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Minutes from the February 17th Rep meeting President Lacy Sparks welcomed the following club delegates to the Softourt league meeting at Vestavia Country Club at 10:15 am: Altadena Valley CC Birmingham CC Brook Highland RC Greystone CC Greystone YMCA Heatherwood Highland Park Hoover CC Inverness CC Mountainbrook CC Mountainbrook YMCA Old Overton Pelham RC Pinetree CC Riverchase CC Trussville RC Trussville YMCA Vestavia CC Lacy Sparks introduced the new officers for softcourt and secretary Annemarie Wilson introduced the Level Coordinators for this year. Annemarie then asked for a motion to be made to approve the minutes from the Fall 2008 meeting which was made by Kim Frederick and seconded by several in the room. Mary Ann Shows then went over the treasurer report for finances as of February 17th. Our beginning balance was $7878.14 as of 8-21-08 and our ending balance as of 1-21-09 was $12691.20 with one outstanding check of $185.00. the directory for this year and invoices for the gifts were not yet included for this report. Also many club team fee deposits were not included either. Mary Ann asked the club reps to take their team prizes with them and deliver them to their respective clubs. She also apologized for not including the roster list for each team but advised captains that they could find a listing of the rosters on the website for reference if they needed it. Prizes for the first place teams were lime green backpacks with bag tags, while the runner up teams received printed green tennis towels. Christine Denniston gave the scheduling report for this spring, and advised clubs not to print out the schedules until they were finalized on Friday February 20th. Christine stated that the Thursday match days had had several conflicts and were still being modified and corrected. The spring tennis season will be starting a week later to allow the winter USTA matches to finish their season as a result of inclement weather delays. This also allowed those wishing to attend the Davis Cup matches not to have to worry about a conflict with match play! Lacy also advised club reps and captains to pay close attention to whether the home team was marked with an astrix or not. With court space being tight, especially with some clubs fielding multiple teams, some clubs may be marked as the “Host” team but playing their game at their opponents home courts. An example was Birmingham CC which is in the process of rebuilding their tennis courts, while Birmingham maybe the host team responsible for balls and refreshments, they may be actually playing their “Home” match at another club’s tennis courts. Another example is Heatherwood CC which is involved in a legal battle to keep their club open. The team has requested that they may need to host their “home” matches at other club’s tennis courts. Lacy then went through the team packets which contained information on Move Down requests granted, Stats winners for each level, a match day helper sheet with phone numbers and general info, and a listing of the club teams registered for this spring. Information in the packet also included information for Kristin Adams, director of the LETT program which brings tennis to impoverished youth in elementary schools. Lett is looking for volunteers to help with their 7th annual Elementary School’s Tennis Challenge on Saturday, March 28th at 8:15 to 11:00am. Volunteers will be trained by the LETT program to assist with the competition. LETT also approached the softcourt league about a monetary donation to their programs, so Lacy made a motion that we allocate $1500.00 from our budget to make a donation to the LETT organization. Betty Austin clarified where the money would most like be spent on tennis balls and clinics for the children. The motion was put to a vote and passed. Next item of discussion was concerning Softcourt going paperless. Currently, printing costs for the directories run on average $8000.00. By downsizing the printing to a smaller reference rule book and map, Softcourt would be able to save significant money that could be applied to charitable donations and continue to keep league fees down.. Suggestions from the reps present included; printing Club Phone numbers and addresses on the maps. Lacy announced that after the rules had been updated and confirmed, softcourt would print and deliver the new books to the clubs later in the season. The next item for discussion was the implementation of a 5.0 A division for teams who had moved up to the 5.3 division and then requested a move down for the entire team. The 5.0 A division will be on trial basis and would be comprised of those teams most competitive at the 5.0 level, but perhaps not quite ready for the 5.3 level. The division will feature the top eight teams by their records and stats. No 5.0 USTA rated players would be allowed to play in this division. The other two 5.0 divisions would continue to be split evenly within their divisions. 5.3 teams who do not have any 5.0 USTA players on their roster would be allowed to request a move-down to this division to even the playing field. Building on this new division formation, discussion then followed about the eligibility of 5.3 players who have made stats for two consecutive seasons, 5.0 USTA players who continuously make stats, and teams who continuously win every season. Currently the only option was for these players to sit out a season, since there was no further room for them to advance to a higher division. Since the object of softcourt is to give the opportunity for women to play tennis in the Birmingham area, and the league has created a 5.0 A division to level out the playing field, the proposal was made to change the rules and allow the ladies only at the 5.3 level to win as many seasons as a team without requiring a shift in their rosters, allowing those 5.3 players who win seasons to continue playing without sitting out but must continue to play at first court, and continue to require 5.0 USTA players to play the first court positions. Laura Dillard made the motion and Betty Austin seconded this motion which was passed by a unanimous vote. Furthermore, Susan Fillipini brought up the point, that the rules in the handbook needed to be changed concerning the requirement of a 5.0 USTA player to petition softcourt each year to be allowed to play in the 5.3 division. Since no one has been following this rule for several years, Susan suggested that the wording be changed to: Team captains must notify their level coordinator of any USTA 5.0 players on their 5.3 softcourt team rosters. Tricia Golden presented the motion as worded and Martha Zeanah seconded the motion. The motion was voted on by the delegates present and also passed. The following motions would take effect this upcoming season. 5.3 Players who are currently sitting out this season, would still be required to sit out. The rep from Old Overton brought up an idea of softcourt establishing rules regarding mandatory player move downs for clubs who do not have specific move down requirements, but the consensus of the group felt that this was an extremely sensitive issue that is best handled at the club level. Christine emphasized the importance of the team captains and club reps updating their membership lists to include address and telephone number changes, especially with the discontinuing of the printed club directory. Club reps would also be able to go on the web site and edit a player to inactive if that player was no longer with their club. Level coordinators and the EC board are still the only authorized personnel that can change a players club affiliation. Softcourt officers have gained access to the website from the programmer, but have not yet learned all the programming commands to change the online rules, so changes to the web site may still be slow to publish. With no further business the meeting was adjourned at approximately 11:15 am. Mary Ann Shows capped the meeting off with the distribution of door prizes to the lucky winners |