Friday, June 9, 2000:

Attendance: Chuck McCracken, Wade Brence, Greg Adas, Bill Shook, Fred Wendelboe, Kevin Wendelboe, Sharon Biggs, Ingrid Wicker, Dan Pickett

Guests: Glenn Cashion, Craig Lenniger, Michelle Wood, Sherry Norris, Dale Hartough

Meeting Started: 8:22 pm

1. Introductions
2. Went over retreat agenda and goals (planning for next year and long-range planning)
3. Approve May minutes - tabled until quorum reached
4. Next year's meeting schedule - August 19 7:00 pm Guilford College; September 17 10:00 am Guilford College; October 15 10:00 am Guilford College; December 9 7:30 pm Raleigh; Will do the rest later this weekend.
5. Suggested Officials Clinic dates from Ray - November 19, December 3. Some questions raised about those dates. Divisions will discuss additional possibilities this weekend.
6. Treasurer's Report - pointed out one additional zero on line 2820 in Administrative budget "Forcast". Dan will correct. Approval tabled until quorum present.
7. Cell phone policy - Region had been leasing a pager for Kevin so Tournament Director/Board of Directors members can contact Kevin. Region has agreed to pay half of the cost of a cell phone for Kevin and we need to formally approve it. Tabled until quorum reached.
8. Tournament Awards Updates - still trying to confirm whether Chris has supplied appropriate awards to those teams that returned their cash payment. WCVC claims they have mailed the t-shirts to the appropriate teams and Dan will confirm that with Chuck.
9. Employment Retirement Fund Update - we're researching some companies and talking to our accountant about setting up the retirement plan. Chuck, Dan, Kevin will meet this weekend to go over what Kevin has researched already. Chuck will bring report back to group.
10. Sport Court update - we sold our two Sport Courts to a group in New Jersey. They have not made their payments to us in some time. Chuck talked with the owner in Columbus. The courts are currently in storage as they were planning to move to another facility. They are unable to pay us any money at this time, so the courts are in limbo. If we can find a place to put them, then we should start trying to get them back. There are some possibilities for facilities in NC (Greensboro and Clemmons), so we might be able to find place for them.

Recessed at 10:00 pm until Saturday morning

Saturday, June 10, 2000

Attendance: Chuck, Dan, Susie Griffin, Wade, Bill, Sharon, Ingrid, Greg, Marilyn Thompson, Fred, Kevin Guests: Sherry Norris, Michelle Wood, Dale Hartough, Glenn Cashion, Craig Lenniger

Meeting resumed at 9:04 am

1. Review of Long Range plan:
   1. Office Space - still need to get out of Fred's house. Both Fred and Malinda will be retired by the end of June and we need to let them reclaim their house. We thought we might move into a facility in Winston, but that has fallen through. This will be discussed further at these meetings.
   2. Contacting groups across the state to encourage them and help them to identify groups/leagues in their areas (Park, Rec, etc) to promote volleyball and increase our membership.
   3. Schedule problems - should juniors and adults play on the same weekends? Should Juniors play on Sunday? The need to develop facilities. These are problems that will continue as we grow.
   4. Development of Coaches - if we go with playing adults and juniors on same weekend, the problem has been that we have coaches and officials that both play. Thus, we need to work on developing more coaches and officials and improving our training programs.
   5. Support and Development of younger age groups (10's and 12's) and boys.
   6. Support and Development of all-volleyball facilities.
   7. Distance to tournaments - being able to help teams on the edges to participate in our Region.
   8. Developmental camps and clinics - both for adults and juniors
2. Break into Adult and Juniors Discussion groups. Groups came back at 11:30 with preliminary reports. Full reports in Appendix A (Adults) and Appendix B (Juniors). Both Junior and Adult schedules approved in concept (can go ahead and post on web), but are subject to change. Motion from Junior Division to (adult division agreed to allow this for adult tournament as well):

   Motion 1: raise the team fine to $100 for leaving the Adult or Junior Regional Championships without fulfilling officiating duties. MSA 7-0-1

3. Motion by Susie, second by Sharon to:

   Motion 2: Approve the BOD minutes from the May 2, 2000 Board Meeting. MSA

4. Motion by Greg, second by Ingrid to:

   Motion 3: Approve the Treasurer's Report as amended (removal of a zero in line 2820 of the Administration budget). MSA 1 abstention - Dan

5. Motion by Dan, second by Greg to:

   Motion 4: Approve the May, 1999 Annual Meeting BOD minutes. MSA

6. Motion by Ingrid, second by Dan to:

   Motion 5: Approve the cell phone policy as proposed by Chuck to reimburse staff up 50% of an approved plan. MSA

   Recessed for lunch

7. Continued with Adult and Junior discussion groups. Reported back results (Appendix A & B).

   Attendance: Chuck, Wade, Bill, Ingrid, Sharon, Susie, Dan, Kevin, Fred
   Registered proxy: Marilyn to Dan
   Guests: Dale Hartough, Craig Leninger

8. Discussed some issues to go to Official's Division - rating standards, clinic standards, officials duties at juniors tournaments. Talked about getting our officials together at the NTT in August when they all are together. We also proposed some Adult Official's Clinic dates - Oct 22 (8:30 am), Nov. 19 (8:30 am), and Dec. 16. Rating tournaments - Dec. 2, 9 and Jan. 13, 27 (raters if needed). Can also rate at first Juniors tournament - January 6. Juniors Officials Clinics - December 16. We will also advertise that juniors can go to any adult clinic if those days are better for them. Got into a discussion about defining what is a good teacher/clinician. How do we want to oversee who approved clinicians are, how they become approved, etc. Decided that Officials Division should submit a list to Board and we will establish some mechanism where people can be removed from that list. More Officials notes in Appendix C.
9. Administrative topics:
   1. Long Range plan - we agree it is something we need to work on but now is not the time to do it.
   2. Facilities - we need to move the Region Office. Chuck went over some details of the potential facility in Greensboro. We need to decide if the Region wants to front this project, join with other groups, or just rent office space? We went through the numbers for annual cost at start-up. Everyone agreed that the Region should go forward with this if it can be worked out. Chuck, Kevin, Wade, and Glenn will be the committee to work on getting this proposal together.
   3. National Internet Online Registration Program - do we want to prepay for this service or wait until they come back with a number? Conceptually we like the direction they are developing. We will wait and see what proposal they send back to the Regions.
   4. Web site:
      • Credit cards - Karl was working on how we can accept credit cards over the Internet. Is giving our members the ability to pay over Internet a service we want to offer them? Answer was yes, let's look into it.
      • Registration - individual and team. Karl is working on that.
      • Tournament Entry - if accept credit cards we could do it.
      • Clinic registration - Karl's working on an Internet based database that could incorporate all our officials' information and link them all together.
   5. Electronic Communications:
      • Do we want to add boxes on registration form so team reps and members can receive all their communications by email. Also box for receiving newsletter by email. Answer was yes.
   6. Discussions of Items that affect the budget:
      • Do we want to give partial or full repayment for 2000 Nationals tournament entries? At this time, we don't think it's something we should do right now. If divisions want that to change they need to bring a proposal out of their division.
      • Marketing and Development - recommendation came out of adult division to increase the membership fee by $10 per member to allocate money to do some additional work to generate membership. Idea was to redefine the staffing role so that their would be an Executive Director that isn't necessarily involved with membership servicing but oversees another employee(s) in that role. The Executive Director would then have incentives built in on membership building. Next step would be to create job descriptions for each of these positions and see what type of salary needs there would be. Once that is in place, we could then see what type of membership fee raise we would need. The facility and office needs will play a factor in this as well. We set a deadline of September 1 to have a definite office space identified and moved into. We should know about the Greensboro facility by August.
   7. How do we get more people involved in the Board? Simple, we ask them. We had several people come to this retreat just because we asked them. We will continue to try to identify individuals that might want to contribute to the Region, and ask them to get involved.
   8. Quick discussion on the SIMPLE Retirement plan for staff. Do we want to set a limit of $5000 as the maximum that an employee must earn before they become eligible for the program ($5000 is maximum that is allowed by IRS regulations). Motion by Susie, second by Wade to:

      Motion 6: set the minimum salary that a Carolina Region employee must earn to be eligible for our SIMPLE retirement plan is $5000. MSA 7-0-1 abstention (Dan)

   Recess until morning

   Sunday, June 11, 2000:

   Attendance: Chuck, Dan, Susie, Wade, Ingrid, Sharon, Greg, Bill, Fred, Kevin
   Guests: Dale Hartough, Craig Lenniger
   Registered proxy: Marilyn to Dan

   1. Beach/Outdoor:
      • Have schedules that list all events not just indoor. We can list indoor, outdoor, and other member organizations schedules that are significant.
      • Noted that there are not enough outdoor events geared to juniors. Also, point made that there are still several different rule sets being played under in NC outdoor tournaments. We need to make effort to educate NC outdoor tournament directors on USAV rules. The Junior realm is wide open for us to step in and have tournaments.
      • Can we run a beach camp (1 day) and a 1 day tournament as our first effort?
      • Develop an informational sheet or FAQ on how to go from indoor to outdoor .
      • Initial Beach/Park Volley committee - Susie, Bill, Craig, Dale
   2. Member Organizations:
      • There are a lot of groups out there that may or may not be running volleyball. How do we reach them? State Games isn't a member organization, but if we stepped up and offered to run their volleyball competition they would probably be very receptive. An attempt to contact Boys and Girls Scouts might be a nice start to see what they are doing and offering ourselves as a resource. It might be a way to get boys going. Other suggestion on boys - have a late season (not the same season as girls). Start after basketball season and run a little later (other Regions have this format). Another idea is to start a USYVL league for boys. The key is to identify people to carry through on all our ideas. That has been the problem in the past and will remain the problem until people who have the time and motivation to carry out our long-range plans. We need to decide whether we should commit seed money to start several of these programs. We have the money in reserve to start these programs if we want and provide a quality event that will eventually be self-sufficient and self-sustaining.
   3. Split into Adult, Junior, Outdoor Discussion Groups one last time (Greg had to leave). Reports for Adults and Juniors are in Appendix A and B:
      1. Outdoor - Talked about a junior beach camp. Some wanted a 3 day camp, others a 1 day. Talked about having it on the beach on coast at some affordable place. Could make the final competition be the Regional Beach Championships. Could split the age groups over two weeks (once it grows). Outdoor committee will continue to discuss their plans.
   4. ROD mid-year meeting October 6-8. Chuck is unable to go. He recommends that Kevin attends for us as he's gone in the past and if Karl can go then he go as well. Board agreed.
   5. YJOV meetings are August 3-6 - Bill can go as our Boys rep and Chuck suggests that Craig go as our Outdoor Rep, and do we want someone else to attend. Kevin can attend but would need to be back on Saturday night (can't stay for the last day). Can also ask Greg if he wants to attend as he showed some interest in Junior boys. Could also ask John Coulter. If not, then Kevin and Chuck will work out who is attending. This year's budget included money to send three people.
   6. Remaining Board of Directors schedule - Dec. 12-14 - Adult Seeding (they will get together to put together the best day); January 19 at 7:30 at Guilford; February 24 7:30 pm in Durham; May 6 - Annual meeting at Koury at 1:00 pm in Greensboro; Retreat - June 8-10; Adult and Junior Divisions can meet separately during the year as well if the need arises.
   7. Board composition - still need a secretary, Women's A, Women's BB. We feel we can appoint a Secretary if we can't find one that meets our Bylaws criteria. We will also look to fill the other positions. We also need to get the entire board to these retreats, especially when we schedule them 1 year in advance.
   8. Motion by Dan, second by Ingrid to:

      Motion 7: Adjourn the June 9-11, 2000 BOD Annual Retreat at 12:40 pm. MSA

   NEXT MEETING Saturday, August 19, 2000 Guilford College YMCA If you are unable to attend, please submit proxy to Office by Thursday, August 17, 2000

   ACTION ITEMS:
   

   • Chuck, Dan, Kevin, Wade, Glenn - work on facility proposal details
   • Susie, Bill, Craig, Dale - Outdoor committee - design possible beach camps/tournaments
   • Chuck, Dan, Kevin - finalize retirement plan details and begin program
   • Bill, Craig - work on High Performance Camp details (secure facility, clinicians, etc).
   • Karl - continue work on Internet registration program and procedures
   • Karl, Greg - check on availability for ROD meetings in August (Greg) and October (Karl) and notify office
   • Chuck, Fred, Dan, Kevin - begin process of looking at staff reorganization/job duties.
   • Officials Division - secure sites for Fall officiating clinics and prepare teaching outlines.
   APPENDIX A
   Adult Division Discussion Notes
   • College player recruitment - Adult division would like to target graduating college seniors to try to get them involved in USAV once their collegiate career is over. Ingrid will draft a letter and send it to schools to try to educate these players about their volleyball opportunities. Also discussed having a play-in tournament for colleges to introduce them to us.
   • 2000/2001 Adult Schedule - proposed dates: weekends of December 2, 9; weekends of January 13, 27. Weekend's of February 10, 24; March 10, 24-25 (Hi Neighbor), 31 (Bronze Regionals); April 21 (Gold Silver Regional Championships). Will leave the names of the divisions the same (Gold, Silver, Bronze). Size of divisions depends on number of teams. Adults will leave points standings the same. Points will be used to seed into tournaments and will be used if space is a factor for the Regional Championships (take highest 10 from entries, etc. if space is limited). Regional Championships format will be the same as regular season tournament (eliminated double-elimination format).
   • Zonal Tournaments - Too much going on in Region to be able to put together at this time. If facility comes through, we could host some in future.
   • Membership growth - would like to create a flyer to send out to leagues, recreation departments, etc. telling advertising our organization. Need an increase in our marketing and advertising. Would like to raise membership fee by $10 to pay for staff reorganization so we can devote more time to membership recruitment. Would also like to create an affiliate member category to hit those that individuals/organizations that don't play.
   • Seeding tournament - discussed format for a seeding tournament. Could play some wave-type format where teams are re-seeded into a second pool after initial pool is complete.
   • Hi Neighbor/National Mapping - thought this year's process of mapping teams to Hi Neighbor and National categories worked and will follow same process.
   • Warm-up procedures - will continue with the 10 minutes shared warm-up before teams' first match, then go to 5 minutes shared after everyone has played one match.
   • Regionals pre-requisite - teams must play in 4 regular season tournaments to be eligible for Regional Championships.
   • Shirts/Sweatshirts - need to do better job of tracking what we have on site at Regionals and what is sold. This will help in ordering for future seasons. Discussed getting bids from companies to be sure we are getting the best price.
   • All-Region - everyone was happy with current procedure to elect All-Region. All-Tournament teams would be difficult to do without a non-involved committee.
   • Rules of the Game - Will play with the following new rules for 2000/2001 season (as adopted by USAV): let serve allowed and teams may use the Libero and 12 team substitutions.
   • Format - 4-team pools will play 3 rally games to 25; 5- and 6-team pools will play 2 rally games to 25. 7-team pools need to be discussed. Playoffs must use matches. The tie-breaking procedure remains the same.
   • Nationals reimbursement - recommendation to Budget committee that the Region set aside $2000 in each division (Adult and junior) to be split among all the teams that go to Nationals for next year's budget.
   • Began preliminary discussion on how we would select which one of our teams would earn first priority into Adult Nationals if Nationals start having to place limits on teams they can accept (number of entries is greater than court space). We still need to see how that is shaping up coming down from National. One idea was to have teams declare by Regionals (i.e. turn paperwork in) if they are interested in attending Nationals so appropriate playoff matches can be scheduled at Regionals if needed (highest finisher(s) get our slot(s)).
   • Adults also discussed having a friendship tournament for age group play and to try to gauge what the interest is for sending age group teams to Nationals.

   APPENDIX B
   Junior Division Discussion Notes
   • 2001 Schedule - We should identify the East Coast Championships on our schedule and try to encourage that tournament as the end of the season. Play dates (subject to change): January 6, 20; February 3, 17; March 3, 17, 31 (Power/Club Regional Championships); April 7-8 (Junior Hi Neighbor); April 21 (National Bid Qualification Tournament); April 28; May 5 (Open Regional Championships).
   • How can we get lower age groups going? Contact the US Youth Volleyball League (USYVL) for information on setting up leagues in NC. They play during summers, outdoor in parks and soccer fields using lite volleyballs. 8-10 week league for about $60 a kid (includes a t-shirt). USYVL will send a booklet going over entire program and the league is volunteer/parent-driven.
   • Where do we want to go? Everyone agreed the main key was flexibility. Flexibility in facilities, in weekends, and in policies.
   • Are we happy with Open, Power, Club? Yes, but need better education in difference between our terms and the use of Open and Club at National Championships. We liked letting teams pick their divisions this season (no seeding tournaments), but we need to set up parameters so the Junior Girl's Committee can better identify teams to move into their appropriate division as the season progresses. Discussed adding another division to perhaps play on an adult weekend where teams of like competition can play regardless of age (top of older Open divisions come together, middle Power teams come together, etc.).
   • Rules of the Game - voted to allow the following rules for 2001 season: Will use the let serve (serve touching the net and continuing over will remain in play). Will use Libero and 12 team substitutions. Teams have option of identifying a Libero in each match. Teams that don't use Libero will still have the 12 team substitutions and unlimited player entries.
   • Pool formats - We will eliminate match play in pool for 2001 season. 4-team pools will play 3 rally games to 25. 5 and 6-team pools will play 2 rally games to 25. Began discussing eliminating 7-team pools (playing 3- and 4-team pools) but no definite format agreed to during meeting. Any ties to advance out of pool play will now need the 1 game playoff to 25. All playoff matches will be 2-out-of-3 to 25 (3rd game to 15) rally score.
   • Code of Conduct/Parents Behavior problems - Discussed having a Team Rep/Parent meeting at beginning of the day while coaches are meeting. This meeting would outline the purposes of junior volleyball and proper behavior. Also, suggested posting and distributing a Parent's Code of Conduct that has been developed by USAV. We should also address the problem to the Coaches at the meeting in November.
   • Officiating - Junior Division would like the Officials Division to develop guidelines for training line judges and flip chart operators to be covered at the junior officials' clinics. Better trained officiating teams could cut back a lot of parent behavior problems.
   • Warm-ups - keep the same (4-4-2 for everyone's first match and then 4-4), but communicate to the officials to notify the teams when 1 minute remains in their time period. We should also use 4-4-2 warm-up period for a team's first playoff matches.
   • Awards - do we want to stay with All-Region, modify, add an All-Tournament team, or do away with it altogether? As coaches weren't embracing the voting, it was becoming political, and it was not always recognizing deserving individuals, Division voted to discontinue All-Region teams. Instead we will allow teams to vote for a Team Sportsmanship Award. We will also have the Adult Officials vote on Team Officiating Awards. The Team Sportsmanship and Team Officiating Award will be given out at the beginning of the day after Coaches Meeting at Regional Championships. We will continue to award an MVP after the Finals of the Regionals. Division is open to other suggestions for more Team awards.
   • Regional Championship pre-requisites - Open teams must play in 4 tournaments to be eligible; Power/Club teams must play in 3 tournaments to be eligible. Open teams going for the National Bid must play in 2 tournaments and submit a deposit equal to the National Championships entry fee. The National Bid tournament will only be available to teams going for the Region's bid. Regional Championships will have the same format as regular season tournaments.
   • Teams leaving without officiating at Regional Championships - Division will make a motion to raise the fine for teams that leave the Regional Championships without officiating to $100.
   • Coaches Meeting - November 18 in Greensboro. We will also try to have another one on a Sunday in either December or January.
   • Officials pay - discussed ways of increasing pay for the adult officials that have to drive a ways. We could consider paying a one-way driving time increase (greater than 1 hour) or pay by mileage. Marilyn will look at some plans and come back with a plan for vote in August.
   • State Games - should be contracted out to someone who will oversee getting volleyball back into the State Games. Better job of publicity needed to teams. It has not been well attended in the past.
   • Clinics - liked the idea of a second coaches clinic besides the one in November. Thought about bringing in a big name to give an IMPACT clinic (Kessel) and charge a fee to cover cost. Discussed having a "Chalk Talk" with some college coaches at part of these meetings to give more educational opportunities (for those already IMPACT certified).
   • Would like another large two-day tournament in the future like Junior Hi Neighbor. Don't have to run every age group. Facilities are an issue and we have too much on tap for now, but will revisit in future seasons as we grow.
   • We'll add a box on tournament entry form that will communicate to the Region if they are staying overnight to help in setting up pools.
   • Regional High Performance Camp - tentative dates of July 19-21, 2001 or July 26-28, 2001 including a tryout the day before. Cost is in the $300-$400 range with a refund if the kids don't make it out of the tryout. Two possible head coaches were Joe Sagula or Jolene Nagle. It was pointed out that the first weekend might be better for the high schools. Bill's going to work on getting a facility and then we can start working on getting a staff.
   • Junior Coach Background check - we will stress with the clubs to do background checks on their coaches and we will start randomly checking 5-10% of our registered coaches using the www.safehands.com web site service. The Division is asking the budget committee to set aside $500 in next year's budget to do background checks.
   • Boys 14's playing in girl's tournaments - will continue as currently allow. The net height rule is a factor for the 16s and older as they have to play on a men's net. If we have a 16's boys then we recommend that they play Men's Bronze (or appropriate division).
   APPENDIX C
   Officials Breakout Notes
   • We discussed requirements for being a Junior National candidate from our Region. Some ideas on pre-requisites were: Refereeing Division I college ball, refereeing some AA men's and women's during the season, and at least the semifinals at Hi-Neighbor. We would need to rate the candidates at appropriate matches during the season (either college or AA Region play) and have feedback during the process from some qualified Board members. The requirements still need to be developed.
   • Require all adults that wish to ref juniors to attend the NTT clinic on August 5 and 6. Meet with these refs to let them know our expectations and differences with collegiate volleyball.
   • We suggested that all coaches need to attend a scoring clinic so they would know how to keep score, so they can help their teams out during their officiating duties. Some coaches are more a hindrance than a help when they do not know the rules.
   • We need a better way to keep up with players attending the officiating clinics. Everyone giving a clinic needs to send the information to Dee and Ray so they can check up on these teams. An Internet based database may be part of this solution.
   • We need a Manual/Guide for people giving the referees part of the officiating clinic. All clinicians need to be covering the same material.

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   Last Updated: Wednesday, 23-June-2000 10:35 EDT