Snohomish Lacrosse Club Meeting Minutes 9/29/11 - 7 pm to 9:30 pm at MAC commons

Attendees : Nathan Lawless, Wayne Burns, Bob Courtney, Laura Deiner, Sandy Weyrauch, Rob Vandewall, Dan O’Hern, Brandy Sawyer, Casey Davis, Rita Belvill, and Stacy Compton,

Agenda : Board member changes, Budget, Registration, Logo Wear

Introduction: Dan O’Hern displayed a large “Harvey Cup” tournament trophy that the boys youth had made by a local vendor, Nicholas Prize. He explained that the trophy would be presented to Mrs. Harvey, to be kept on display at her airport office facility. Small plaques around the base will be engraved with each years tournament winners. Dan will contact Mrs. Harvey to arrange a presentation time / date and he will inform the board members so as to coordinate their attendance to the presentation. Nathan informed the Board that we now have a new 16 foot storage / supply trailer. This was discussed in previous meetings and budgeted for this spring after the 2011season invoice were known. The new trailer has a ramp on the back and internal shelving will be installed. The floor will be treated with a truck style spray on “bed liner” material. Inside lighting will need to be installed with a solar panel / battery charging system.

Board Member Changes : Bob Courtney is leaving his position as Secretary. Casey Davis volunteered to take his position. Leslie Kovar and Stacy Compton want to be on the board and both will be contacted. The Vice President position for the Boys is still open since Sandy Weyrauch has left that position. The topic of hiring (paid position) a Program Director / Athletic Director was discussed at length with many pros / cons presented. Throughout the remained of the board meeting multiple job definitions, as to what the AD / PD position would entail, surfaced with possibly two (boy and girl) positioned needed. Nate asked for the board members to submit their suggestions and nominees and Nate and/or the Board will conduct interviews. A decision as to the need for one or two positions was left open.

Budget: A recent Board only budget meeting was held on 9/20/11. Laura Deiner, club treasurer, presented the results of the meeting. Most items on last years budget will remain the same. Bad weather last year spring (2011) caused field fees to increase – the increase was monitored and is included into this years (2012 season) budget. Player registration fees will remain the same this year with “early bird” signups discounted the same as last year. Early bird sign up is Oct 1 thru Oct 31, 2011. Coaching payments have not increased for a few years and will increase this coming season. D1 and D2 coaches will be paid $4000. JV coaches will be paid $2000. Equipment costs will likely increase slightly this year – to be monitored. Coaching clinic fees will increase to allow four coaches to attend US Lacrosse convention back East. Coaching clinic fee is budgeted to $600 each or $2400 total. The club plans to do a “Butter Braids” fundraiser again this year – proceeds to go into the club fund to help with player scholarships. A $1000 fee was budgeted toward recruitment materials. Steve Sawyer and Norma Kavarda want to head up a recruitment committee. Nate will contact Steve and Norma to inform them to start the recruiting process.

Registration: Laura Deiner researched our SnoLax website to see if autobilling of player fees was possible and the result was a “no”. The only two options are 1) to have parents / players pay in full, or 2) to create some self structured payment system that would require reminders / mailings be made to the parents / players. Discussions ensued about last years cumbersome payment system, and that a structured reminder system would require coaches and treasurer to contact non payers. A final discussion centered around requiring payments to be tied to all the critical / mandatory documents that players / parents need to turn in to the coach prior to each season’s start date. (i.e. concussion form, player code of conduct, parent code of conduct, etc.). Only when all documents are turned in to the coach (including a financial “fees paid in full” document from SnoLax) would the player be allowed to attend practices / games. The SnoLax website would define how much money is still due after each graduated payment is made. Coaches or booster club’s could monitor remaining payments due to help remind parents to pay up. Laura Deiner (club treasurer) stated that some players / parents are not paid up form the past (2010) season and their remaining 2010 dues / fees will be added to this years fees.

Early Bird (discounted) registration will start Oct 1 and run through Oct 31. Nate will send out e-mails and will word the registration reminder letter to strongly encourage returning players to sign up by Oct 17th to avoid being locked out this season (as was the case last year with some returning players). Early Bird registrants will have a four payment option (Oct, Nov, Dec, & Jan) with final payment due by Jan 31, 2012. Open registration (non-discounted) will run from Nov 1 through Jan 31, 2012. Open registrants will have a three payment option (Nov, Dec, & Jan) with final payment due by Jan 31, 2012. New players will be discounted the Early Bird rate through the entire Oct 1 to Jan 31 time period.

Logo Wear: The goal of creating a general LogoWear option would be for non-players (parents / fans) to purchase SnoLax wanted items. Specialized team uniforms, equipment, bags, etc would still be handled with the coaches and their respective booster clubs. Nate researched “Boathouse” and “GTM” and found GTM to have a workable website for ordering and getting the logo on various items. The sales tax would be paid by the purchaser and not involve club treasurer monitoring. Items would ship directly to the purchaser. A multi level discussion ensued about the logowear being a fundraiser for the club, in season Vs out of season tax monitoring by the club treasurer, and item shipments. With the tax monitoring complication it was decided that the goal, being to get the SnoLax logo’d items into the hands of fans who really want them, was more important than making it a fundraiser profit. Nate will research further, contact the GTM company, and provide a link to our SnoLax website for purchases.

Another discussion about having 50 / 50 raffle (fundraisers) at tournaments / games was introduced. Dan O’Hern mentioned that other teams seem to have these at nearly every game / tournament. The discussion became complicated due to size of raffles, board member size needing to be at 15 members per state law, tax questions / concerns, etc. Discussion was tabled for now – to be revisited at a later meeting.

Closing comments: Dan O’Hern expressed a desire from the boys HS head coach, Chris Cote, to start tiering youth games to match player ability levels. Dan explained that the three boy’s youth leagues seem to be structuring their player’s abilities to maximize competitive play (i.e. all eighth graders on one team, all seventh graders on another team within one age bracket. Dan also mentioned that some teams seem to be “stacking” their teams by player abilities which results in some players not getting an equal amount of playing time in a game. The Snohomish coaches are hearing problems from parents who want to start a similar player ability teiring structure. Other parents don’t want this structure. Multiple levels of discussion amongst board members ensued about parent code of conduct (cursing at games), player safety, SnoLax mission statement, recreational play Vs. “Select” play, playing time, etc. This concern will need to be discussed at a future SnoLax board / coach meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 9:15 pm