CLIPPERS BASEBALL CLUB MEETING
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Opening:
Clipper Baseball Club meeting was held on Tuesday, January 16, 2017 at Throttle Down in Tiffin, IA at 6:00pm.
Club Members Present: Adam Henderson (President), Darci Roehler (Director of Operations), Reggie Meade (Treasurer), and Golda Monohon (Secretary)
Sara Morlan arrived at 6:21pm.
Clipper Classic Tournament:
Darci has registered the Clipper Classic Tournament and it is now available on the USSSA website. Adam and Reggie both have started planning out the age groups and field assignments for the tournament. The Quail Ridge field is not available this year for the tournament. The Babe Ruth field is available, but for the last two years this particular field was reserved by the club for the tournament but both years the field was made not available last minute and the club was left scrambling to find a substitute field. The club does not want to reserve the ballfield in Hills, IA this year.
Reggie’s plan: Play 5 games on each field. Games would begin at 8am and the last game of the day would end at 6pm, two-hour increments.
Adam’s plan: Play 4 games on each field.
After talking through the available fields, age groups, etc. Reggie would like to revise his plan further for times and field assignments. An 11U AAA field will be accommodated for the tournament. Darci will be manning the registration table in Tiffin. Golda will be manning the registration table in North Liberty. Darci asked if we could have Bret Breard assign a “head/senior” umpire to answer technical questions at the Tiffin fields. Adam stated that Bret tends to actively make rounds to all the fields himself during the tournament. Sara stated that she had Bret’s cell phone number last year to ask for help when needed during the tournament.
In the past the Clipper Classic has provided a 4-game guarantee to all the teams but it is a logistical nightmare to offer this and set up the tournament brackets through a software app. This year there will no longer be a silver bracket, only a gold bracket. This year the tournament will be a 3-game guarantee instead.
Winter Practices (indoor):
Adam has set up all gym and white building practice times for all the teams except 8U Blue. Trevor Bollers will be setting up gym time for his team instead. Sarah Gaeta from CCA administration will send an invoice to Adam once all the practices are complete. Teams are billed per use so Adam will need to track the usage from each team and calculate how much each team owes the school district for winter practices. The teams have already received their money from the club so Adam will charge the teams for the building usage, then pay the school district.
All coaches have cards to get into the school buildings now. Brian Baxter’s (13U) card has not been working on the white building, but he’s been in contact with Joe Francis to get this fixed. The cards should work 15 minutes prior to the time the coaches have scheduled access.
10U
Practice has begun for the 10U team and the first practice went well. Travis Weber approached Coach Bakker about adding an additional player. After evaluations, the team had 12 players but 2 have since left the team and currently there are only 10 players on the roster. All parents and Coach Bakker seemed supportive to add an additional player; unfortunately, this age group cut a player after evaluations. According to the information flyer that the club handed out at evaluations, all players must be present at evaluations. The teams are chosen by the coaches, but players that are present at the evaluation should be given priority when building the roster.
Reggie suggested that for teams needing to add additional players now, the coach could invite a couple players to a closed evaluation session.
14U:
Sara now has 14U registered in the state of Iowa. Reggie will get the insurance set up. Xander Rogers was sick at the time of uniform fittings but the family is planning on visiting Ironside in Cedar Rapids to get this taken care of. Xander is the last player the club and Ironside are waiting for to submit the order for uniforms. Reggie will contact Niki at Ironside to discuss options if more players are added to a roster later. For the current order, there is a 5-week turnaround time for jerseys.
Sponsorships:
Reggie suggested that for the 2019 season, a sponsorship committee should be formed to create the best and most efficient way to approach sponsors for donations. Fundraising has become decentralized within the club and currently there are more teams going above and beyond the contributions of the club to collect donations for their team. By centralizing fundraising again, the committee and the treasurer could set up proper filing of funds through the club and proper reporting on the tax return. Reggie would like to draft an email to the coaches explaining the club’s plan regarding sponsors in the future. Meanwhile this idea of a sponsorship committee should be included in a club email reminder to introduce families to the idea and ask for volunteers in forming the committee.
Team Photos:
Darci will contact Katie Schmelzer to set up team pictures and ask when we have set these up in past years. Katie’s prices are extremely reasonable and the club would like to ask her to continue to provide photos. Team pictures are usually done early in order to get banners printed in time for the first set of tournaments. The board discussed the possibility of taking pictures at a location other than the Tiffin fields, such as Velocity Farm. Velocity Farm opens on January 20th in North Liberty.
Spring Practices (outdoor):
Jonas Zimmerman will host a meeting with the coaches soon to set up outdoor practice times. The head coaches, Jonas and Adam will be present. The meeting has been scheduled for February 20th and will be either at City Hall in Tiffin or at the CCA High School library. Adam will send an email to Jonas to get this set up.
Tiffin Fields:
Adam would like to schedule more games on Wednesdays at the Tiffin fields this year in order to get more concession stand availability. Last year the concession stand was not open during the week and this disappointed many busy families when games were right after work. If the concession stand will not be available for Wednesday evening games, then Adam would like to attend a city council meeting to set up a food truck for families to be able to eat.
League Games:
11U Blue (AAA) will be doing the PST league this year. Many teams will be participating in the Eastern Iowa league since it is free to teams. Coaches will be meeting on a Wednesday in February in Mount Vernon to set up the game schedules for the spring.
Team Accounts:
All teams have accounts set up except 10U and 13U. Adam has been coordinating with Gabe Bakker and Brian Baxter. Currently the money for those two teams is in Adam’s personal account until their tournament fees, umpire fees, etc. are all paid for. Reggie suggested that next year team money will only be dispersed to teams with team bank accounts already set up. Reggie does not recommend leaving team money in personal accounts.
Equipment:
14U would like to get new catcher’s gear. Specifically, they need a new chest protector and catcher’s glove.
CCA Softball:
Tim Heisdorffer (10U Baseball) has approached Golda and asked if CCA Softball could coordinate with the baseball club to use the tax ID in order to apply for donations from Wal-Mart. A merge or cooperation between the softball and baseball teams has been brought up before a couple years ago. Reggie voiced his concern about existing funds that the baseball club has and sharing those funds with the softball teams. He did suggest that it may be possible for the two clubs to coordinate to keep everything separate, but file jointly on the tax return. Darci stated that the club should consider the worst-case scenario that someone on the softball side could embezzle money and that would be tied to the tax ID of the baseball club. Not that this would happen, but the club should still consider the worst-case scenario and how the baseball club should be prepared for such a situation. Other questions that came up:
- How many teams are currently with CCA Softball?
- Will CCA Softball continue to grow into their own club?
CCA Baseball Club would like to assist CCA Softball if the vision is to continue to develop the softball teams into a club and support the community. The board would like a representative from CCA Softball to come to the next CCABC board meeting to openly explain the proposal from Tim Heisdorffer regarding using the CCABC tax ID and discuss long-term plans for the CCA Softball teams.
Action Items:
- Darci
- Contact Katie Schmelzer to set up team photos
- Adam
- Email coaches and Jonas Zimmerman to schedule spring practice meeting
- Reggie
- Map out teams, schedules and fields for the Clipper Classic Tournament
- Draft email to coaches explaining the Sponsorship Committee for 2019 and the current plans for the 2018 season
- Golda
- Send email before Sunday to Coach Bakker and Travis & Kelly Weber regarding protocol for adding an additional player to the 10U roster
- Send email to Schneider family before Sunday explaining an additional player cannot be added to the 13U roster at this time
- Send general reminder email to the entire club (club dues, fundraiser and sponsorship committee)
- Invite Tim Heisdorffer or CCA softball representative to the next CCABC board meeting
Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at 8:11pm by Adam Henderson. The next meeting will be Monday, February 19th at Grace United Methodist Church in Tiffin, IA.
Minutes submitted by: Golda Monohon, Secretary