Nazareth Soccer Club Board of Directors Report September 12, 2018 Bushkill Township Municipal Building 1114 Bushkill Center Drive Nazareth, PA 18064 Call to Order: 7:35pm Adjournment: 9:26pm Board of Directors Present: Rob Guroff, Brian Ransom, Ginny Patton, George Kline, Jennie Riccardi, Jennifer Bennett, Karen Janis, Jason Bettencourt Board of Directors Absent: Marcos Pires, Melissa LaBar Appointed Positions Present: Bill Fibick Damian Beaman Paul Sklodowsky Todd Wismer Rob Laubach Others Present: Ronald Xela (RonaldCXela@gmail.com) Leon Amato (leonamato@ymail.com) NOTES Rob Guroff, President: Review Classic Game Reschedule Procedures LVU/Keystone partnership o Good to have more options for players o Little immediate impact on the Club No change to NSC current approach o Some strong NSC players may consider joining the new Club in Classic, and that would be similar to what has happened in the past Winter indoor at CrossFit Advanced / ENCO discussion o Plan A: Similar to last season ENCO still main lessee o Plan B: Crossfit charges ~$75 per hour Teams coordinate/pay on their own Adidas contract / Spring uniform orders
o George should take a look at the suggested changes Rob made o No need to be a marketing arm for Adidas Plaques for sponsors o Jennie working with Rob (see fundraising notes below) Classic team tournament support Fee waiver application 25th Anniversary planning Any way we can streamline clearances process? Site with a centralized form accepting PDF uploads? o Blue Sombrero has a function to manage this. Hopefully we can roll it out in Spring Classic Coaches meeting tomorrow (8/16) Micro Coaches meeting next week A HUGE thank you to everyone helping to get the Fall Season up and running Recruitment: o Some interest in LVYSL and Treasurer o Nothing on Micro Director Send reminder email to parents for sideline behavior Brought 60ish acknowledgement letters for VP/Treasurer/Fundraising signature Need to work on plaques for corporate sponsors and acknowledgement letters Consider Financial support for teams to encourage regional tournament participation -- all teams? appropriate amount? GearCycle -- no try-on event this season / let's keep collecting! HUGE THANKS to Todd, Bill, Damian, Marcos and Jason for stepping up to prep for the Fall season Want to send a blast email or Facebook post to remind parents about appropriate sideline behavior Jennifer Bennett, Vice President: Last task of league registration is EPYSA payments, waiting for forms from different leagues to complete Ideas for clearance collections - difficult to organize due to some coming in as emails and some as paper copies which requires a lot of time o Consider Blue Sombrero as central repository Would like to discuss potential centralized location for common lists I.e. coach contact info by team, job box codes, etc Plans for anniversary celebration planning Tournament fee support from potential sponsors vs club support Ziggy coordinating girls senior night Transitioning Jason to Registrar this season, he is doing great! Well done!!! I am collecting clearances from coaches I have gone through the safe and all electronic files and have made a spreadsheet of what I have on file If someone sends you something, please forward to me
At this time, I am making photos and risk management applications priority. I will then reach out to people individually for missing documents I second the desire to discuss potential corporate sponsorship to aim at tournament support. The team bonding that occurs at tournaments definitely builds the team and is important to creating the team and will help retention. Any follow up with Gerry P on NSC involvement with boys soccer at the high school? Brian Ransom, Secretary: August minutes approved: GK/RG July minutes approved: RG/GP Virginia Patton, Treasurer: Started month: $196,670.91 Ended month: $190,863.30 Discussion on how much a non-profit can carry Other clubs/leagues curious about NSC financial success A lot of volunteers contributing blood, sweat and tears have earned NSC s fiscal stability over many years Started month: $196,052.13 Ended month: $196,670.91 NSC will cover upfront cost of the Blue Mountain tournament o Parents/Players will then reimburse the club coach to collect Melissa LaBar, Fields Director: Currently managed by Todd Wismer and Bill Fibick All fields open Upper Tuskes need replacement goals Coordinating linings 1 box damaged at Lucas Lower Nazareth expanding may lose that field Need new flags at select fields Lucas Fields are getting beat up quick A lot of deferred maintenance o Create an all-inclusive list of needs o Rob, Jen and Ginny to review and approve Fields closure process doc created to help simplify the closure and game reschedule process Biggest challenge with ESSROC parking o Continues to be an issue Lights will be placed next week o Locations:
Lower Essroc 2 Upper Essroc 1 Upper /Lower Lucas 4 Bushkill Rec (3 We own) Transitioning over to Bill & Todd o They have been doing an excellent job taking over Practice schedule has been finalized and sent out Lower Nazareth: Open Tuskes: Open for practice on the 27th Essroc: Open Butz Front/Back: Open but needs to be lined Upper/Lower Lucas: Open Bushkill Rec: Open can be lined next week. Nets can t be placed till Monday August 27th Lights will be ordered next week o How do we pay for them? When would we like them to be placed? o Locations: Lower Essroc 2 Upper Essroc 1 Upper /Lower Lucas 4 Bushkill Rec (3 We own) o Lights arrive full of fuel They charge to refill or if they are empty upon return o Keys/lock boxes should be on the lighting unit George Kline, Team Equipment: Uniforms all distributed o Only 38 outside the normal process Continue to revise the uniform process for the Spring season Uniform link still open for ordering jackets, warm-ups, and bags o Karen will inform families For consideration: option for fall classic teams to wear pink socks o George/Rob to discuss further with Marcos Continue to explore more options for corporate/business sponsorship Consider classic coaches having 1 spare uniform in the event of a referee not allowing a player to participate due to blood on a jersey Some uniform refunds being processed Jerseys o Will be ready for the week of Aug. 27 Classic meeting tomorrow o Coach or team manager will pick up all team items at Soccer Magic Pick up as soon as they are ready o Benches still need to be ordered Some challenges with the new process of ordering uniforms o All board members stay connected
o Need to identify outliers which players didn t order what they need Marcos/George to review the co-ed high school team Micro Equipment will be ready prior to the Micro Coaches Meeting Adidas offer coming soon o Some free items coming to the club coaches Polos Jennie Riccardi Fund Raising and Special Events: Halloween parade o Volunteers will be helping and also have some but not all sponsors responding on banners o Sign-up on Oct. 6 at Vigilance o Parade is Oct. 20 at 1pm o Sunday email to coaches wear uniform, no cleats Picture day o October 10 and 11 at the intermediate school is all set with Pixel and the school district o Sunday email to coaches Coordinate communication to coaches with what times worked Coaches to coordinate times directly with Jennie o Need volunteers to help assist o Need volunteer list from Blue Sombrero Sponsor plaques o Have quotes from Wilson, need quality and to be ordered o Jennie and Rob coordinating on this o Consider picture collage (Leon to send example) Spirit Gear o Sales were a fail at Saturday s game but I will keep trying o I will also sell at Picture day Picture day is scheduled for the week of October 8th with Pixel Films o Jennie will be submitting the paperwork to the school district in September Chevy youth soccer wants to hold a clinic on Thursday September 13. Here is the gist of what I was sent: o Would your league be interested in hosting a clinic on Thursday, September 13? o Below are the details of what we will need for the clinic*: o 1 to 2 fields o Total of 200 kids (I will handle inviting local leagues and RSVP for the clinic) o Lights What time do they turn on? What time do they turn off? o Bathrooms o Access to water and ice o 2 tables for check-in o Area to display vehicles (on the fields or in the parking lot) o The clinic will be open to up to 200 youth league members, and instruction will be provided by professionals from UK Elite. Children in the community ages 6-14 are invited by their local Chevy dealers and the Chevy Youth Soccer coordinator. Participants will be divided by age group and rotate through different stations to learn fielding, throwing, hitting, and more. Also, we hope to display a few Chevy vehicles near the check-in area. After the clinic, we will provide each participant with a free snack and
drink. Visit http://youthsportsclinics.com/faq and click the video on the left side of the screen to check out what Chevy Soccer clinics are all about! o NSC Board: not for Fall season as field space is a limiting factor and the proposed schedule would interfere with Classic weekly schedule/practices Open to consider possibility of next summer I would like a Halloween parade sign-up sheet at the picture day main table. Maybe a week before picture day we could send a blast email to parents notifying them of our desire to be in the parade. I have float volunteers already, a truck and trailer. I just need who will be marching and candy. Also, do we need to have parents sign a waiver or does the waiver at registration cover this? o Karen to follow-up with Jennie Any Interest in a Nazareth Soccer Club night out to see the BSFC play? Marcos has a contact (Gio) there and I would be happy to set this up, maybe mid-season. o Table discussion to next meeting Jason Bettencourt, Registrar: All teams entered into EPYSA and approved by leagues Official Rosters distributed to coaches o 9/10 last day for roster changes in Blue Mountain but nothing has been requested so we should be set Still outstanding: o Have to send in roster fees based on EPYSA calculations to LVYSL/BMYSL/NVYSL. Waiting for official spreadsheet from leagues to fill these out and provide totals that we owe for each league. Also need to send in fees based on number of micro players. I would like to discuss having a central location for not only coaching clearance info but also easily accessible shared docs for things like a master coaching list, team names and divisions assignments, rosters with jersey numbers so that anyone at any time can get the info they need and possibly find and catch mistakes during our registration process earlier. I may have missed it if we already have this but it seems like its mostly done by just emailing documents back and forth that can get out of date quickly. o All the clearances can be uploaded and tracked in Blue Sombrero. As for sharing docs, we can create a Google for Non-profits account which would give us that ability o If Blue Sombrero can store/manage clearances, then this will be the approach o Continue to discuss offline LVYSL: o 3 LVYSL Teams approved by league so we can add secondary players o Once secondary players register we can finalize all six teams and send packets in to get player and coach cards - i believe players will be registering today or tomorrow NVYSL: o 1 team - U12 girls team finalized and approved BMYSL: o 14 teams - all entered into EPYSA. Last remaining items are to add most recent coaches who have completed their risk management within the last several days Shooting for Friday to have all teams submitted Also a huge thank you to Jen for answering about 1000 questions to help me get up to speed
Karen Janis, Communications Director: I'd like to put together a "save the date" email with things like picture day, Halloween parade, maybe sign up for winter soccer, and anything else happening now through end of season o Consider: Blast email through NSC, then also through Sunday email to coaches We need to come up with a plan for getting field closing info to parents if we're not going to send emails anymore o Do we want to try sending a survey to parents to see what they want? o Consider sending text messages to notify parents; could be easiest approach Clearances o Karen has figured out a way to store documents and verifications, expirations, etc all in Blue Sombrero Need to update FBI fingerprint link on website Some website issues o For now, no users should make any changes without Karen being involved Field closures need to be updated on the website o No longer automatically happens between website and Blue Sombrero o Do we move to Announcement? Banner? Twitter post? Make sure minutes are posted to the website Marcos Pires, Classic League Director: High number of Sunday cancellations o Jen can assist Paul with rescheduling Procedures for cancellation was codified Chelsea U9 o Marcos coordinating with Rob B. to arrange a trainer to cover when needed o 1 parent now has coaches card and is a team manager o Next season parents will need to cover trainer cost if no parent steps forward Continue having same ages and U-levels practice together o Reinforce for Spring season HS half time games o How do we get more traction? o Paul to contact Jackie Henchy with those teams/players interested Jersey numbers o What lessons did we learn so we can tweak for next time? HS game in Blue Mountain was excessively rough as reported by coach Robinson Rosters posted on Blue Sombrero o Future seasons may be possible to import full/partial teams GC Team Manager app has been mostly a success o Minor inconvenience right now is that players have to be entered manually Coaches Meeting Tomorrow the 16th at Mivajo's - give update on numbers 5 late registrants had to be turned away (no space in teams) Trainers schedule all set o First week with trainers is August 27th
Chelsea team updates Any lessons to learn about uniform numbering (HS group especially) Tournament Fee? o Explore the possibility for NSC to provide a set amount of money to be provided to teams to cover costs o Needs to increase awareness to coaches for tournament options o More discussion at next board meeting Foldable benches to classic teams Lehigh Men's game ball boys (U10 and over). Waiting to hear about Women's game Micro Development League Director (VACANT Rob Guroff filling role) Damian has been a big help o Lining fields, working with coaches New curriculum feedback so far has been limited; one report it's too advanced and too much for each session Academy festival dates need to be shared with coaches (LVU and Keystone will be hosting this season) Rita s went well this past weekend Parking still a challenge o Continue to explore options for switching fields for Spring o Tuskes may be a better arrangement due to ample parking o Could then convert Essroc Lower to a 9v9 or 11v11 field Looks like we'll have ~299 players, which is excellent Coaches Meeting next week -- Wednesday AUG 22 6:45 at Mivajo's Jerseys/socks to arrive by then Need to get Lower Essroc lined (and Butz lined two weeks later) Rob B and I need to talk about Micro curriculum to get it in shareable shape o More focus on agility, ball skills Academy recruitment to involve female player focus this season o Consider splitting into a Boys coach and Girls coach o Goal: Girls only Academy program to mirror Boys Close down registration New/Other Business: Re-lining Upper ESSROC fields to 2 fields o U9 coaches supportive o Set-up fields and nets this weekend Ron Xela o Interested in the Treasurer position Coordinate with Gerry Petrozelli o gerryp4@msn.com
League Reps: Paul Sklodowsky BMYSL o See notes from September meeting: BMYSL_Meeting_Age nda_sept 18.docx [Dave's Notes;] for BMYSL_Meeting_Agen o 67% of NSC players are in this league o 105 teams this year (5 years ago 140 teams) o Game changes BMYSL confused on NSC procedures with closing fields Process for making changes to games requires many steps and everything must go through the league rep Jen is able to support and assist o I was unable to attend the BMYSL Meeting but David Sampson (U11 Boys A Assistant Coach) attended the meeting for NSC his notes are attached and below: Nothing tragic was discussed Late entry fees was a hot topic and shouldn't have been allowed based on league rules Wind Gap commissioner complained about late entries approved and about Keystone adding U13 team without penalties Slate Belt commissioner wanted U11 Girls team vs. N. Lehigh to change schedule since (2) SB home games vs. NL which as missed during schedueling to give each team 5 home and 5 away games. SB felt it should be changed, but it was voted to not change (4) teams schedules to make this change. Wilson commissioner was questioned allowing U15 boy B team to allow older boy who's mother is dying to play down in age. (other commissioners made comments that he is a taller boy who is noticed by their teams during Palmer tournament) Latin commissioner was arguing with Forks commissioner regarding co-ed high school teams and whether an all boys team is a problem. (it wasn't really anything) Todd Wismer NVYSL o Last meeting: 15min at Wegman s with 6 people o NSC only has 1 team in this league for Fall 2018 Due to age break down; will likely be better in the Spring o Originally scheduled NSC s single Fall 2018 NVYSL team for all away games Rob Laubach LVYSL o Present, no notes Paul Sklodowsky BMYSL o Entire meeting was reading and approval of new by laws and game play manual
o Per meeting, all clubs and all coaches from all clubs must understand and accept game play rules o Also new fine schedule was approved as well o Review 2018 Pre-Season tournament Schedule posted online Please review by 8pm on Friday, August 17 Todd Wismer NVYSL o Important Dates: 8/10 TEF (Team Entry Form) and CFF (Club Field Form) are due 9/7 CAF (Club Accounting Form) AND payment due 9/8 Start of season for U7/8/10/12 9/9 Start of season for U14/16/19 9-15/16 - Regular Game Weekend 9-22/23 - Regular Game Weekend 9-29/30 - Regular Game Weekend 10-6/7 NO GAMES COLUMBUS DAY 10-13/14 - Regular Game Weekend 10-20/21 - Regular Game Weekend 10-27/28 - Regular Game Weekend 11-03/4 - Regular Game Weekend 11-10/11 - Regular Game Weekend 11/17 End of season for U7/8/10/12 11/18 End of season for U14/16/19 o Per Melissa LaBar: The CFF has already been submitted for LVYSL & NVYSL Also, all LVYSL home games have been scheduled within their system Rob Laubach LVYSL o I received a check for $147 tonight from them but not sure what it is for o I received a packet of what looks to be coaches and player cards for 3 teams Let me know to whom and where I can drop these off. Maybe at a someone s practice next week? Rob to follow-up o Another big plea for board members Three spots open and only two that are filled those members have already notified league this is their last year So potentially by next June league could have no officers o Game Day Be sure coaches have Ref fees Three copies of lineup sheets (ref, home team and visiting team) Also all player cards o Game commissioner: By 8/15 all ref fees, rules of play and scheduling/rescheduling parameters will be online League Schedule online by 8/17 o June 8th and 9th scheduled dates for 40th anniversary tournament o This Saturday Coaching Educational Summit at Moravian College Available up to 50 people Only 16 so far Free of charge Lots of topics be covered Copy of flyer available on website
o Reminder: all Clubs to respect referees and do not confront them on field or off after games Need to not lose any more refs o President brought up idea to form committee to look at why league losing teams to regional leagues even though most teams play teams close to home anyway Was a discussion about a certain point system for the ability of teams to play in state tournaments or other events? o Season starts 9/8 ends on 11/18