. o We have 8 x AAA plus 8 x AAA Tier2 teams registered o A cleanup party took place at Lions on June 4 th to get it ready and we have another major work party planned for June 26 th to get the fields tournament ready. o We are receiving a Sports Hosting Grant of $1000 to be invested into this tournament. This grant comes from Tourism Abbotsford in exchange for giving them exposure with our Social Media presence and for helping to fill Abbotsford hotels with visiting teams. Coaches Handbooks I am in the early stages of putting together a Coaches Handbook for the T- Ball, Tadpole, and Mosquito Divisions. These handbooks will be in digital format so Division Commissioners can simply email them to all new coaches before the season begins. I will collaborate with the
current Division Commissioners to make sure these are short, simple, and contain all required information. I will also put together a handbook for Summer Coaches with a To Do list as we tend to get a fair number of inexperienced coaches trying to learn on the fly. This will be prepared for 2017. The handbooks will contain tips on creating a culture of maintaining fields and recruiting volunteers for the younger divisions in particular. VP 2: Todd Boulanger I will be holding an initiation coaching clinic on June 25, 2016. Please let your coaches know. It will be held at ARC 6-10pm. There will also be an initiation in April 2017 and we will make a day where there are no games so that parents that want to coach can come. Thinking about hiring some guys to help facilitate at all the coaching levels. Director 1: Colin Sexton 1. See attached T- Ball Division report from Commissioner Derek Giesbrecht 2. See attached Tadpole Division report from Commissioner Terry Skipper 3. Mosquito Division Report: Mosquito Division Regular Season came to a conclusion. Feedback from players, parents and coaches was very positive. All games were played, with very few rainouts and all of those were made up. Mixed reaction to each team playing 3 double headers, some loved it; some (mostly a few coaches) hated it. Kudos to Mike Pratt and the Umpires. The atmosphere at games has been markedly improved this year, and a lot of credit for that goes to Mike and his new initiatives. The umpiring has been better this year, on the whole. Still uneven, as you would expect from young umpires just starting. But far more importantly, the atmosphere of cooperation between umpires and coaches has been excellent, and I believe that this has spilled over into the atmosphere in the stands amongst parents and other supporters. Playoff format generated a lot of debate amongst coaches about what playoffs are for, how to make them fair, their relationship to regular season, etc. Playoff format was designed to keep as many players as possible playing and interested in baseball through the month of June. While regular season should have some impact on how the playoffs are set up, everyone should have a chance to win the Championship. Summer Baseball tryouts for 11UAAA, 11UAAA Tier 2 and 10U A have gone well. Each team has had good support from neutral, impartial (non-parent) evaluators. All three teams will conclude tryouts after the Spring Season is completed on the 19 th Work party prior to the playoffs helped to clean up Lions Park huge thanks to the 20 or so parents and players who were there helping. This was a good start but much work is still needed. We now have a plan in place for addressing some of the concerns. There is another big day
coming up, and further work will take place to get fields ready for tournament. Big thanks to Steve Coleman for spearheading the Lions Park improvements. Mid-Summer Classic 11U Tournament has had a big response so far, 16 teams registered (with most paid!). Lots of work to do to get ready for this, potential summer ball families on Tier 1 and Tier 2 AAA have been informed that this is an expectation. Tadpole Report- Spring 2016 The spring season has fast past us by! We are entering playoffs and the teams all look ready! Our coaches have done a fantastic job getting the players ready for the next level and I hope to recruit many of them to coach along the way. Last weekend we held the annual skills days. Between the 2 divisions we saw well over 300 players/family attend and the players had a blast. The overall team standings were only separated by 1 point. The skill levels across the divisions were very even, to the point where we needed to go to 100 th of a second to place the teams in the standings The turnout for Mini Mosquito tryouts was incredible with 34 players competing! We have now concluded the tryout process but now may have to scale down from 2 teams to 1 as many families could not commit to the schedule. Having said that, I am communication with several families who are on the fence to qualify their overall concerns and hope to have their players back in the mix. I intend on getting together with Steve Schotts this week to work out the details and present the rosters to Colin. The association has enlisted Jeff Taylor as the inaugural head coach for the 8U summer ball team! His love of the game, coaching skills and passion to teach kids is boundless. I am excited to see Jeff thrive in the coaching environment for years to come. We held the tryouts this past weekend and had 18 players vying for 12 spots. I am very encouraged to see the skill levels of these players at such a young age and Jeff is very excited to be coaching a very strong summer team!! I will continue to be a resource for him throughout this process and support him anyway I can! My overall experience being the Tadpole commissioner this year has been very rewarding while learning the magic of balancing many families Terry Skipper Tadpole Commissioner Director 2: Richard Rabinovitch Regarding Pee Wee: Rob will provide the update at the meeting. (Done earlier in meeting
Regarding Bantam: We are merging between AAHA and Mission for a Bantam A summer team that will be led by a Mission coach and assisted by 2 AAHA coaches. Tryouts started on Sunday June 12th. Bantam AAA is almost finished with their regular league games and will begin preparing for the multitude of qualifiers and provincials to come in July. They currently sit in first place in league standings. Bantam AA is in the midst of their "summer" schedule which has made the switch to 9 man ball and have a busy June on the books. They also have multiple tournaments to prep for. They are currently sitting at 9th place (out of 14) in the standings and are hoping to make a run to qualify for provincials. Both AA and AAA teams have been out to volunteer with the Challenger program and we hope to continue that tradition in the coming seasons, note to future coaches and team managers! 9 AAHA Bantam AAA players have been selected to represent the Fraser Valley Zone in the BC Summer Games July 21-24th Regarding Midget: We were unfortunately unable to secure enough commitment to support a full time summer-ball team. However, there is commitment from the coaches and enough players to go in two to three tournaments. They are already signed up for a local one and VOC. They feel they can make due with the jerseys they have so there is no need for other jerseys at this time. One of our teams is playing in the Tier 1 playoffs and one is in the Tier 2 but close to the top. Both teams doing well towards the end of the year and looking strong going into playoffs. The playoff jerseys paid for (by AAHA) have been picked up and 3/4 of the associations have already paid their share back and I am getting on the ones that haven't. Regarding Challenger: There were 23 registered players this season. Tim continues to receive emails from interested players asking questions about the program. Tim's had 2 other players come by to watch and see what its about for next season, so the number look like they will continue to climb. There is only 1 game remaining on June 18th which is the wrap-up BBQ, prizes and awards day. Tim advised that the volunteers have been awesome. Whenever he was short he sent out a post and managed to fill up all the spots. Guest teams this year were: * Bantam AA (multiple) and the families, coaches, players stepped in whenever asked. They brought a coffee corner for the parents too. *Bantam AAA *Jr. Cardinals Some of our Challenger players will be going to the night at the Nat for BC Challenger... $11 tickets. Tim has done amazing work with the program and it continues to grow in all aspects. Tim's biggest concern for next season is a field to accommodate 4 teams with accessible washrooms, easy parking and skinned in field. Ridgeview as/was great but they max out the parking lot and there is only one diamond. He was thinking Ellwood but it may conflict with tournaments. Tim is aware that there has been discussion about
Clearbrook Park, but having no washrooms and properly accessible washrooms is an issue. He also advised that he does not need big diamonds just t-ball size. Tim wanted me to pass along that VMRIBBON donated all of the medals for Challenger (24), because they said they do a fair bit of work for AAHA and they wanted to give something to Challenger. Tim would like us to post something and encourage the divisions to use VMRIBBON and other local Abbotsford companies that care about the community of Abbotsford and kids Next Year Tim would like to promote the McDonald's Challenger Celebrity Golf Classic more with our Exec/Assoc. He is hoping we can get a couple foursomes out there to represent. It raises a lot of money for Challenger baseball every year and distributes to the teams in BC. We received $1058 for Abbotsford Challenger this year. http://challengergolf.ca/ Director 3: Brian Krahn AAHA Fields Report June 13/2016 - summer ball teams will be responsible to get their own fields ready for the summer season. - We may be needing to purchase more lime for summer ball. - Steve Coleman is heading up a big clean up at Lions Park including painting ( paint supplied by city) back boards, dugouts and putting in new boards on the outfield fence as well as re graveling behind 3 rd base and behind back stop. ( city is looking into providing lumber for back fence ) we need to provide gravel and trucking and rollers and brushes. - I have 5 new signs to hang as well as the city has requested we drill large holes in all the signs at Mc Millan and Little Delair. - City has been contacted to repair back stop fence at Crossly Park. Uniform Report June 2016 Overall impression with new executive structure: I would find it very helpful to be at more meetings. I am requesting that minutes be emailed to all executive members, and preferably within a week of the meeting. Better communication to those not at the meeting is needed. Uniforms: Spring went well. We will tweak the timeline for ordering next year and also address having some backstock. Summer uniforms are almost all in hand. We had a couple of extra teams added this year, so those shirts should be ready end of this week. 1 day later to order and we would likely have not been able to get them in on time for the start of the season. I have attached the email that I sent to the summer coaches. I feel that for new coaches, they need more information from us as an association. I also wanted all coaches to know about the
$1000 cash deposit for uniforms, so they can account for it. This will only apply to teams using the black jerseys that need to be returned. Some teams will use drifit this year: o U8 o Mini Mosquito (both teams) o Additional teams (ie: Peewee A Tier 2??) Teams that use drifit will name/number their shirts at their own expense If the wording of the attached uniform agreement can be approved, I will have everything I need to hand out uniforms in the next week. Uniform Deposit Agreement AAHA rep teams that are issued uniforms and or equipment will provide AAHA a cheque in the amount of $1000. The team acknowledges that they will receive this money back, immediately, upon the following conditions: return of all uniform items applicable (pinstriped vest, pinstriped pants, black button up jersey) for each unreturned uniform the amount of $75 will be deducted from the repayment cheque for each unreturned item of equipment, the equipment coordinator will determine the amount deducted the coach agrees that they will wear the provided uniform(s) exclusively on the playing field o no 2 nd hat o no additional jersey o no numbers on practice shirt Teams are free to purchase additional items such as practice attire (shirt, shorts, etc), other outerwear (jackets, hoodies, etc) at the expense of the players.
Spring Payment Cheque # Signed: Team - Head Coach Summer Re- payment Cheque # Signed: Team - Head Coach Signed: AAHA Representative Date: Signed: AAHA Representative Date: Motion made to approve uniform deposit form with adding that summer teams must submit a report to Ernie (treasurer) and put up and take down summer fencing. Steve and 2 nd Brian, all in favour. Letter to Summer Coaches re: uniforms Coaches.. I believe you are the summer coaches for summer teams this year! If it s not too late, can you please ask for the players shirt size during tryouts? (If parents aren t sure what size, please ask them to use their spring jersey as a guide, I know how to adjust from that). That way, as soon as you know the team (even if it s prior to announcing), you can send me the sizes you will need and I can begin the process of trying to put each kid into a jersey that will fit (hopefully)! I will also need sizes for all coaches. Also, just so you are aware, the following is provided by the association: For Mosquito A, AAA T2, AAA, Peewee A, AA, AAA, Bantam A Black Jersey (same as last year) to be returned to the association Hat Fitted hat Black with Red Bill Belt - Black Socks - Black Provided by player/coach: White pants no piping on the side. Either long pants or shorties, coaches can decide For U8, Mini Mosquito, and any additional teams Drifit Jersey in RED or BLACK (Logo only) teams responsible to name/number Hat Fitted hat Black with Red Bill Provided by player/coach: White pants no piping on the side. Either long pants or shorties, coaches can decide
Coaches can decide PER TEAM what other items they may wish to purchase (player swag is always a fun part of summer ball!). As uniform coordinator, I do not provide this service, there is usually a parent on the team that is more than happy to take this on. Swag is NOT to be used as an alternate jersey or hat. The association is a team just as each player on your team is, so all the teams in the association wear their issued uniforms which creates a sense of team and unity across the divisions! VERY IMPORTANT the association had a $1000 cash deposit last year for jersey s (teams with drifit only are exempt). We are currently working on the wording of the agreement, but this policy was implemented to ensure we receive all jerseys back at the end of summer. We had 100% compliance last summer, for the first time in many years! As soon as all jerseys are returned, a cheque will be issued to your team. Director 4: Rob Taylor We have a total of 30 Single A teams for summer ball in the province. There will be an East and a West division. So, we will one single A team in the East division and one in the West. We have to declare teams by Wednesday. Fundraising: Dawn Krahn We have signs being put up and the money going towards specific teams. The money for the signs should be for the whole association. We will be putting a policy into place for this issue. Old Business: Covered on agenda. Outstanding Items: Fundraising policy: Still be worked on. Committee of Dan, Colin and Dawn. Policy for any team roster announcements: Will get a policy written out for team roster announcements and tryout procedures. New Business: Summer Games: BC Summer Games are looking for help with score keeping/fields etc and will give some money to the association. We can run 50/50 and any fundraising during the games at Mcmillan. A 2 nd team has been named but we are just looking for a coach. Summer ball fees: Add 8U at $50.00 Motion to approve Summer ball fees as outlined in the agenda: Todd and 2 nd Steve. All in favour
Baseball BC update: Proposed executive structure was put forward and now Baseball BC has to decide what they want to do. Next meeting is end of August. AAHA Coaches summer meeting: Will be June 22, Berry park 8pm. Meeting adjourned: 10:05pm