RDYSL Annual General Meeting

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

7:00 – 9:00 pm

 

MCC Empire Room

 

  1. Roll Call
    1. Identify each club and representative
    2. Clubs not in attendance – Greece Cobras, Irondequoit, Spencerport
    3. To be in good standing, must be paid up
    4. Unable to register teams without being paid up

 

  1. Introductions
    1. Welcome to the start of our 2007 season
    2. Great season last year

                                                               i.      More teams (514)

                                                             ii.      More divisions (55 competitive divisions)

                                                            iii.      Every club had a team that as awarded trophy shirts!

    1. Thank you to all the club presidents for running such wonderful organizations – the kids are lucky to have such great clubs.
    2. Guests

                                                               i.      NYSW

1.      District Commissioner – Roger Best

2.      Glen Buckley

                                                             ii.      Rochester Rhinos

1.      Mike Spellman, Nick Brockway, Norm Maurer

2.      Discussed several opportunities that the Board is working with the Rhinos were discussed.

                                                            iii.      Division Coordinators

1.      Are the connection between the teams and the league

2.      Without them a league this size could not operate

3.      They do a great job setting up the divisions, collecting scores and other data and implementing the policy set by the board.

4.      We welcome 5 new DCs for the 2007 season

5.      Girls

a.       U8-U9 – Howie DeLooze – RH – NEW

b.      U10 – Kim Yavorek – Canandaigua – NEW

c.       U11-U12 – Beth Guzzetta – Pittsford –NEW

d.      U13-U14 – Jim LeGrett – HFL

e.       U15-U16 – Susan Gurak – Buccaneers

f.        U17-U19 – Mary Arter – Eclipse

6.      Boys

a.       U8-U10 – Donna Kephart – NEW

b.      U11-U12 – Hawks – NEW

c.       U13-U14 – Kurt Knoblauch – Canandaigua

d.      U15-U16 – Michael Fridman – Fairport – NEW

e.       U7-U19 – Dennis Crowe – Byron-Bergen

 

  1. Election of Officers
    1. Proposed Slate

                                                               i.      President – Gary Levine

                                                             ii.      1st V.P. Boy’s Coordinator – Neil Fisher

                                                            iii.      2nd V.P. Girl’s Coordinator – Jacky Van Dellon

                                                           iv.      3rd V.P. Referee, Discipline Concerns – Joe Walton

                                                             v.      4th V.P. Website Matters – Mark Van Dellon

                                                           vi.      Secretary – Karen May

                                                          vii.      Treasurer/Scheduler – Lou Boyon

    1. Are there any other nominations? – No additional nominations.
    2. Any Motions

                                                               i.      Motion to elect proposed slate – Laurie Crawford – Hilton-Parma SC

                                                             ii.      2nd – Mike Moss – Wayne Wings SC

    1. This is Gary’s last term – The President can only be elected to 6 terms.
    2. Transition planning is in effect so the league will hopefully continue as it always has.

 

  1. Reports:
    1. Budget – Lou:

                                                               i.      Lou handed out summary of budget for past year and proposed budget for next year.

    1. Fees

                                                               i.      Remember NYSW has a 50-cent increase per player this year.

                                                             ii.      No RDYSL fee increase – remains $2.50 per player

    1. Fees and Fines

                                                               i.      Quiet year as far as incidents

                                                             ii.      Fees and Fines were about the same as last year. Many teams made use of the $75 in-season game change to avoid forfeit fines.

                                                            iii.      We saw some use of illegal players in tournaments and one incident within league play.

1.      Gary recommended to NYSW that they come up with a standard governing fair play in all NYSW sanctioned tournaments that would cover subsequent league play.

                                                           iv.      Gary mentioned several clubs as being commended for their minimal fees and fines. Great job!

                                                             v.      Gary also thanked the clubs that paid larger fees and fines for helping balance out budget.

    1. Website – Mark

                                                               i.      No major changes in website planned for this year – will run as usual.

    1. Referees

                                                               i.      Arbiter experiment worked well this year

1.      Hopefully continued use will increase their efficiency so we can use more AR’s.

2.      We have requested AR’s at our girls U17/19 divisions – so clubs need to plan accordingly for paying these referees.

3.      Also requested, if possible, that Boys U16 1st division to be covered with AR’s.

                                                             ii.      Quality

1.      2/3rds of the games had evaluations by coaches

2.      Of the 122 referees that we had reports of 6 or more games

a.       About 21% were rated 9 or better

b.      52% were 8 or better

c.       23% were 7 or better

d.      And only 4% were 6 or below

e.       96% acceptable rating for our regular referees

3.      This data is important

a.       Lets get 100% game reporting

b.      We paid to have referees performance reviewed based upon weak and strong performances. This worked well this year.

                                                            iii.      Travel vouchers – please pay them when you get them – some were delayed this year.

                                                           iv.      Training

1.      We need more referees – the pool gets smaller every year – set up a club wide training day – for referee course.

2.      Set up a ref course for a group of your kids.

3.      Discussion about an email Joe Walton sent suggesting not assigning referees for U8 & U9. And letting new younger referees from the club do these games. This was met with some opposition – belief is that the best place to start new younger referees is in the house leagues – Travel program is a tough place to start.

4.      Chris Chilano explained that retention and recruitment is the biggest problem – Biggest reason – verbal abuse from coaches and parents.

5.      Most agreed that the verbal situation was an issue but also confidence.

6.      Would like to work with referee unit to get more training for referees.

7.      Need a meeting with referee unit/ leagues and NYSW to work out these issues.

    1. Rhinos discussions

                                                               i.      Seeking to arrange dates at Paetec Park

1.      Discussed setting up a date where we could have Paetec Park for the day to play RDYSL league games

2.      Move regular scheduled games to that date

3.      Working with Rhinos organization to see if we can work this out before the final schedule

                                                             ii.      Pre-game and half time games are being worked between the Rhinos and individual clubs. – Contact the Rhinos directly

                                                            iii.      Honors night – for champion teams – with their champion’s shirts

1.      Would like to do this again this year.

2.      Need more than 4 days notice

3.      Trophy shirts not handed out until end of July – so plan is for early August.

                                                           iv.      Honorary day for the younger teams.

    1. Club Pass experiment discussion

                                                               i.      This is a guest players, club pass or call up rule

                                                             ii.      One year experiment in the older age groups only – so U17 & U19 can call up from U16’s (or U17’s if applicable).

                                                            iii.      21 out of our 29 clubs could have taken advantage of this rule last season

                                                           iv.      Use it to supplement attendance issues

1.      See if we can reduce the number of games with 9 or 10 players

2.      Order some extra shirts!

3.      Secondary goal to advance player development

                                                             v.      This experiment is to see if RDYSL can handle using call up players

1.      This plan can be abused

2.      Calling up that star player when you have 15 regulars show up.

3.      Overworking a kid that just played 5 nights in a row.

4.      At the end of the season we will look to see if this experiment worked and if it should be expanded to include other age groups.

                                                           vi.      The process is intended to be simple – see the form that was handed out.

1.      Coach and club representative confer to consider factors such as need of the older team (attendance) and the factors of the younger player (age, skill, size, maturity, number of games in a week, etc.).

2.      The coach and call up player fill out the form and acknowledge the ramifications.

3.      The form and the player pass get turned over to the referee

4.      Call up player’s name must be on the roster form

5.      Player for all rules is considered a member of the older team – watch out for red cards!

6.      Discussions from the groups

a.       Hope to see this moved down to U13, 14 – really helps at younger ages for player development.

b.      Get your coaches, especially older coaches, to the coaches meeting, as this will be explained in detail then.

 

  1. New Business
    1. Issues from Membership

                                                               i.      What do we do if the coaches believe that the field is unsafe? – Answer: If the referee feels the field is OK – then must play the game or choose not to and take a forfeit. Kids safety is the most important thing.

    1. No other issues.