AYSO - Lake Tahoe
Jeff:

I appreciate your concerns, frustrations, and your recent ideas about increasing volunteerism.

There was, and we hope there will continue to be, a "best team tournament" at the end of last season. This tournament asked regions to nominate their "best team" from the regular season to play other such teams. This was not All-Stars - had to be a regular AYSO season team with no guests.

The question arose at the time of what constitutes a "best" team. As I said at the time, that is a regional decision. Region X might say that their best team is the team that had the most volunteer hours. Region Y might choose the team with the best record.

We took a middle course: best record PLUS no complaints PLUS met the minimum volunteer standard. Was it perfect? No! But, it was something we could put out to the teams right away: meet your requirements, keep off the bad list, and play hard if you wish to play for the region in the tournament.

The tournament was REALLY fun. We ended up with 4 teams in each division, which worked great: each team played the other 3 in short games. Two teams that I know of went on to the Section Tournament in December. Both coaches said the Section Tournament was a high point in their coaching careers, and the kids loved it.

Carson City is far, far, from perfect on the volunteering side. Some of our ideas for increasing volunteerism are to be explicit about the jobs that need to be done. For instance, we are going to try having volunteer duties that are completely explicit at registration. Here is an example that would be printed on the top and bottom of a sheet of paper:

Start of Season Field Setup - U6/U8
Description: Assist others with setting up U6 and U8 portable goals on fields 7. 8. 9. Snap goals together, fasten nets with velcro fasteners, stake goals in to ground.
Skills Required: None
Time: 2 to 3 hours
Date: Sunday August 23
Time: 9 am
Location: Edmonds, south fields
Contact: Tom Price, Field Coordinator, 888-1234 (h)
Other notes: Older kids make good helpers and are welcome to join in


The parent gets the top half with all of this, we get the bottom half with the parent name, contact info, etc. Since it takes about 8 people to get this task done in 2 hours, we print up 8 of these sheets. The volunteer gets a piece of paper for their refrigerator,and we get a committed date/time/location and name. The activity coordinator can call and remind them.

We have found that the "here is a piece of paper with volunteer jobs, check what you can do" solves no problems for us. We never get around to arranging schedules for these folks, and they just feel vaguely dissatisfied about the whole thing. They wanted to help but no one showed them how to be helpful.

Anyway, your ideas are appreciated. Let's keep the discussions going with the boards and regional staffs, and everyone else.

Feel free to circulate all or part of this.

Eric

AYSO - Lake Tahoe
Jeff

You are correct.

My comments about a process were intended to apply to how we pick teams to represent us at the area tournament (not all-stars or our region's end of season tournament). My understanding is that the team that wins our region's end of season tournament represents us at the area tournament. My suggestions would apply to that selection process.

Sorry for the confusion.

harold

AYSO - Lake Tahoe
Hello everyone again, Just to clairify my recommendations are ment for the area tournament which was started last season, these recommendations are not ment for Allstars or our region 282 end of the season tournament. I am happy with the way those are structured, although if someone had some ideas for changing the format for those tournaments I would be happy to listen. Harold I hope that I did not misrepresent our conversation after the last board meeting, but I may have misunderstood a few small details and I apologize. Essentially, I think we are on the same page! Thanks again, Jeff Babbitt

AYSO - Lake Tahoe
Jeff

Great job.

I will miss the Mar 7 Bd meeting so these are my thoughts.

I agree with all your recommendations with the exception of the criteria for All-Stars. My feeling is the Bd should set a minimum number of volunteer hours for each team to provide CERTIFIED referees during the season (say 1.5 times the number of games per season + additional time for end of season tournament) and then the team that wins the end of season tournament goes to All-stars if they have contributed the minimum even if another team contributed more. If the team that wins the end of season tournament did not contribute the minimum number of hours than you select the next best team that did. Probability - no team meets the minimum number of hours (select the team with the highest number of hours).

harold

AYSO - Lake Tahoe

Hello everyone, This email is in reguards to trying to establish a reward system for parent volunteer time to help boost volunteerism throughout AYSO and to bring our region in line with Carson City. As discussed at February's board meeting I was going to try to put together some ideas for rewarding volunteer hours with being able to play in the area tournament, this tournament is in addition to our end of season tournament and allstars. The stumbling block to this format will be in fairly and accurately keeping track of the volunteer hours. We would need to create another board position with many assistants to accurately keep track of the hours. I think everyone will have plenty on their respective plates without the additional burden! So I think a very streamlined version will be nessasary. While talking to Harold Singer after the last board meeting he mentioned the need for referees and possibly rewarding ref hours double that of other volunteer hours. I agree with Harold and see the ref shortage as one of our region's top concerns. With that in mind I propose for our first year(we can expand later) we reward ref hours only and keep track of the hours with the game cards. Game cards signed by the coaches and the refs - easily verified. If someone wanted to cheat and stuff the box it would be easy to recognize when 200 game cards showed up and only 100 games were played. The challenge with this format will be collecting the game cards and not letting them sit in the field boxes. If we keep with one of the ideas mentioned at the last board meeting of increasing the attendance of board members at the fields it could be a board member who collects the game cards for that day. Or are we eligable for bulk rate postage? Print new game cards with pre paid postage. You don't mail it in you don't get credit. Secondly, so your team provides the most referee hours what do you get? Once again Harold had a good workable Idea... The referee hours are added up for each team and applied to the standings of our end of the season tournament, which means if the first place team has less referee hours volunteered then the second place team, the second place team gets to advace to the area tournament, so on and so forth. I would personally lean towards a straight up volunteer based system. If your team provides the most referee hours they go to the area tournament. Our region rewards the best team play at the season ending tournament, our area rewards the best individual play with an allstar tournament. We have select soccer in the spring for the more talented and determined. Why not use volunteerism as the paradigm for the area tournament? I emailed Eric Ingbar twice and did not recieve a reply so I did not get any input from Carson City. I think we will need input from the entire area to make this work best. If one region sends a team based on volunteer hours and another sends a team for it's first place finish in league or tournament this has the potential to be very unbalanced. This needs to be worked out at an area meeting. I will not be able to attend the 03/07/06 board meeting so please discuss the preposed ideas and feel free to add or delete, the more input from the board the better! I'll read about it in the minutes... Or if anyone would like to discuss the matter please feel free to blog this and start some communication about this. Thanks, Jeff Babbitt