Call to order: 4 pm at Marty’s house
Attendees: Marty Boozikee, Ron Franck, Randy Matsunami, Bill Riggle, Bob Nash. Don Jones was absent.
Election of Board Duties: With Bo Boozikee stepping down as commissioner, we needed to select his replacement. He felt a commissioner should only have a 2–3-year term. With that said, we unanimously elected Marty Boozikee as our new Commissioner. She then assigned/confirmed directors as noted in the following report:
Board Member Reports:
Bob- Purchasing: Martyhanded over her duties andwill assist Bob, introducing him to her supply sources. She already had examples of possible new shirts based on NSS orders. Future meeting topic.
Randy- Finance: We have $900 left in the bank; down from $1200 the prior year. Also note the slight increase in field costs per Ron’s report. Meanwhile, with the plan to go with our own website next year, we need to budget for its cost. Topic to be addressed by Bill.
Ron- Fields and equipment: Ron has 1 dozen new balls and about 10 dozen slightly used- handed down from the night league. We will contact Doyle Ollis to see if he will sponsor/pay for new balls this year.
Discussion about the night league’s proposal to replace the batters’ mats: TBD.
Post-meeting text messages to clarify field costs: slight increase (less than $200) that LV Rec added after Aug 1st to cover winterizing field care.
Finally, Ron also provided a draft of the play dates (I attached a copy of his notes at the end).
Don- Umpires: We briefly addressed how the Tuesday league plans to use paid umpires. We felt the cost is not worth it: $30 per game means $120 each Friday, times 20 weeks equals $2400. Divided by 80 players would increase registration fees by $30. We felt our volunteers do a good job.
Bill- Rules & Communication: We discussed a rule change proposed by Paul Hamel- ignore players stepping off the mat during their hits; don’t call them out. Part of his reasoning was volunteer umpires are not consistent in the rule application (they have enough to look for). We decided not to implement the change. However, we will readdress the topic if the other leagues (Tuesday morning and NSS) decide to implement it.
We are exploring going to our own website to improve communication, registration, and visibility of our great league. Chuck Grubb (TMSL) provided information about their website host (jerseywatch.com) that costs about $350-375 annually. Marty talked with Zach McIntyre (NSS website guru) who has offered to create an FML website. Bill is working with Zach to explore what features he can support. We are looking for: online registrations to include payment and tracking, game scheduling and management to include board members as admin to enter or edit game scores, list of registered players by assigned teams to include those who are pool-players only, league-wide messaging for things such as game cancellations due to weather or other important announcements. Other features are to be explored. It sounds like Zach’s services might cost way less than the jerseywatch.com host. Whichever service we decide on, we’ll need it running by mid-February for board validation before going live for the March 1st open registration. Bill will provide updates to the status of the website decision.
Other Topics:
Logo- Marty showed the logo used on Bo’s and Mert’s jackets; a revert to the old logo. We will discuss any new logo while seeking the aid of Annette Ramano (used in the past).
Doubleheaders: We would like to keep the league at an even # of teams to avoid doubleheaders. For example: last season we went with 11 per roster on 8 teams versus creating an odd number 9th team. With that said, the number of registered players will determine the number of teams. Last season [approved by the managers] doubleheaders were added late to address additional rainouts (we had schedule slots for two). However, it became obvious that doubleheaders created headaches for managers trying to find subs as there were TOO few players to choose from.
Schedule to Include Rainouts: With the expectation to play 20 games, (like last season) the schedule will have 10 weeks of scheduled games and then a rainout date, followed by another 10 weeks of scheduled games and then a rainout date. If we have more than 2 rainouts, those games will not be made-up. If we get to the first rainout date without a rainout, the 20th game will be moved up to fill that slot, and the 20th game slot will become a rainout date.
End of Season Playoff and Season Picnic: The intent is to use the last rainout date as a fun positional round where (1 versus 2, 3 versus 4, etc.) that coincides with a league picnic to socialize and discuss the season (good and bad) to help guide the board on future details to help run a smooth league.
Sponsors: Marty will contact Doyle Ollis for his continued sponsorship. Meanwhile, all board-members need to pursue other sponsors.
Bats: Do we need to add stickers to the bats to verify they comply with USA rules and to mark those that are senior bats? We had a few instances of batters picking up an illegal bat for their age.
League Fees: We need to increase the fees to $65 to cover the increased field costs. If we decide to go with JerseyWatch to host our website, we will explore Sponsors or donations to cover the costs. TBD.
Assistant Managers: Much discussion about managers picking an assistant who was a premium player (pitcher, shortstop, homerun hitter) that created an advantage before the draft began. To help balance the teams, we thought it best to disallow pre-draft assistant selections. Yes, managers can have someone at their side during the draft to help select their roster. However, if they want that person on their roster, they need to draft him/her. We highly encourage managers to help the new managers who don’t know all the players so we can have a balanced league.
Roster size: Again, this is dependent on the number of registered players, but 11-player rosters like last season worked well. But we are also striving for an even-number of teams to avoid doubleheaders. We also discussed playing with all 11 players, so teams HAVE to find subs for their lower-round drafted players to maintain team parity.
Registration Form: We need a field for comments so the players can enter any expected conflicts (vacations, tournament player, etc.).
Managers: We are actively seeking at least 8 managers. So far, we have 4 confirmed (Randy Matsunami, Ron Franck, Don Jones, Emery Horton) and a few undecided. If we fail to get enough managers by draft time- one idea:
- We will employ the help of current managers and board members to draft for the missing team manager(s). The intent is to strive for a balanced league. After the draft, those team-members without a pre-draft manager will be contacted with shared (text & email) so they can select their own manager and assistant.
Meeting ended at 5:45pm. The next planned meeting will be in January.