Lethbridge Ladies Volleyball League 

2010 AGM MINUTES

Click here 

Lethbridge Ladies Volleyball League

Annual Meeting

May 21, 2009

KPMG Boardroom

Attendance - Executive: Vicki Kambeitz (CPC Attack), Abby Davis (Spring Legs), Janay Hamilton & Jaime Marthaller (Hitting Bricks)

Team Reps: Candy Stang (We Dig Balls), Roxy Pocai (Digging Divas), Debbie Lomer & Laura Miller (Gold Diggers), Jen Buit (2 Blocks Away), Kirsten Fantazir (Fantaztic Learning), Sharon Fletcher (Rox)

1. Financial statements

- Our treasurer, Shauna, has completed the financial statements. We currently have about $650 in our bank account. We will have a few costs over the summer, and we wanted to have a surplus to ensure we can pay all costs prior to collecting next year's fees.

- As a requirement of being a registered society, we have to submit these statements with our Annual Return, and are required to have 2 members sign off on the statements, which Candy and Roxy agreed to do. Our Annual Return was then mailed to Edmonton on Friday, May 22.

2. League expansion/Deposit Required by June 15

- New teams have already expressed interest in entering the league next season. If we can get additional gym time, we would love to expand to 20 teams, so entry into next year's season will be on a first come/first paid basis. Therefore, it is important for existing teams to pay their $50 deposit in order to guarantee a spot for next season. Teams who were not able to pay their deposit at the meeting should send a cheque to

Lethbridge Ladies Volleyball League
c/o Shauna McHargue
334 Lynx Cres N
Lethbridge, AB T1H 6X7

Cheques should be made payable to Lethbridge Ladies Volleyball League. Deadline is June 15, 2009.

- We will be advertising in the Leisure Guide and various businesses/gyms around town. We will create posters once again - we will email to captains once they are made, please help us distribute these around the city. By advertising and word of mouth, we hope to expand our league and build up our spares listing.

3. Starting times

- If we expand to 20 teams, we are hoping to have a 2 time slots at Wilson, however, the first slot would have to begin at 6 PM, the 2nd at 8, as the caretakers have to be paid overtime to stay past 10. This will mean nets will have to be quickly set up and taken down, as we may not have the extra 15 minutes as we had last year. We will then keep the college times of 7 and 9, and Fritz of 9:15.

4. Schedule change

- We are creating a schedule where the league is split into divisions, but the teams in the middle (5 through 12 based on 16 teams) will "cross-over" and play each other, leaving 1 through 4 and 13 through 16 to play each other more often. We will follow the same idea if we get 20 teams. Some teams will play others more, but we feel this will be more competitive for every team. With this change, games might be tighter, so teams will have to make sure they start on time, and have less breaks in between games/matches. Again, have your team bring water bottles, have a quick drink in between games and continue on.

5. Spares list

- We are continuing to collect names for the spares list, and hope to have an evening for captains to come out and meet the spares prior to the start of the season. We feel captains might be more comfortable phoning a spare if they have had a chance to meet them and possibly see them play.

6. Rule changes/Other

- We are implementing a rule change this year - teams will be penalized if they play ANY games with less than 6 players (the score would be 25 – 0, which informs the executive there was a forfeit). We were considering implementing a performance bond, but we have decided against it for this year. Please try harder to have a full team to improve the competitive level of games and allow the spares to play.

- Teams have 10 minutes from the starting time to field 6 players for the first game, 15 minutes (so only 5 additional minutes) from the starting time to field 6 players for the second game. Please note, starting time does not mean when the other court started their match - players should be at the gym before the starting time – matches should begin soon after. This 10/15 minute grace period for forming a full team only applies to the first match of the night. (Remember, we can get into most facilities before our starting time, so please make sure your team is early!)

- Players on rosters must play 2 league nights before they are eligible to play in the year end tournament. Rosters are capped at 15 players due to insurance purposes.

- Spares are not required to play any league nights before being eligible for the year end tournament, however, there will be a freeze on additions to the spares listing 2 weeks before the year end tournament.

- We will continue to keep an updated spares listing on the website, and will also include comments on what level the spares would like to play at. We understand there was some frustration last year with spares not being easy to get a hold of, we suggest phoning the spares rather than emailing if you are a short timeframe, as not everyone checks email daily. If you find a spare never wants to play or never returns phone calls, perhaps advise a member of the executive and we can ask the spare if they still want to be on the list.

- One time out per set is allowed, during league and tournament play. However, as we are on a TIGHT timeframe, please keep any time outs short.

- It was asked if we would consider scheduling other teams to keep score/call lines during the opening and closing tournament. We will consider adding this to the tournament schedules. Teams would have to supply 3 people but we would schedule this duty either immediately before or immediately following matches played.

- We will create Excel worksheet to use when reporting scores to help make it easier to report scores to the statistician. Just a reminder that scores should be reported no later than 24 hours and you should check your email regularly in case the statistician has questions. Stats were sometimes delayed last year due to late emails and no responses to questions.

- We will consider implementing the option of captains nominating a “Player of the Night” by emailing a member of the executive and providing the players name and reason for nomination. Players can be nominated for various reasons, good sportsmanlike, being helpful, making a great play. At the end of each rotation, we will announce the winner(s). We will continue to think about this and decide exactly what we will do, but believe it is a great idea (thanks Jen!) to promote sportsmanship and allow players to get to know each other better.

7. Opening tournament

- We would like to run more games at the opening tournament, perhaps run a round robin and playoffs. However, to do this, we would have to book a larger facility, and we are checking to see if the college is available. However, booking the college may increase fees. At the meeting, there was no opposition to a fee increase? We have not crunched the numbers yet, but do not feel it would be a large increase. Also, if we do get 20 teams, there is no way we could run a tournament at the Fritz, so again, once we crunch numbers, there might have to be an increase. We would much rather have the tournaments run at one gym, even though the college is a bit more expensive, as running at 2 city gyms would be very difficult and running at one location provides a better social aspect.

- We have requested to hold the opening tournament Friday/Saturday, October 2/3.

8. Year end tournament/Year end social

- We would like to run the year end tournament as a double knockout, so again, if we get more teams, we would need a bigger facility. We have requested to hold the tournament Friday/Saturday, March 13/14, however, we may have to push the tournament ahead one week if we need to book the college.

- We would like to host the social again, we believe everyone had a good time. Hopefully teams would donate more door prizes, as the executive collected most of them this past season, and that might not be possible again next year.

9. Comments/concerns

- Team captains should keep their team informed of the new rules and information that is sent out by email. Emails are usually only sent to team captains and alternate captains, so there should be communication down to the team members. Please also make sure your teammates are aware of the website, as that also provides timely information.

- We want to thank team captains and players for their cooperation last year and hope for another great year in 2009/2010. Please continue to contact the executive if you have any concerns or suggestions to make things better.