2012 YEAR IN REVIEW Welcome Dear Friends and Partners in BC Soccer, As we reflect on our collective soccer successes this past year, the BC Soccer family has once again shown the universal passion you have for our global game. The last 12 months have brought dramatic changes in the BC Soccer landscape reverberating from the all-important grassroots across new pinnacles of high performance player development all the way to the professional team level with Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the National Team level with our Canadian Women’s National Team. During the past year, BC Soccer embarked on one of its most in-depth membership consultation journeys in association history en route to the Spring 2012 launch of the new Grassroots Development Service Plan, which, based on the vision of our Board of Directors, sees our Soccer Development Staff team deployed in enhanced ways including the support of 20 newly installed regional grassroots tutors to ensure you as the members receive the best soccer leadership and service, no matter where in beautiful British Columbia you are located. In the high performance arena, the EA Sports BC Soccer Premier League (BCSPL), as unanimously supported by the BC Soccer membership in early 2011, kicked-off its inaugural mini-season in fall of 2011 and is currently in full swing in its first complete season in 2012. While clearly still in its infancy, one can confidently assert that the league will create excellent developmental opportunities for BC players that strive to take their game to the highest level fuelled by the coming together of soccer leaders from all areas. As BC’s soccer team, Vancouver Whitecaps FC have started their MLS adventure in 2011, setting standards in commercial success and match attendance, while learning valuable lessons for future seasons on what it takes to put a squad on the pitch that can contend for a play-off spot in the future. One of our favorite football occasions this past year was hands-down the Canadian Women’s Team success in front of a passionate crowd of BC Soccer families at the new BC Place Stadium for the 2012 London Olympics by reaching the final of the 2012 CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. With Canada having also secured the privilege of hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015™, we can proudly say that Vancouver/ BC is ready to play a major role as one of the host cities for the tournament. Football enthusiasts are already dreaming of Vancouver acting as home base for Team Canada in 2015. Just imagine the massively positive impact this will have in inspiring people to embrace lifelong active, inclusive, and team play in soccer in BC for years to come! With team play being at the heart of everything, we would like to applaud the efforts you as soccer leaders in BC at all levels continue to put forth. Without you there would be no game and all successes large and small are, ultimately, owed to the tremendous work the BC Soccer community is investing for its love of the game. As part of that, we would also like to thank and recognize the dedicated BC Soccer and Staff team, who continue to work hard to lead and manage BC Soccer on your behalf. Yours in Soccer, Charlie Cuzzetto Bjorn Osieck President & Chair Executive Director Our Team Paul Mullen Paige Meadows Gabriel Fairbrother Sarah Lilley Jose Branco Director of Operations Manager of Finance IT Support/Webmaster Finance Assistant Referee Development Coordinator Jason Elligott Lindsay Jesseau Matt Holbrook Dan Turvill Rebecca Stevens Director of Community Member Programs & Member Services Competitions Member Services Development Events Coordinator Manager Coordinator Assistant Michael Findlay Rob Csabai Markus Reinkens Luca Dallapace Andrew Haines Senior Programs Coach / Programs Coach / Programs Coach / Programs Coach / LTPD & Programs Coach / Director of Soccer Manager of Coaching Manager of Soccer Goalkeeping Program Grassroots Coordinator Development Development Science Coordinator Board of Directors Les Sinnott, Ed Kennedy, Rob Lennox, Kjeld Brodsgaard, Steve Allen, Chris Appleby, Roger Barnes, Rick Connors, Chris Costley, Don Dancey, Murray Mollard, Don Moslin, Peter Vranjkovic Our Province BC Soccer is the largest provincial sport organization in British Columbia. Comprised of 150 member clubs, districts and leagues spanning more than 115,000 registered players, over 2,400 referees, thousands of coaches and other volunteer administrators and soccer leaders, we estimate that through the extended families of our registered players and volunteers, half a million British Columbians are connected to the game of soccer in every region our province. As we continually strive to fulfill our mission of, “developing the game by inspiring British Columbians to lifelong active, inclusive and team play,” we’d like to highlight the regions of our province and proudly present their contributions and commitment to the game, and its development in BC. Fair Play Community Soccer Northern BC 117,303 Players Vancouver Island Lower Mainland Thompson Okanagan Kootenay Rockies 2,484 Referees 73 Members 1 PROVINCE Development Fun Team Work Long Term Player Development (LTPD) This year LTPD saw tremendous advancement with the Canadian Soccer Association’s (CSA) release of the Wellness to World Cup Volume 2. With a more thorough breakdown of seven player developmental stages that are inclusive for technical, tactical, physical and mental training, it will serve as the national curriculum for all of our member clubs’ head coaches and technical directors to follow. As BC Soccer continues to be a national leader in our LTPD implementation, we conducted various consultation meetings with our membership to present the new curriculum and provide our recommendations and guidance on how their clubs can effectively introduce it to their stakeholders. To further ease the transition we also created a monthly LTPD Journal designed to supplement the material in the Wellness to World Cup Volume 2. BC Soccer will continue to implement the LTPD model for its programming. 32 consultation meetings 97% of membership are in possession with over 100 member clubs of the Wellness to World Cup Volume 1 Grassroots Grassroots Development BC Soccer is glad to announce the recent launch of its new framework, the Grassroots Development Service Plan for member clubs and district associations across British Columbia. The goal of this initiative is to provide our member clubs the opportunity to support their new coaches in effectively running their training sessions, giving coaches the ability to better deliver technical service and training sessions to their young players. Three age-specific workshops make up the framework; each three hours in duration. So far the launch of this new framework has been well received and our Soccer Development Department will continue to educate our membership about the Grassroots Development Service Plan into this upcoming year. Since the Fall 2011, we have made 32 presentations to over 250 technical and administrative staff of our member clubs in the following areas: Kootenay Rockies 4 presentations Lower Mainland 10 presentations Northern BC 8 presentations Thompson Okanagan 4 presentations Vancouver Island 6 presentations Grassroots Handbook This Fall, the Grassroots Development Department produced a specific Grassroots Handbook for coaches working with the Active Start and Fundamental stages; as well as, revised its existing Grassroots Handbook to be more suitable for coaches working with players in the Learning to Train stage. The content provided within these handbooks is derived from the CSA’s Long Term Player Development vision and will assist coaches in delivering effective and responsible team programming. By providing a supplemental training curriculum that demonstrates how to successfully prepare and organize a practice, BC’s youngest players will receive higher quality coaching early on. 97% of membership are in possession 4 monthly LTPD Journals distributed to date of the Wellness to World Cup Volume 2 (to over 130 recipients province wide) Kootenay Rockies Community Coach Clinic Held 1 2 High Performance Coach Course Held Golden • Referee Clinic Held Candidates Program Provincial Championship Host 5 3 1 2 1 2 • Nelson • Cranbrook • Castlegar 1 • Trail 7 3,801 73 Clubs within Region Registered Players Registered Referees COMMUNITY COACHING CLINICS Clinic Scheduled Cancelled Conducted Grassroots 2 1 1 Community Coach - Children 4 2 2 (includes Active Start and FUNdamentals) Community Coach - Youth (includes Learn to Train) 3 2 1 Community Coach - Senior (includes Soccer for Life) 1 1 0 Goalkeeping 0 0 0 REFEREE CLINICS Clinic Scheduled Cancelled Conducted Entry Level 3 1 2 Referee Refresher 5 1 4 Regional Referee 0 0 0 REGIONAL MEMBERSHIP Youth District: Columbia Valley Youth Soccer Creston Youth Soccer Golden Minor Soccer Association Kootenay East Youth Soccer Association Kootenay South Youth Soccer Association Nelson Youth Soccer Revelstoke Youth Soccer Association Adult Associate League: East Kootenay Soccer League SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT: Jim Stephensen of Nelson Youth Soccer Association received the All Sport Marketing Scholarship Coaching Development New Community Coaching Model As a part of the new LTPD model provided by CSA, the Community Coaching Stream has been restructured to become more comprehensive. A new certification pathway that is aligned to the Wellness to World Cup player development stages has now replaced the Community Certificate Courses with: Active Start, FUNdamentals,