Minutes of the Verona Area Soccer Club Monthly Meeting - January 28, 2002

Present: Scott Clement, Andy Slawek, Paul Anjeski, Herb Delehanty, Jim Kramer, Mary Buckman, Brenda Schmidt, and Jeff Petersen

Also present were representatives of Big Toe Sports, Dan Nuthals and Chris Lay.

Andy Slawek, who will be replacing Herb Delehanty as Coaching Director in the Club, was introduced. Andy is a life-long Madison area resident who played 4 years on Madison East's varsity team. He served as Assistant Varsity and Head Junior Varsity coach for four years at East. He also played two years on division champion MATC teams, and has been involved over the last five years coaching youth soccer for Nomads and Regent soccer clubs.

Big Toe Sports reps gave a presentation to the Board regarding the possibility of winning the VASC uniform and equipment business. They distributed proto-types of brochures that could serve as order forms for teams. After discussing various aspects of their business plans and the needs of the club, the Board voted to accept Big Toe as the Club's vendor. Scott Clement will be the contact between VASC and Big Toe.

Alliance Report. Mary Buckman reported on the efforts being made to affect a merger between the two biggest West Madison competitive clubs (Yahara and 56ers). There has been a strong push by the Alliance member clubs and by professional coaches in both competitive clubs to try to strengthen Madison area competitive teams by working cooperatively. Mary said that the merger discussions have been going slowly and she is not very optimistic that they will be successful. If they do not succeed, it is likely the Alliance will ask each of the two clubs for "proposals" regarding how they would hope to serve neighborhood-based clubs, and then the Alliance would choose one of the two clubs to work with as a competitive partner for the upcoming year. Scott Clement indicated he would join Mary in representing VASC in Alliance matters.

Footskills Clinics. The VASC has sponsored footskills clinics for youth players over the winter. When complete, there will have been four sessions of roughly 20-25 kids each participating in the training sessions.

Summer Camps. Mary reported that Stuart Barker will again put on a summer camp in Verona in June, and David Harris is planning on one in August. Verona High School Head Coach Matt Heilman is considering a summer camp this summer as well.

Fields. There was discussion about the costs of upkeep and utilization of the VASC fields on Highway G. There was also discussion about the high school's efforts to secure a full-size field with lights, etc. as the current fields at the high school football stadium are undersized for soccer.

VASC/MAYSA 5 v 5 Tournament. The club is again partnering with MAYSA for our annual 5-a-side tournament at Reddan. The tournament is scheduled for May 4-5. VERONA TEAMS SHOULD PLAN TO PARTICIPATE!!! There is a need for a tournament director to coordinate some of the details, particularly on the day of the tournament. Although many of the tournament details have already been ongoing, Mary indicated she would not be able to coordinate everything this year.

Individual Registration. Mary indicated that the Magic Soccer Club is in the process of experimenting with individual (rather than team) registration. This system is consistent with the national guidelines for recreational teams. The theory is that with team registrations, kids do not have the opportunity to play with different kids from year to year, and the process becomes rather closed around existing teams. Magic is also looking at the possibility of a 2-tier system whereby players could identify themselves as being Level 1 (interested in soccer as purely recreational....few practices, etc.) or Level 2 (the more committed player who really sees soccer as a primary interest). This system would not be skill-based, but rather interest/commitment-based. There was a short discussion of some of the pros and cons of these potential changes in how teams are formed for a club and community the size of Verona, and with respect to the advantages of keeping teams together.

Mt. Horeb U8 Repayment. Last fall two Verona U8 teams were scheduled to play league games with four Mt. Horeb teams. Three of the four teams from Mt. Horeb backed out of the league leaving Verona teams without scheduled games. in September, MAYSA's Board strongly suggested Mt. Horeb's club figure out a way of reimbursing VASC teams for lost games. Jeff reported that despite numerous attempts, this had still not been resolved and he had set a deadline by which he would again involve MAYSA and communicated that to Mt. Horeb. Herb and Jim (coaches on the two affected Verona teams) indicated that even more important than any financial reimbursement, was making sure that the VASC teams be placed in a different grouping in the Spring so the problems would not be repeated. Jeff said he would follow up with MAYSA on this.

Next Meeting Time: February 25, 2002, 7:00 PM at the Stockade Restaurant

Respectfully submitted by Jeff Petersen.