November 29, 2018

CLIPPERS BASEBALL CLUB MEETING

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Opening:

Clipper Baseball Club meeting was held on Thursday, November 29, 2018 at Tiffin City Hall in Tiffin, IA at 7:02pm.

Club Members Present: Adam Henderson (President), Golda Monohon (Secretary), Nick Pfeiffer (Alternate), and Adam Zupancic (Director of Operations)

Others Present: Laurie Haman (CCA School District Communications Director) and Bryan Monohon (13U Assistant Coach)

 

  • Clipper Logo:
    • Laurie Haman from the CCA school district was in attendance to discuss the Clear Creek Amana school district logo. She stated in the past there were approximately 30 different CCA logos floating around. There was no good art file and some of those logos were not reproducible on some media. The school district decided to design a logo that was uniform across the district and was “beefier” in order to print better on all media. The school district is in the process of drawing up a trademark agreement. Therefore, the baseball club can use the ship or “Clippers” but cannot use CCA on the uniform or on other materials. Removing the “CCA” will help avoid confusion for fundraising and sponsorship purposes. The school board approves the trademark agreements and will approve the baseball club. The school district wants feeder programs such as the baseball club to use the logo but needs to maintain the integrity of the image.
    • Niki Frese was unable to make it to the meeting as a representative of Ironside Apparel. However Mark Ironside has the logo files that can be used for the 2019 baseball club uniforms.
    • Moving forward, the baseball club will remove CCA from the title and will be referred to as Clipper Baseball Club instead. The baseball club board also needs to make sure forms look different than those from the school district.
    • Kari Bullis, wife of Coach Keegan Bullis (9U White), stopped by at 7:16pm. She had arrived at Throttle Down for the meeting, but the meeting location had been moved and that change was not communicated out to everyone in a timely manner. Adam Henderson stated that Coach Jeff Davis (9U White) was invited to the coaches’ meeting in December.
  • Uniform Design:

Nick and Adam Zupancic both provided uniform design examples. The board members present chose a “home” and an “away” jersey design for the 2019 uniforms.

  • Team Insurance:

Teams need to register on the USSSA website in order to get team insurance taken care of. Practice cannot begin without team insurance.

  • Club Membership Dues:

5 players from the 11U team and 2 players from the 13U team still need to pay membership dues.

  • Team Practices:

Coach Trevor Bollers (9U Blue) would like both 9U teams to practice together to keep all players progressing together as one team even though they play separately during the season. The reason/philosophy? The blue and white team rosters might change next year and in the long term those players will play on the same high school team.

  • Fan Store: 

Adam Zupancic did some research with Elite Sports in Williamsburg, IA. It costs approximately $6 for a standard t-shirt and $10-$12 for a soft t-shirt. From there, the club can set the selling price of the shirts and can keep the difference as a fundraiser to the club. Turnaround is approximately 2 weeks. Currently there are 102 players in the club. Elite Sports needs to sell a quantity of 12 of one item before they can print and distribute that item. Therefore, it is more beneficial if the club keeps the Fan Store choices simple so that all sold items can be printed.

  • Clipper Classic:

The Clipper Thunder team would like to play local at the Clipper Classic, but they need the 10U bracket to be open since they are a major team. They stated that they can get other teams to sign up for this bracket to make it worth our while.

Adam Henderson would like to charge $450/team for a 3-game guarantee in the Clipper Classic. For the 10U open bracket, we might charge $499/team.

The 12U Blue team is another bracket to consider. Last year as AAA, they played up an age group in A/AA bracket in the Clipper Classic. We need to decide if a AAA bracket will be created for them or if they will need to play up again. Do we create a AAA bracket if they can bring in 6 teams like the Thunder?

  • Sponsorships:

Last year was the first year the club did not seek out club sponsors, but promoted individual team sponsors instead.   This tends to get confusing when both the individual teams and the club are asking for sponsors. We may consider going back to club sponsorship instead. Adam Zupancic stated that Scheel’s would like to be a club sponsor. Scheel’s flyers and coupons could be made available at the uniform fitting in January. The sponsorship form will need to be updated.

  • Action Items:
  • Adam
    • Meet with Niki Frese to set up uniform designs and uniform fitting schedule
  • Golda
    • Update sponsorship form

Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 8:04pm by Adam Henderson. The next meeting will be Thursday, December 20th at 7pm at Tiffin City Hall in Tiffin, IA.

Minutes submitted by: Golda Monohon, Secretary