Cyclones Amateur Hockey Association Board of Directors Meeting Minutes April 15, 2013 Fox Valley Ice Area ~ Geneva, IL Mark Plantery called the meeting to order at 7:34 PM DIRECTORS PRESENT Mark Plantery* David Struwing* Bill Luecker Dan Fragen Bill Spence Maria Frano* Tom Baginski* Joseph D Amico* Dan Deli Pat Tierney* DIRECTORS ABSENT ASSOCIATES PRESENT John Price Vito DiPietra Julie Gebhardt Bob Gatto Ted Kauss ASSOCIATES ABSENT Gene McEnery STAFF PRESENT Jay Rule Peter Rutili Russ Verrier Misti Fragen STAFF ABSENT Mike Papa Christie Tierney Quorum Established by Maria Frano. Minutes and Approval: March 11, 2013 Board Meeting Minutes Approved, Dan Deli motioned, Dan Fragen 2 nd, motion carried (4-0). * - Directors up for re-election, unable to vote until elections held. Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 1
OPEN SESSION ITEMS President s Comments: Tryouts went fairly well, well-staffed and run, especially from new members perspective. They were very impressed with our process. Pete did a good job. Doug met with Tim last Wednesday and more info will be forthcoming in Closed Session. Public Forum: ABM Candidates made presentations. Candidates: Marty Allamian, Jay Rule, Doug Cuscaden, Rich Sharp and Joe Lorusso. League Reports: NIHL: CSDHL: NWHL: SWSL: All 6U players will only be allowed to play cross-ice/half-ice, no exceptions. 6U teams will not be allowed to travel outside the state. 8U players will not be able to play any full-ice games until after November 15th. All games prior to this date will be cross-ice/half-ice. AHAI and the various associations/leagues will continue to host cross-ice jamborees throughout the full-ice playing season with a minimum of two each year. 8U will play a geographical based schedule, with no more than 20% of their games outside their geography, excluding out of state tournaments. There will continue to be no State Tournament for 8U age group. 8U teams will only be allowed one out of state tournament each season. No 8U will be allowed to play up at 10U level, no exceptions. All Associations must conform to the ADM practice program and will be monitored by AHAI and Association Boards. Applications were due today for all levels. There s no interested in a U15 level so that will not go through. CS is looking for playoff sites No April Meeting. Scheduling complete. Trying to make sure all teams have parity. Bantam 2 is pink (hybrid Red/White level). May 30-June 2 are playoffs. Re-tiering prior to playoffs. There will be groups of 4 teams and play 3 games and championship, if applicable. We will be hosting Bantam playoffs. Big parity issues at the lower ages. Hockey Director Report: Tryouts went well. There were 4 cuts at Midget, those kids cut were asked to skate with teams at their practices. 2 cuts at squirts and 5 cuts at mites who went right into our travel prep program. Dryland program for spring with Anthony Monte and Rittenburg, need to discuss as a board. Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 2
Fall tryouts: Possible pre-tryout meetings. PW and up meet with kids and parents regarding what coaches are looking for. Combine for portion of tryouts skill-set drills for review for other portion. Spring tournaments are going to be MyHockey April 26 th -28 th and Rockford May 31 st -June 2 nd and June 7 th 9 th. Friday Night Skills is going well but we need quality assistant coaches on the ice to help out. Possible compensation for assistant coaches, to be discussed during Closed Session. Travel Prep program, would like to compensate co-head coach, to be discussed during Closed Session. Monday nights in the fall will change to specialty skills sessions. Fall coaching line-up could be ready as early as May meeting. Summer programming: Small group skills Coaches camps Conditioning Day Camps? Treasurer s Report: Revenue: $1,366,898 Expenses: $1,194,466 Net: $172,432 Last Year: $118,476 Balance: $420,253 $130,000 - $150,000 more ice from last year. Need to update QuickBooks software (2 licenses). Moved to Closed Session for vote. Manager Coordinator Report: Asked managers for thoughts on how to improve managerial role and process. It was suggested that there be mentors, of sorts, for the new managers to turn to at their own level for those easy, everyday questions. This has been implemented in the spring. Also, we have done away with paper manager guides, Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 3
everything is done electronically now. Finally, we revamped the Manager s Resources page to make it only accessible to the managers and will try to use it as a weekly update tool in the fall. We will need to prepare surveys for spring coaches and managers. Registrar: Ice Scheduler: Volunteer Coordinator: Tryouts went well, lots of help. We need to figure out how we can get more people to step up. Committee Updates: Marketing: Still working on brochure. Preliminary design is complete. Should have it by the next meeting. Progression model will be included. Promo video for the rink, do we want to do something like it? Commercial-type promo Player Development: Meeting this spring. Nominating: Apparel: Spring Jersey Update Cyclones apparel committee has placed three orders with HockeyTron for spring jerseys. The first two orders were filled in a timely and accurate manner. The third order is still pending. CAC has had to swap several jerseys for spring players due to estimated sizing errors. CAC requested that the Cyclones Registrar write down and report back to CAC with the tryout jersey sizes warn by players during the spring registration. CAC received only hand written copies of the check-in sheets, with some players not having a jersey size recorded. These sheets were received AFTER the first and second orders needed to be placed. Had CAC received an electronic copy of the jersey sizes we would not have had to swap as many jerseys, nor would we of had to place the third order. CAC has swapped 25 jerseys and there are many other parents that are dealing with snug jerseys because we just don t have enough larger sizes to swap them out. We are currently brainstorming for next year to avoid a repeat of this situation. New Rebook Game Socks for Fall 2013 B&R has provided CAC with sample socks from rebook. These are the new spandex quality socks. The bulk price for these socks will be no more than $17 a pair. We would like to recommend to that the club change to this style of sock. When making a recommendation of this size, some of the membership might not be willing to buy new socks as they have just purchased socks this past year. This will create an issue where our players on the ice could be wearing two different types of socks. We would therefor ask that Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 4
the price of the two new pairs of socks be included in the registration cost so that all players receive new socks in the Fall season. Standardize Cyclones Game Uniform With the club growing in size we ve seen an increase in different color options for equipment warn by players. CAC would like to recommend that we move to a standardized game uniform. Items we would like to see standardized include pants, helmets & gloves. CAC will work with B&R, they will be able to provide to us or stock several recommended items. Pant shells - Bauer can provide us with custom colored & embroidered pant shells to wear over any hockey pants. Cost for this item will be between $30 and $40 depending on the exact selections CAC makes. Players would only have to wear these shells for the games. Helmets We would like to see all players wear Navy Blue or Black helmets. No specific helmet manufacture is needed; rather the focus is on the colors. Gloves B&R will stock Cyclone colored gloves in a few styles, Navy or black gloves would also be acceptable. Again, no specific glove manufacture is needed; rather the focus is on the limited colors. While we understand that putting the burden on parents to buy new equipment all at once would be taxing, CAC would propose that by the Fall season of 2014, all players be in accordance with these equipment rule/colors. We also feel that these rules should not apply to spring seasons, as we may have a huge influx of new players. Website: Team pages are up. Manager resources page has been switched to a private page. Strategic Planning: Meeting in a week. Fundraising: Alumni: Letter to go on website to outline committee. List of players will go out. John Price to interview alums and put on website. First interview will be Sydney Peters next Monday. Discussion/Open Items: Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 5
CLOSED SESSION ITEMS Discussion/Action Items: Doug met with Tim downtown to go over our current and future ice contract. Doug was given an invoice for the locker room repairs. Director Elections: Mark Plantery (4-0) Pat Tierney (2-3) Maria Frano (5-0) Tom Baginski (6-0) Joseph D Amico (6-1) Dave Struwing (8-0) Bob Gatto (7-2) ABM Elections: Jay Rule (7-3) Marty Allamian (8-2) Rich Sharp (8-2) Joe Lorusso (6-4) Doug Cuscaden (10-0) Tryouts: Per Bill Luecker, we need to re-evaluate how we conduct tryouts. Perhaps a combined skills/scrimmage tryout. Rate kids on their skills. Best player/best team. Need feedback from membership on tryout procedure. Explore more options for tryouts. Closed Committee Reports: Finance: Dan Deli motion, Bill Spence 2 nd motion to purchase 2 updates of QuickBooks, not to exceed $500, motion carries (10-0) Question regarding compensation of ice scheduler and registrar. 100% of what? It was determined that ice scheduler receive 100% of the fee he paid, $575 and registrar receive 100% of the full spring fee, $675, since she did not have a child playing in the spring. Strategic Planning: Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 6
Bylaws: Need to look at changing Bylaws to having directors up for election or reelection give brief presentations on what they will do or have done. Rules & Ethics: Separation of Rules & Ethics from board. Mark is good where we currently stand with R&E reporting and being under the board, not separate. Email was received by HD and President from VP-Business Operations regarding his daughter s placement on the 4 th squirt team. In the letter he threatened to not post the teams on the website, which he is the administrator of, until he received a response from HD regarding why/how his daughter was placed on the 4 th team. HD responded to VP s email and told him to hold off on the listing of teams until he looked into the situation. HD later told VP that his daughter was going to be placed on the 3 rd team. The email was forwarded by President to the rest of the EC for interpretation. Each individual EC member independently stated that he/she felt the email was a veiled threat and VP was holding the club hostage until he received the response he wanted. President and Secretary sat down with VP shortly after the email was sent to discuss the same and give VP the opportunity to explain himself. NB: This email and his displeasure with his daughter s placement on the 4 th team is the source of his recommendations to revamp the tryout procedure hereinabove. Per VP, to date, he still hasn t been given an answer as to why his daughter was initially placed on the 4 th team. He feels there are at least 15 players that were erroneously scored higher than her and the only reason those kids made higher teams was because those children had played prior seasons with certain head coaches. President and R&E Chair felt that, at minimum, a letter of censure and probation should be handed down to VP. Further discussion was had amongst the board. Dave Struwing motioned to bring VP up on charges of misconduct and violation of his duties as a Director and EC member, Joseph D Amico 2 nd. Maria to send notice, per the Bylaws, to VP of the pending tenure vote, to be held at the next monthly meeting of CAHA Board. Bill Spence to take over as interim website administrator. Ted Kauss volunteered to help with the website. Treasurer: Old Business: Dan Fragen motioned to approve Pete s request for additional money, made in open session report, not to exceed $1,000, for skills assistants and U6 travel prep co-coach, Bill Spence 2 nd, motion carried (9-0). Bill Spence motioned to approve an additional $500 for apparel to replenish its t-shirt making and bling supplies, Tom Baginski 2 nd, motion carried (9-0). Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 7
Anthony Monte has requested that the Cyclones pass out, put on the website and email out to its membership the off-ice/dryland spring program that he and Rittenburg will be offering under the High Voltage name. It was discussed and determined that for us to do so would be an unwanted conflict with GetFast and we cannot do so under our current contract with the rink. Mark to let Anthony know that he is free to pass out information in the lobby to our membership but we will not endorse the program and ask him to take our logo and any reference to CAHA off the flyer. New Business: Dan Deli motioned to adjourn, Dave Struwing 2 nd. Meeting Adjourned at 11:21 PM Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 8
Cyclones Action Items NOTE: The first name listed in the "Responsible" column is the person responsible for coordinating any small group efforts necessary to accomplish the task. # Action Item Description Responsible Open Date Date Due Closed Date Status 33 Assistant Coach Compensation /Pete 11/12/12 12/10/12 OPEN Comments 35 Non-compete Agreements in contracts Maria 1/14/13 Fall, 2013 OPEN 36 Grant Program Mark/Gene 1/14/13 2/11/13 OPEN 38 Progression Example in Display Case 39 Drugs Presentation Mandatory for Bantams and Midgets? 40 Support our Troops incorporation into Winterfest Julie/Pete 2/11/13 3/11/13 OPEN John 2/11/13 OPEN Maria 3/11/13 12/1/13 OPEN 41 Volunteerism research Bill L. 3/11/13 4/15/13 OPEN Board of Directors Minutes 4/15/2013 - Page 9