Office Notes

Kevin Wendelboe, Director of Operations

The seasons seem to go by quicker and quicker! The 2003/2004 season has just completed and already the 2004/2005 season will be here before we know it. The Carolina Region Board of Directors have changed their meeting schedule around slightly. The planning retreat, which used to be held in June, will be held August 20-22 in New Bern. If you have any suggestions for next season, please send them in so our board can consider them at the retreat. We still have four positions open on the board for the 2004/2005 season - Associate Commissioner, Women's Player's Rep, Women's BB Rep, and Women's B Rep. If you are interested in serving the Region in any of these positions, please let us know. The time commitment is minimal and you'll be helping to promote the sport in North Carolina for present and future players. Please help!

The preliminary schedules for adults and juniors have already been posted to the web site. We'll be updating all the forms for the coming season in the next few months. Please don't beginning using the forms until they say "2005" or "2004/2005" next to it. The registration packets will be posted and mailed in September.

Since the board hasn't had the retreat yet, we can't tell you all the changes for the coming season. That will come with the next newsletter. But, there are a couple I know of now that everyone can begin preparing for. For Juniors, the USA Volleyball Regions have adopted a Background Screening Policy that all regions must follow. Basically, every adult that will be affiliated with a junior team (team reps, coaches, chaperones, managers, etc) will have to pass a background screen before their registration is complete. The cost of the screen will be $16 and it is good for TWO years. The Regions adopted this policy to further protect our junior members and we appreciate everyone's support of the policy. We'll be posting the forms associated with the policy on the Forms section (and they will be included in the registration packet). The second major change will come in the format of the rule book. The FIVB (the international governing body of volleyball of which USA Volleyball is a member federation) is requesting that USAV's rules be in same format as the FIVB rules (of which USAV mainly uses but changes some to reflect USA needs). So, the rule book this year will basically be the FIVB rule book with commentaries included where the USA rules differ from the FIVB rules. I haven't seen yet what rule changes are in store for USAV (if any). If there are any rule changes, we'll pass them along in the next newsletter.

Our High Performance teams are preparing to go to Austin next week for the 2004 USA High Performance Championships. Our program is getting stronger and stronger each year, and I'm sure they will represent us well! We'll report their results next newsletter and in a weekly email. Good luck teams!

That is it for now. Thanks, as always, for your support of this great sport. We will see you on the courts shortly!