NCYSA Challenge Council

Working Meeting Minutes

Saturday, December 1, 2001

NCYSA State Office, Greensboro

• The Challenge Council Working Meeting was called to order by Grant Underhill at 10:02 am. In lieu of taking role an attendance sheet was signed by all participants. This sheet has been included as a separate attachment.

• It was established that a quorum was present to conduct business- 10 associations were represented.

• A motion was made by Jerry Healy, (PGSC) to approve meeting minutes from the September 23, 2001 council meeting. Dan Clifton (MARA) 2 nd the motion and minutes were approved.

• Council was introduced to NCYSA Vice President of Tournaments and Travel, Andre’ Burger, and NCYSA Executive Director, Kathy Robinson.

• Challenge State Cup:

• Challenge VP Grant Underhill recapped the Fall Cup noting that a record

number of 30 teams applied. Kernersville Soccer Association and

Charlotte Soccer Club provided the venue for play and an overall great

Cup with no unsportsmanlike incidents.

• Grant Underhill also explained to Council the way Spring Challenge Cup

would run with the tournament accommodating an average of 179 teams

at two separate preliminaries venues.

• For the Spring Cup 4 associations submitted Bids for the finals, with one

of the four marking prelims as their second choice. Greensboro Youth

Soccer Association (GYSA), Twin City Youth Soccer Association

(TCYSA), Burlington Area Youth Soccer Association (BAYSA), and

Wings of Wilkes (WOW) all Bid on finals with WOW choosing Prelims

Grant (VP Challenge) had Council vote on awarding WOW Challenge

Cup Prelims. WOW was awarded Prelims with the understanding that

they agree to Host the Cup under the motion passed which Challenge Cup

be run like Snickers Cup in terms of operation and financial compensation

to the host sites.

• To address the issue of not having enough sites bid on Preliminaries Grant

Underhill, working along side NCYSA Staff, would try and contact associations, like TCYSA, which bid on Finals, and New Bern, which hosted the Cup last year. Suggestions were made by council as to which associations would be capable of hosting both the odd and even year in Prelims. Associations mentioned included CASL and PSA.

• The idea of breaking the tournament up into an East-West scenario was

presented by Demp Bradford (GYSA). However, Council noted that

having an even and odd year sites was ideal since the more sites there are

the less money a given site would make.

• Discussion was wrapped up with NCYSA agreeing to work on calling

associations in order to find a preliminary site and associations bidding

on finals having to present their Bids post discussion/presentation of

Challenge Cup as a State Run Tournament by Andre’ Burger (NCYSA VP

Tournaments/Travel and Kathy Robinson (NCYSA Executive Director)

• Challenge State Cup as a State Run Tournament- What are the Implications?

• Grant Underhill set the stage for Andre’ Burger and Kathy Robinson to

discuss bringing the Challenge Cup Tournament home to NCYSA as a

State Run Tournament. With the most general implications being more

money for sites and more consistency for the Tournament from a

logistical/operational perspective.

• Andre’ Burger started out his presentation by describing his position as

NCYSA VP of Tournaments and Travel as defined by the NCYSA

bylaws. NCYSA Bylaw 405 Duties of Officers Section 9 The Vice

President of Tournaments and Cups shall have the following duties: a)

Responsible for the implementation and oversight of all NCYSA

sponsored tournaments and cups; b) To appoint three (3) Cup Directors

(one for each of Recreation, Challenge, and Classic), subject to the

approval of the NCYSA Board of Directors , who shall assist the Vice

President in implementing and overseeing all tournaments and cups;

• Kathy Robinson (NCYSA Exec. Director) pointed out the differences between the Challenge Cup and Snickers Cup from a financial standpoint. The state gives the hosting association a lump sum check, which includes a fee paid per field and team, thus any financial burden becomes that of the State. Mrs. Robinson also stated that as it stands now the host site must order and purchase t-shirts, with the risk of over or under ordering, pay the referees and referee assignors, schedule games, send out all tournament correspondence to participating teams, get trainers, handle concessions, etc. With the state handling the tournament many of these tasks the state could handle taking the load off of the local associations. Therefore, the State (NCYSA) would handle getting referees, working along with the SYRA, produce the tournament schedule, send out mailings, and simply pay the associations per field and team as well as asking them to provide the manpower on the scheduled dates of the event.
• Dave Stump (GYSA) made the statement that If the Challenge Cup was state run it would bring in consistency and infrastructure, which as Grant Underhill points out would eventually equality a better quality tournament. Demp Bradford (GYSA) supported this statement adding that his organization has hosted both the NCYSA recreation cup and state Snickers cup and never lost money on the Snickers cup which is more of an in house tournament then the Recreation cup which operates the way Challenge Cup currently operates.
• Kathy Robinson made one last comment about Associations finding other ways to make money when the Cups are state run, for example Hotel Rebates, T-shirt sales, concessions, etc.
• Carl Sorensen (NMYSA) made a note that to keep things in perspective the goal of hosting a tournament is not to make a ton of money but to increase participation from players and associations, while allowing players to leave with a good tournament experience.
• Grant Underhill closed with a statement that a state run tournament is a no brainer and asked for a motion to be made to bring the cup in house at the state level.
• A motion was made by Dave Stump (GYSA) that the Challenge Cup Series will be administered by NCYSA effective immediately. The host sites will be compensated financially at the same level as the Snickers State Cup. NCYSA will administer the tournament at the same level operationally as the Snickers State Cup Championships. The motion was 2 nd by Wally McCaffery (MARA) and passed unanimously by council with no further discussion.

• Let’s Get Legal – Challenge Teams Late Registration

• At the Sept 23, 2001 Council meeting there was discussion on Challenge

Teams registering late and not getting passes in time for Seasonal play.

Jerry Healy (PGSC) made the statement that this affects players wanting

to play but waiting for player passes. Both representative from GYSA and

MARA agreed that some type of financial penalty should be put in place

to prevent the 45.8% of teams which registered late for the Fall from

becoming a reoccurring event in the Spring. Kathy Robinson noted that

from a the state level it had been observed that a number of teams were

playing without player passes. Frank Gavigan (BAYSA) suggested that

teams be fined $100 if registering late.

• A motion was made by Jerry Healy (PGSC) that Challenge Teams failing to Register by NCYSA deadlines (postmark) will be fined $100. Player passes/ team packets will not be mailed out until this fine is paid. The motion was 2 nd by Mike Sweeney (TASC). Council passed the motion unanimously .

• Unfinished Business- Spring Challenge Cup Host Site Voting

• Demp Bradford (GYSA) and Frank Gavigan (BAYSA) made

presentations on their bids for Challenge Cup finals. GYSA bid centered

around the idea of providing a finals event in which Challenge finals

would be held in conjunction with Snickers finals and both would have

equal opportunity and coverage from a Championship weekend

perspective. Neither TCYSA nor WOW were present to speak about there

Bids, but were aware that the decision would be made at the council

meeting.

• Votes were placed and counted by Kathy Robinson (NCYSA) and Andre’

Burger (NCYSA). GYSA was voted as the finals site.

• A motion was made by Wally McCaffety to accept WOW’s proposal to Host State Challenge Preliminaries for age groups to be determined pending WOW’s acceptance of the State Administrative guidelines. The motion was 2 nd by Carl Sorensen (NMYSA) and passed unanimously by council.

• Challenge Scheduling Leagues

• At the previous council meeting there was discussion about NCYSA recommendation that scheduling leagues have affiliate member status. Kathy Robinson spoke about how strongly NCYSA recommends these leagues becoming affiliate members of NCYSA. Mrs. Robinson also gave examples of complaints heard at the state level, from challenge teams, most of which would be non-existent if there scheduling bodies were members of NCYSA and thus held accountable for everything they did. Examples of complaints included that some teams have better schedules then others. The state has also heard that some NCYSA registered teams where playing teams not registered with NCYSA, meaning that as soon as these teams take the field there are insurance implications.
• Grant Underhill posed the question of how Scheduling Leagues become affiliate members. Kathy Robinson answered the questions stating that Scheduling leagues must pay $250 dollars and submit bylaws, which define how they operate, to become affiliate members.
• Grant Underhill closed discussion with a recommendation to Challenge Council that himself and Mari Villalobos, Asst. Director Challenge (NCYSA), put together a package of benefits to present to scheduling leagues.

• New Business- Challenge Seasonal Play Schedules

• There was open discussion about difficulties scheduling challenge matches when waiting for Classic Schedules to come down from the state office. A request was made by Wally McCaffery, which states that Due to the growth of both the classic and challenge programs that challenge council has requested that the release of final games schedules for classic play be addressed at the earliest opportunity. Representatives of the Challenge Council would be willing to work with the Classic Scheduler.
• Wally McCaffery (MARA) also discussed Matthew membership service area overlap.

• A motion was made by Dave Stump (GYSA) to adjourn. Jerry Healy (PGSC) 2 nd the motion. Grant Underhill adjourned Council.

Minutes were taken and submitted by Mari Villalobos (NCYSA)

In Attendance

Grant Underhill NCYSA VP Challenge

Carl Sorensen North Mecklenburg Youth Soccer Association

Jerry Healy Piney Green Soccer Club

Dave Stump Greensboro Youth Soccer Association

Demp Bradford Greensboro Youth Soccer Association

Rick Farmer Guil-Rand Youth Soccer Association

Marie Shandor Central Carolina Soccer Club

Mark Cockman Northeast United Soccer Club

Frank Gavigan Burlington Area Youth Soccer Association

Wally McCaffety Matthews Athletic and Recreation Association

Dan Clifton Matthews Athletic and Recreation Association

Paul Smith Charlotte Soccer Club

Mike Sweeney Team Alliance Soccer Club (TCL)

Kathy Robinson NCYSA

Andre’ Burger NCYSA

Mari Villalobos NCYSA