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Minutes from the August 25th Meeting August 25th 10:00 a.m. Vestavia Country Club Welcome Lacy Sparks opened the meeting at 10 am with the introduction of the new club reps and level coordinators present. 22 people were in attendance. New club reps present were: Sullins Phellen 5.0 coordinator New club rep for Highland Racquet- Deb Standifer Annemarie Wilson, secretary, took roll call with all club representatives present except for Greystone CC. Vicki Marty of the LITL was the first guest speaker and handed out informational fliers for the Susan Briggs Memorial Tournament to be held October 5-9. Three years ago, Susan Briggs the founder and past president of LITL, died after a battle with cancer. Ann Getwan and other LITL officers created the tournament in her honor. Vicki thanked Lacy and the Women’s Soft court league for scheduling a BYE the week of the tournament. Vicki extended an invite for all to participate in the tournament to be held at Highland Racquet. Play days are Monday and Tuesday, but you will be done in time for school carpool. Deb Standifer and Betty Austin, both previous directors of tournament were also present. Wednesday morning is the finals day, Thursday and Friday are rain days. The money raised at this tournament will go towards college scholarships for deserving youth in our area. Participants are asked to make checks out to LITL for tournament fees. USTA, LITL or soft court ratings will determine seeding. The more who sign up the more even the levels will be. Great player gifts, early sign up gives you choice of color and size of a polar fleece jacket! Each club rep is being asked to solicit donations for door prizes. Johnnie Wolf was our next speaker representing The Fallen Heros Golf and Tennis tournament. Greystone CC, Inverness and Greystone Y already have forms. Johnnie distributed entry forms to the rest of the club reps present. Greystone CC sponsors this tournament with money raised going to military personnel and their families. This is a mixed doubles tournament, where both men and women can compete on teams. The Tournament is run by the Greystone Outreach Foundation which is a tax deductable charity, which makes your entry fees tax deductable. The tournament is a one day golf and tennis tournament which will be held Friday, September 11th. Unfortunately, the soft court league was unable to schedule a BYE for that date, so the 2.5 level teams will be affected. Soft court was able to schedule a BYE for the one Greystone 2.5 team, and the other 2.5 team will be playing away that day. Again USTA ratings will be used in seeding and all efforts will be made to keep players with their levels. American Family has made donations with gift bags to the players (a $20.00 value). Edgars has sponsored the luncheon included with your registration, and there will be a silent auction and military fly over. 24 teams are needed and is the maximum of number of teams allowed. Sign up with a partner ,fees are $40.00 per person. Men are encouraged to sign up as well. The website is for the golf side of the tournament, however if you have questions you can call the Greystone tennis pro shop for more info. Mail your check and entry form prior to the tournament. There is no rain date, but money will be refunded in the event of rain. You can also bill your club member number. Mary Ann Showes gave the treasurer report. As of today our beginning balance was $12,691.20 with deposits of $10,320.00. Our expenses totaled $6413.92 which covered $30.00 for gift wrap, $4548.35 for Fall gifts, $1500.00 for the LETT donation, $210.00 for web site maintenance and $125.57 for the February meeting. Currently our balance is $16597.28.Outstanding expenses not yet paid for include $5566.34 for rule booklets, $5426.15 for spring gifts. Estimated income for Fall dues is $10,000. Because of eliminating directories we saved approximately $3000.00 in printing expenses. Mary Ann then handed out Fall winner and runner-up prizes, Mountainbrook YMCA was the big winner with the most teams winning their divisions. Because of the large quantity and car space restrictions, their gifts will be delivered to the pro shop. 1st place prizes were a “freezie” pack and a medicine kit and a bag tag. Mary Ann also thanked the level coordinators and their thank you gifts were handed out as well. Club reps, who never seem to get noticed for their hard work and attendance were allowed to select gifts left over from previous years, as a thank you from the league. Mary Ann also handed out door prizes to the reps who had birthdays in the months she called out. Christine Denniston gave the scheduling report. Spring schedules were final and posted to the web site last Friday. Overall the process went very smoothly ,one little hick up, was with Labor day being so late, 3.0 teams will run later into the season. The 3.0 teams will play their last matches, if all goes well, on Nov 16th with their matches being 9 week schedule. Teams that have longer schedules do not need to delay their make- up matches if at all possible. The 2.5 level also runs later into the season this year. Also of special note, concerning the 5.3 level; Teams that have Anniston as a host team, marked with an asterix, will have snacks and balls supplied by Anniston, even though Anniston is not on their home courts. Inverness teams were in originally in the wrong division, but have been corrected in the 5.o division, so be sure to recheck the computer. Lacy gave the recap of 2008 Fall season: The 5.0 A division was split up into three divisions. The A division which was the stronger division , had eight teams, however, with the exit of Anniston it is now left with 7 teams. The remaining teams are encouraged to hang on for a season to allow for things to level out again. Most teams very pleased with level of competition, next season will be assessed . The B and C divisions are more equal. Stronger teams from A may move down to B or C. Just as a lower level team may move up to the A level. Bernadine addressed the group with 2.5 concerns. Of first issue, was the conflict of USTA combo players going to state at the same time as soft court league matches. As Lacy explained, with 130 teams and 1400 women playing, it is sometimes difficult to reschedule matches when only one club has a conflict. Lacy encouraged coordinators and team captains to try, and work it out. Try to be flexible and cooperative with the other team if a conflict arises. The Tri level state tournament is Sept. 24th and the combo tournament is Nov 6th. Friday play dates are usually most affected. Most teams have enough people to get subs. Bernadine has also encouraged not to tack on a make- up the end, consider October 9th as a viable date for make- up, play sooner than later. Consecutive team wins were not an issue this past season. Regarding move ups from Spring, copies of names were handed out. Lacy asked that the level coordinators please look at them.If a player remains at their level they must play first court. They forfeit their sets if they do not follow the rules. Kristy Tolbert of AVCC had a question concerning the 75% rule. 75 % matches is determined by the number of total matches played and won vs. total number available to be played. So a player must have played at least 5 or 6 matches and won 85% out of 8 possible match play dates . Anyone can move up anytime. Sometimes is a player can’t play on a given day, they may work the system not make any stats so they can stay on a more convenient day. Darla not on the move up according stats, Lacy is checking into this. Lacy opened the floor for discussion, regarding requests for move downs. The question on the floor was if a player requests a move down and then makes stats for that season at 1st court, are they allowed to stay at that level for another season? One opinion from the floor was that they should move up, while another opinion was to let them stay at first court for a second season. Betty Austin of Pelham RC felt they should move up. The problem posed to the floor is that not all clubs have higher level teams to move up to. Since soft court requires membership in a club to play, there would be limited opportunities for higher level players to compete without a team to move up to. Lacy put the question to a general vote with the following verbiage: If a player is granted a move down to first court of a lower level and makes her stats that season, should she be forced to move back up to a higher level? (11 to seven the vote passed that Yes she should be forced to move up after 1 season.) This will take effect in January. The 5.3 level is unaffected by this rule since 5.3 has nowhere to move up, and there is no sitting out a season. Question posed was how many 5.3 teams are there? (answer 9). If you are 5.0 USTA player you must play 1st court on 5.3 level. Lacy referred to the LETT letter in our packets. Lacy read the letter to the club delegates. Kristin Adams came and spoke to the club delegates at our February meeting. Women’s soft court donated $1500 to program, and the letter was a thank you from Kristin for the donation, and update on expenses. Tennis lessons were funded for students ages 7-18 on Saturdays at Mountainbrook Brook Swim and Tennis. One student won a tournament from a LETT contest and will be going to US Open. Equipment was also purchased and loaned to various Birmingham schools for PE instruction. Money also funded a tournament at the arena at Fairpark, Jonesboro elementary won the challenge and tournament. By going paperless we have more money to donate to the community. Mary Ann Showes suggested another donation to LETT and the vote passed unanimously to donate more funds from Soft court. The LETT organization will be hosting a Round Robin tournament on Sept 13th. The cost is $60.00 per team to participate and will also feature a silent auction. Lacy handed out sign up forms. Rule Books, made smaller this season for putting in tennis bags, were handed out to club reps. Soft court is optimistic that you will refer to these books and save time not having to call officers or coordinators with your questions. Rules were also reworded in efforts to make them easier to understand. Maps were not done since this information is available on the website. Names were also not included because they change so often. Bold face type was used to make it easy to locate specific questions and rules. All books are in boxes for club reps to take back to clubs. Ten extras were included for pros and new members. One rule change, the executive board decided on was cell phone usage. Soft court understands that most of us have children and need to be accessible, rather than have cell phones completely off, Cell Phones must only be silenced. Failure to do so results in loss of the game in progress, or next game. You can still look at it during change overs. Lacy then went on to clarify the difference between a default and a forfeit. A Forfeit must come from bottom court up. If the lineup has been exchanged and a player is not coming, you must indicate changes from the bottom up, Forfeits and weather are the only reason for line up changes. A Default is when someone is injured when play has already begun, if a player is unable to resume the match after a 5 minute grace period, the player must then default the rest of the singles match The score would be recorded 6-3/6-0 to the opponent. If she defaults singles, but can play doubles she can continue play, if she cannot start the doubles match then the 4th court must forfeit the sets, and the other players must move up the ladder of play. You cannot fill in people’s names after the lineup has been exchanged. For example if half of 2 doubles court is injured, the other 2nd court partner is out of luck, you cannot bring one third court player up to sub on court two after a lineup has been exchanged. Opponents on the 4th court do not get to play either. However in theory, the injured player only has to play one point to count as the match in play so as not to mess up the other line ups. The primary rule is that lineup cannot be changed after exchanged. Default at singles becomes a forfeit in doubles if player is unable to continue. Bernadine requested club reps take their rule books back to their clubs and make it their personal goal to hand them out to all of their captains! Match day helpers are available to help answer questions and level coordinators phone numbers are also available on a handout for game day questions. Tricia Golden had a correction to her email address which is: TriciaWGolden@gmail.com . 567-3148 is her cell phone For clarification, our Tie break will not be changed to the new USTA Koman tie break format. There was some confusion regarding winner determination, eventually going toleast total games lost. The web site shows both games won and games lost, which is misleading when level competition is getting close between teams, USTA is also the same way. The winner is determined first by number of matches won, then number of overall sets won, if that is still tied between teams then the winner is determined by least amount of games lost. It was suggested that to alleviate confusion by changing website viewing of games lost only since that is the criteria for overall team winning their division. Lacy was sorry that website is not very user friendly, and that the site admin is in Florida, but that she would try to look into this and get it corrected. Peaking of lack of user friendliness, Betty from PRC has a lot of new players need Id numbers, however you need IDs to find players. Coordinator adds a new player ID number assigned. Club reps needs to have a list of everyone’s name with their id numbers. They can use team captain’s log in number to log in. View team, web address has the team id in the URL You can pull up a player name view details in the URL, the player number will be displayed in the URL as well. Lacy would like to see the ability for a person to log in with their name and their own password. Lacy will try and change the site to make it easier to navigate for the players and captains. Finally, the issue of level jumping was addressed. This occurs when a club allows a player to jump up multiple levels to perhaps complete a team. The player may have had a decent season, but will then request a multiple level move down the following season. There was discussion on this, with the point being made that it becomes hard to rationalize what level a player should really be playing. Since this is difficult for soft court to regulate, the club tennis pro and individual player should be accountable for these moves. Club reps are strongly urged to watch this and that the ethics committee may not be as gracious to allow future move downs as readily as done in the past. Each club has its own set of rules that soft court has no authority over, however, soft court does rely on their honesty and good judgment regarding these requests. With the conclusion of our business discussion, Lacy adjourned the meeting at 11:20am. |