Another softball season is fast approaching and our board is excited to get the season under way. We wanted to take an opportunity to share with you some changes within the organization. This spring you will see some changes with our website, registration process, volunteer schedule as well as to the complex. This past summer, we received several responses from our survey. From these surveys, along with discussions and planning within the board, these changes were established. We would like to highlight a few of these.
Website: You will notice some changes to the look and feel of our website. We have made these changes to help improve online capabilities, including registration and payments, field, cage, and pitching lane reservations/scheduling, game scheduling as well as home pages for each team that will include notifications sent directly to parents when changes to schedules occur or reminders of upcoming events.
Registration Process: You may have noticed that there were some increases in cost for registration. These increases were added to both our Tournament and League programs equally. For the 2017 Spring/Summer season, the board has elected to not do a fundraiser, but instead will charge a $15 capital improvement fee. This change is not only in response to survey suggestions, but also based on the performance of the fundraiser the past few years. This money will go directly back into the complex to provide more opportunities for the members (complex additions are highlighted below).
The board also passed a change with the volunteer process. There is a $40 volunteer deposit included with the registration this year. This money will not be kept by GAGSA, but will be used to pay for volunteer shifts. Each member will have the opportunity to work a shift (4 hours) and will receive the $40 back. If the member chooses to not work a shift, this $40 will be used to pay for a volunteer to cover that shift. We have added our volunteer schedule to our website and members are able to sign-up for shifts that work for their schedule. This is a change from years past, where entire teams were assigned shifts to cover. This also comes from recommendations received from our surveys this past year.
Our organization is entirely volunteer based. We generate the majority of our revenue to maintain and improve the complex from hosting not only league nights, but tournaments during the weekend. We are asking each family to work a total of 4 hours to help during the season. If members would like to volunteer for additional shifts, we of course would appreciate that too!
Hosted Tournaments at Sam Wise Softball Complex (Tentative Dates)
- CIS Spring Blast 4/8 - 4/9
- CIS Midwest Showdown 4/22 - 4/23
- Battle in the Burbs 6/2 - 6/4
- USSSA IA State “B” 6/16 - 6/18
- USSSA Nationals 7/13 - 7/16
Complex: This past fall, several key projects were wrapped up and started. New windows were added to the front of the concessions stand. This will help with the dust as well as the temperature within the stand. In addition to that, a new AC/Heater was put into the concession stand to help manage the cold air early in the season and dealing with the heat during the summer games. We are also very excited to announce that we have broken ground to add 2 more batting cages and 12 brand new pitching lanes. The batting cages will be directly North of the existing batting cages and will have concrete/turf floor like the existing two. The new pitching lanes will be directly west of the batting cages. In addition to these items, a new equipment shed will be built behind the batting cages and will be used to store equipment such as pitching machines and tees and other items used in the cages or in the pitching lanes.
We look forward to seeing everyone out on the fields early this spring. If you should have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to any of the board members.
Thanks.
GAGSA Board
