• Held at the John Hunt Soccer Central Building, upstairs

• 6:00pm on Wednesday, January 15th, 2003

Present at the meeting were: Christie Clark, David Ghoja, Irene Wisner, Kari Elliott, Ken Gamble, Craig Hardwick, and Marty Eaton.


CALL TO ORDER:
       Christie called the meeting to order.  Discussed were the following items:


STATE CUP:

Christie called the meeting to order.  The first item on the agenda was to give the final details on State Cup. 

NASL BALANCE SHEET FROM STATE CUP:

INCOME:
Parking: $7103.80
T-shirts: $12,639.03

Total income: $19,742.83

Costs:

T-shirts: $7,547.03

Programs: $682.50

Hospitality: $951.32

Incidentals: $59.08

Booster clubs: $1,350.00 – payment for parking attendants.
(Grissom - $600, Bob Jones - $400, Huntsville - $350)

Total costs: $10,589.93

Of the net receipts of $9,152.90
NASL has ear-marked $5,000 of the parking receipts for lights at John Hunt Field #4. (see details below)

Amount to NASL: $4,152.90
Minus start up costs of $700.90 the total amount earned and banked by NASL is: $3,452

 

THANK YOU:

       NASL would like to thank those who participated in the State Cup tournaments.  They can be sure that the money raised will be put back into improvements at soccer fields in the Huntsville area.  It was noted by several at the meeting that we, NASL, recommend other areas around the state will charge similar parking fees and take the money raised from tournaments and put it back into field improvements in their area.

LIGHTING JOHN HUNT #4:

      Marty Eaton proposed a motion that the NASL take $5,000 of it’s State Cup earnings and give it to the City to help funding the lighting of John Hunt Field #4.  Craig seconded the motion.  The vote by the NASL Board was unanimous.  
       Ron Evans was not at the meeting but Christie read an e-mail from him.
      According to Ron Evans the city school system, the HHS soccer boosters and FOSNA (through the NASL contribution and other contributions) will fund an estimated $44,000 to light John Hunt #4.  In anticipation of this improvement, John Hunt 4 has
been converted to a "game" and "special event" field only.  This means the field will not suffer from excess wear and tear resulting from its use as a practice field.  During the next three high school seasons John Hunt #4 will be used for games by Huntsville High School.
      In order to maximize Huntsville's opportunities for soccer special events, the next field to be lighted will be John Hunt 3 (although no funding is available at this time).  Once Hunt 3 and 4 are lighted, Merrimack Park fields will become the next priority for field lighting projects.
      The NASL Board did have concerns that this field should be available for regularly scheduled NASL games and not just "special events".  While we understand the need to limit wear and tear from practices, the board is also aware that we currently have too few fields available for NASL games to remove John Hunt #4 from the regular game rotation. It was noted that we should make this concern known to Ron Evans.

ECONOMIC IMPACT:

      Using a very conservative analysis (based on 1990 figures used by the Florida Sports Foundation) the combined Economic Impact of the Snickers State Cup and the Division II State Cup for Huntsville is approximately $750,000 in DIRECT economic impact.
      This does not include the various economic INDIRECT impacts from local taxes raised from lodging taxes and gasoline taxes and the obvious trickle down effect of the influx of cash into the local economy. 
      Note: I based the economic impact on the 90 teams participating with an average of one coach and 15 players per team.  I also included two parents and one sibling accompanying each player.  This is, in fact, very conservative as it does not include referees, league and state officials, trainers, un-related spectators, etc.
        Realistically the tournaments had an Economic Impact on the Huntsville economy of over $1,000,000.   It was decided that we should be sure that the city council understood just how much money was pumped into the economy because of the tournaments.

 

ASA STATE BUSINESS UPDATE

     The Northern District Commissioner, Marty Eaton, brought us up to date on ASA state business.  Everyone thanked him for keeping NASL up to date with his minutes from the ASA state board meetings.  Marty encouraged everyone to attend the ASA meetings.  The Planning meeting is January 25th at 1:30pm in Birmingham at the AmeriSuites Hotel on Highway 280.  The meeting is open to all club presidents, league administrators and club Directors of Coaching.

     Here is the agenda for the meeting:

 2003 ASA PLANNING MEETING AGENDA
 Introduction of Board Members
 Opening Remarks
 Introduction of Survey
 Topics

• ASA Merger Progress

  • Long range plans

  • Utilization of Youth office

  • Referees

• League Play

  • Division III

  • State Leagues

  • Qualifying Tournament

• Tournaments

  • State Tournaments

    • Snickers Cup

    • DII State Cup

    • Governors Cup

• Small-sided Implementation

• Recreational Development

• ODP

• Sponsorship Development

• Additional Topics from the members

     Marty Eaton’s notes from the 1/12/2003 ASA meeting are on-line at http://www.nasl.com/dc.htm
     The state's Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held March 16th, 2003 and is open to all members of ASA.

SPRING SEASON:

     Craig noted that the Scheduling Meetings for the Spring Season will be:

Monday, February 3rd for Rec-Plus U9 and U10 teams and

Tuesday, February 4th for the U11 through U18 teams.

       Both meetings will be at 6:00pm at the Brahan Springs Rec Center. 
       The first weekend that games can be played is February 8^th.  Irene volunteered to have name tags available at the scheduling meetings.   
       Several important items concerning the Spring Season were brought up for discussion.

1.  Teams MUST play a home and home series with each team they schedule.  In other words a Huntsville team cannot opt to play both of their games against an out of town team in Huntsville.  They cannot refuse to travel to Madison, Athens, Decatur, Cullman, Guntersville, Scottsboro, Florence, etc. unless the out-of-team wants to play in Huntsville.  NASL is trying to encourage the development of fields all over North Alabama and it is felt that the outlying communities will never fully develop if Huntsville teams refuse to travel there. 
 

2.  It is suggested that all managers have a list of their “NO PLAY” dates with them when they come to the scheduling meeting.
 

3.  Spring Season Fees are:
$50.00 for teams which were a part of NASL in the Fall Season
$75.00 for those new teams which were not a part of the NASL in the Fall Season
$50.00 for those teams playing in the ASA State League if they are going to play on NASL fields or use NASOA officials.  They can also schedule additional games through NASL if they want to - at no additional cost. If your team is not registered as a NASL team you cannot play games on NASL fields or schedule officials through NASOA. 
 

4.  It is suggested that ALL TEAMS (including those in the State League) have a representative at the scheduling meeting.

 

5.  There were a number of games cancelled in the fall season after the cut-off date of Sunday at 6pm.  It was understood that the inclement weather played a part in some of those cancellations but many were cancelled for non-weather related reasons. Although those teams incurred no penalty for the canceling; NASL did.  The league had to pay NASOA the standard scheduling fee on all games that weren’t cancelled by 6pm on Sunday.  There was a discussion on whether we needed to subject those teams to a penalty.  The decision was that (for the spring season) we would ask teams to particularly diligent about canceling in time.  If that does not work out we will try a different solution in the coming fall.

 

6.  There will not be a Rec-Plus end-of-the-season Tournament in the spring as there was in the fall.  It was suggested that the Rec-Plus teams consider playing in the Huntsville Soccer Club Spring Classic tournament since it corresponded with the approximate end of the Rec-Plus season.

 

7.  New teams must register through an existing club in order to get their USYSA player and coach cards.  Rec-Plus teams may register through their own club or they may register through NASL/COHPAR (Belton MacCary 880-6418).  Cost is about $12 per card for insurance and player card. And we are having three referees this spring.

 

8.  Please provide all updates to the NASL Team page to Ken Gamble at dsports@hiwaay.net for any additions for the spring season or changes from the fall season.  Please do this as soon as possible so that team coaches and manager contact phone numbers and e-mail addresses are updated before the scheduling meeting. If you are unsure about who is listed please check the NASL Team Page at http://www.nasl.com/teams.htm

 

9.  All teams considering playing in the Rec-Plus league should contact Belton MacCary 880-6418 before the team scheduling meeting so that she will have the necessary information to coordinate the meeting.
 

NEW CLUB:

      Dave Ghoja noted that Madison has a new soccer club in addition to the Shockers.  It is called the Valley Futbol Club and will have Division I, II and II teams. 
 

SCHEDULING:

      Craig expressed interest in stepping down as NASL scheduler in the fall 2003.  Irene Wisner agreed to use the spring as a learning phase to decide if she would like to be the new scheduler.

 

CHARITY EVENT

     We have been asked by the CCFA - Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America to ask each club to put together a team of coaches to participate in soccer matches at Goldsmith-Schiffman field on March 2^nd.  They also asked other parties such as referees to consider doing the same.  They are raising funds to fight Crohn’s and Colitis disease and hope that teams will come out to see their coaches play. WHNT TV will be publicizing the event.


SCHOLARSHIPS:

     NASL will once again be giving a $500 scholarship away to both a boy and girl NASL player who is a senior in high school.  Each coach of a U18 team is encouraged to nominate one player from their team.  The scholarship guidelines are available on-line at http://www.nasl.com/articles/scholarship.htm

REFEREES:

      An entry Level USSF Referee (Grade 8) course will be conducted by USSF instructors in Huntsville on January 31st - February 2nd at the First Christian Church on Whitesburg Drive (located about 300 yards south of the Drake Avenue intersection). This course requires three days. Times are:
Friday (1/31) - 6:00 to 10:00
Saturday (2/1) - 9:00 to 5:00
Sunday (2/2) - 1:00 to 5:00
Sign up sheets are available at Pete's Soccer Shops on Whitesburg in Huntsville and at the Madison Pete’s location also.

      NASL encourages all teams to let their parents know about this course and to consider “scholarshipping” a team parent who is interested in becoming a referee.  We desperately need more referees, especially in some of the areas outside of Huntsville where soccer is growing rapidly such as Decatur.  
      In the spring 2003 season only Grade 8 referees will be allowed to be the center referee in games.  This includes Rec-Plus games!

ADJOURNMENT:
With no further business Christie dismissed the meeting.