BOARD MEETING MINUTES 

October 8, 2002

Meeting was called to order at7:13pm by Cyndi Ward, President. Members in attendance were Kathy Sander, Todd Schroeder, Teresa Warren, Susan Decker, Teresa Sykes, Lisa Soltow, Ronnie Mallard, Bill Ward, Glory White and Robin Ball. Also present were Miranda Decker our player advocate, Bill Siler the District 5 secretary and Patty Nagy the District 5 President. A mistake was made in the minutes.  The name of the returning Board Member is Ted Connor not Ted Sanders. The minutes were approved with the one change..

Treasurer's Report:

• The $5,000 bond matures in October and we voted and approved to have it moved to BB&T when it matures.
• We voted and approved moving the checkbook back to BB&T.
• The Treasurer will have the check book at each meeting and we are all welcome to look at it and ask questions.
• There will be no cash transactions this year.  Each check written will be approved by Cyndi and Lisa.
• Lisa asked what should be done with the outstanding checks.  The board voted and approved that Cyndi and Lisa will contact the people.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

• Sponsors: 
  • No report
• Schedules: 
  • No report
• Fundraising:
  • No report.
• Equipment: 
  • No report.  
• Player Agent:
  • No report
• Uniforms: 
  • No report
• Concessions: 
  • No report
• Public Relations:
  • No report
• Managers: 
  • No report.
• Grounds: 
  • No report.
• Umpires: 
  • No report
• Disciplinary: 
  • No report.
• Fall Ball
  • Our last Fall Ball game will be in New Bern on November 2nd.  We are not getting the turn out we had expected and the majority of the 10U parents do not want to travel.  This puts a burden on the families that have 10U and 16U because one child is in New Bern and the other is off somewhere else.

OLD BUSINESS:

• None

NEW BUSINESS:

• We need to consider a separate budget for Fall Ball next year.  If we want do to the thing right with uniforms and more commitment we will need some money.  Cyndi has some letters for us to give to Civitian, Rotary, Knights of Columbus, etc.  
• Patty spoke on the following issues:
  • We need more inter-league play in the spring.  This gives our girls a look at other teams and may help in the Divisional All Star games.
  • Our new State Babe Ruth Commissioner is Jessie Whitley
  • October 17th she will be in the National Headquarters of Babe Ruth so if we have anything that we think should be brought up, let her know.
  • Pamlico should be in our district but the lines were redrawn so they are now not.  This is one thing she will be discussing in Trenton.
  • She urged us to move toward a more simple draft.  Not to allow four girls to be protected because it can lead to stacked teams. We need to think about protecting only the Manager's daughter.
  • We have to charter 4 teams in each age division to make a valid league.  We can apply for a wavier but we will have to participate in inter-locking play.
• A team from Pamlico County has asked if they can bring in an 8 and under team.  We will decide before the draft.
• New Bern Sporting Goods has the New Bern Babe Ruth red shirts that the board members are urged to purchase.  The cost if $24.
• Teresa Sykes learned at a District meeting that any and all complaints about the league need to be filtered through her.  Her job is to investigate the complaint and report the findings.
• The disciplinary committee will consist of the Officers and the Player Agent.
• Coaches will be asked to sign a Code of Conduct contract at the beginning of every year.
• The coaches will need to apply for the positions and we would like each Manager to be NYSCA certified. It is only a 4 hour class and  a $25 yearly fee.  For that fee, each manager is covered by a $2 million insurance policy.  Cyndi will setup up the class.
• Cyndi will also setup a class for us to get Babe Ruth umpire certified.
• We established a Constitution/By-Laws committee to revise them and make them easier to follow.  Bill, Todd and Robin will be the first member with Bill being the committee chair.  Bill will call Todd and Robin to arrange a meeting.  We will have to submit our constitution to Babe Ruth for approval.
• We need to work with the High School coaches to get girls from their schools into Babe Ruth.
• We started discussion about the District Tournament.  Susan Decker volunteered to work on the committee and Cyndi will be the Tournament Director.  She stressed that it will take all of us to pull it off.
• Travel teams in our area are draining the league participation.  When we start thinking about scheduling for Spring, we need to consider not playing on weekends.
• Patty wants to have a couple of weekends where we travel as a whole league to play inter-league with some one in our district.
• The District Tournament is set for June 18th through the 22nd.
• Every team will play on opening day.
• Each coach is going to be asked to keep a log of practices attended by each girl.  Practice time counts toward playing time.  
• The YMCA has asked to join our league and bring in full teams.  Some discussion surrounded the possibility of having them pay the insurance and letting them play or just have scrimmage games.  More later.
• Cyndi would like us to consider hosting a sleep over at the fields.  Try one age group a weekend.  Let the girls come and sleep under the stars, play games, pop popcorn, just have fun.  We tabled the discussion until the weather turns nicer.
• We had been named in a law suit by some one that got hurt two years ago at a tournament in Wilson.  We were not involved in hosting that event and our name should never have been put on the list.  We have been removed.
• The next District meeting will be October 28th in the Newport Middle School cafeteria at 6:30pm.
• The next meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, November 12th at 6:30pm at Temple Baptist in the Gym.
• There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

                Robin Ball, League Secretary