Board meeting minutes for 10/7/2019

In attendance were Joyce Noland,  Linda Blake, Diane Voss, Mo Garcia, George Carr, Ron Nelson, Rob Bromley, Pat Smith, Bebe Murphy, Marian Garcia, Stephanie Wolfe, Nelson Swartzentruber, Chuck Buchanan Grace Vance, Jeff Beckner, Mike Beckner, Dick Diemar and Marissa Evans.

Joyce called the meeting to order, and introduced Jeff Beckner to talk about the Palmetto Doubles Tournament.

2020 Palmetto Doubles Tournament

• 2019 Tournament was great. We had 300+ matches. It was a huge success and we appreciate all the volunteers for the event. Hope for the same participation for next year.
• We got $5,000 in sponsors.
• Chuck Buchanan added a great voice to the announcing and hoping to have him again next year.
• Jeff has talked to Michelle about 2020 Palmetto Tournament and she will do the same with the publicity as she did with this year. Looking forward to another success next year.  Jeff will be back next year.

 Gregg Park Round Robin

• Next Round Robin (RR) will be on October 26th.
• We have a good sign up rate but we need more men to sign up at all levels. Sign up deadline is Sept 21st. Ron gave a detailed listing of how many openings we have in each category and asked everyone to encourage people to sign up.  We are competing against the Fall Steeplechase on this date. Joyce second Ron by saying “Please spread the word”.

Round Robin Director

• We are happy to have Bebe Murphy as the new Round Robin Director. Linda added that we are very thankful to Bebe for a fabulous job on the posters and bulletin board.

Super Senior Round Robin

• OW has agreed to January 18th from 9am – 5pm.
• We have chosen OW because we feel that it is more centrally located and will encourage better attendance.
• For this RR we will have 2.5 and 3.0 level players involved and participating. Joyce said it was good to have 2.5 level available so more players feel comfortable at playing. There will also be a 3.5 division.
• Age for the RR is 65 plus.
• The format will be decided after the Gregg Park RR but Joyce said we are ahead of the game organizing this one since we already have location and date.

Calling 911

• When an emergency arises, the procedure calls for informing the front desk first and then they call 911. But in case of a serious emergency, minutes are very important, so it was the thought at the meeting that if an  medical emergency happens on the court do both: One person goes notify the front desk immediately and another calls 911 unless the “patient” asks not to call 911.

• Diane said it was a good idea to bring this up at a social because in medical emergencies, seconds are critical. She also added to be aware of the fact that people with a heart attack go into denial.
• Mike asked what the good Samaritan laws are in SC.  In SC, the people who help are not liable so encourage people to help in an emergency situation.

Committee Changes

• Before announcing the changes, Joyce thanked everyone that had served on a job well done. We appreciate the time and hard work that the volunteers put into their jobs.
• 3.5 and lower rating, Diane Voss is leaving the rating committee.  Ron Nelson will head the committee.
• 4.0+ rating, Grace Vance will be a backup to Mo in rating at this level.  Tony Quick has resigned his position.
• Mo added that if people are not available to rate, we have a backup plan with temporary ratings from the player reps.
•  Barbara Burns is stepping down as head of the Social committee and Pat Smith has agreed to step in and become our new Social committee chair.

Treasurer's Report

• Contributions from players are at $950
• The raffle at the social brought an income of $300. Our new balance is $446 and we have a couple more expenses to come out this year including the $150 for website and domain name.
• We also still have money coming in from Little Mo's supervised drills.

Minimum length of time for court usage on reservation.

• Someone wanted to reserve a court just for 1 hr. Is this a possibility? They stated in the comments of the reservations that they wanted to play just from 2:30pm to 3:30pm instead of the slot allowed time of 1 to 3:30pm. The rule on court reservation is that the people who sign up for a court must be able to use the court the majority of the time.

• After some discussion, the decision that was reached is that people who sign up for a reserved court should be there at the beginning of the reserved period. If they choose to leave early, they must take down the net unless there are people waiting to play in the court after they leave.
• When in doubt, take the net down.
• Some further discussion took place about people leaving the nets up after morning play or reservation. Please be responsible and take them down after play. And if you see people leaving and they don't take the net down, politely ask them to please do so.

First Presbyterian

• Monday nights from 6-9pm. 2 courts available.
• We have had poor attendance for this availability and want to remind everyone that our nighttime at OW and at Gregg Park will be greatly diminished during basketball season in the late fall and winter.  We have in combined Oct and Nov only 3 night sessions at OW.
• We have made arrangements with First Presbyterian and they have been very accommodating, but we need to take advantage of the opportunity or we will lose it. Please encourage players to come and sign up for night-time play on Mondays.
• Mo said that sometimes new times and places take time to get traction. In this case, we have had two Mondays, one with 5 players and the second one had to be canceled due to lack of sign ups. We understand that the weather is beautiful, great for night play outdoors but as Grace said it is “use it or lose it”.
• Ron made an additional comment about the need for better barriers between courts. Mo will look into it.
• Grace and Mo also proposed that Monday night could be used for lessons and clinics for people who work and cannot attend regularly scheduled lessons and clinics. This would help slow attendance at Monday night play. Joyce said it is something to consider but we definitely do not want to take the court time away from players.

Contacting players in your group

• Joyce encouraged the new player reps to send an email to your players introducing yourself. She also asked that they help clear out the list of active players and let Nelson Spitnale know if any of the active players needs to be moved to the general list.
• Stephanie asked about Temp ratings and if they showed up by the players and if the expiration date showed. Joyce said they did and if they do not show an expiration date it is 3 months after the initial temp rating was issued.
• The subject of non-compliance was brought up. The players that are not compliant with our play rules can be addressed by the reps and if they are unable to resolve the issues, involve Rasheka with court designation compliance.
• Stephanie asked why the pictures of the player reps were removed from the bulletin and Bebe said it was for two reasons: lack of space and for safety for the player reps. Nelson added that sometimes face recognition is a good thing for new players.
• Additional discussion about the benefits of rating during court designation took place. If players don't want to be rated it is okay provided they play during court reservation times but if a player wants to play during court designation, he or she must be rated and follow the rules to be fair to the other players.
• There was additional lengthy discussion regarding players that play “out of level”. This is an issue both during designated play and also during RR and tournament play. Players who play down are at risk of endangering lower skill level players and playing up from your level is unfair to better players. This is a recurring problem especially during competitive play. Grace suggested we keep a list of players that have a reputation for playing “out of level” so we can keep an eye for abuses during our RR and tournaments. And Joyce added, if you know someone is doing this, bring it to the attention of the organizers.

Future of Little Mo

• Little Mo drills have been extremely successful. Every single one has been full and the initial concern regarding not getting your money's worth is no longer a concern. Players who have taken part of them agreed that is is very helpful.

• The Little Mo drills will be stopped due to court availability during the late fall and will resume after basketball season in March.
• The classes will be reintroduced at a more fair price of $10 for 1 hour up to 8 participants and Little Grace may be introduced at the same time.

Additional teaching professional

• Mo let us know that due to academic issues, Eric has backed out. And Caitlin and Perry have also backed out due to scheduling conflicts. We are still looking for additional pros.
• Mo also said that this is not an immediate need. It would be nice to have the additional help but as of right now all lessons and clinics need are being covered by Grace and himself. But, if the situation changes, the need will be addressed.

Houndslake Recap from Chuck Buchanan

• Chuck said it went well. That there were about 70 people in attendance. They seemed to enjoy the demo.
• Chuck said that additional teaching time is scheduled for Thursday 9 to 11am specifically to help beginners
• Houndslake donated two prizes that could be raffled off at our next social.

Input from player reps and other discussion

•  Stephanie brought up an interesting point. When she renewed her membership at OW, she was given a special rate for out of town seniors. So, if you are 50+ ask when you renew your membership.
• Joyce asked if we have too many socials and round robins, since attendance is down. One explanation for the low attendance to the Gregg Park RR is because it is at the same day as the Fall Steeplechase.
• One of the schools in Aiken county is introducing Pickleball as a PE option. We are very excited to see how this develops.
• Mo said that Virginia Acres courts are expanding and revamping the existing facilities. In the next few weeks there will be discussion on the future and the possibility of additional pickleball courts being added to the facility.
• There was a mention of too many emails, and maybe the length of them. We value your input. Please let us know. Every e-mail that is send out contains directions on how to unsubscribe.  If anyone does not want to receive more e-mails, please use this option.  There are two lists; therefore it is necessary to unsubscribe to both of them   One of them comes from “Joyce Noland” and the other from “Aiken Pickleball”.

Next Meeting will be Monday, Nov 4th, 2019 at Odell Weeks.