As I write this, our 2008 Adult Regional Championships are being planned for the upcoming weekend and the 2008 Junior Regional Championships will follow over the first two weekends of April. The seasons seem to go by so fast now! We'll have a full wrap-up of 2007/2008 award winners and Regional Champions in the next newsletter.
Our membership continues to grow! We are currently at 5087 members already - a 270+ jump from last season (1319 Adult and 3768 Juniors). Those are full members. We also have had 102 one-event members. We have 20 Men's teams, 35 Women's teams, 7 Junior boys teams, and 376 Junior girls teams.
Online signatures seemed to be a hit with the membership! For the first time ever, members could complete their entire application and payment online. It saved time and space in the office. Dealing with registration paperwork once took 5 or 6 drawers of the filing cabinet. It's in two now! I'm hopeful that even more members will utilize this feature next season.
Behavior by participants and spectators is becoming even more of an issue. Last year only one individual was removed from a tournament under the Participant/Spectator Behavior Policy. Unfortunately, we have had three cases already this season. The Carolina Region Board of Directors is taking this very seriously and the sanctions involved will become increasingly more severe. We need all adults attending our events to realize the impact their actions and reactions have on the juniors that are watching. We are encouraging all adults to be positive role models and exhibit good sportsmanship towards officials, coaches, opposing teams, and their own team. The actions of spectators are affecting our tournament directors as well. I received this comment from one tournament director this season, "[we are] so happy to provide a pleasant environment for the teams to play volleyball. Increasingly, this pleasantness has been marred by the intrusion of out of control and unreasonable parents and coaches. I know you understand how much work is involved in running a region tournament. Our staff is glad to do the work, but it is becoming difficult to get people to agree to serve as the tournament director when they have such negative confrontations." Comments such as these from Tournament Directors are becoming more frequent and are very disturbing to the Region. As evidenced by the growth shown above, we cannot afford to lose willing tournament hosts! If we do, all teams will lose out on opportunities to play. My response to the tournament directors is to get tougher! They have put up with these confrontations too much in the past, not wanting to remove spectators from the opportunity to watch their child play. But, we cannot put up with this behavior any longer and all tournament directors are being encouraged to enforce the behavior policy, including expulsions, and help us put a stop to these negative influences. Don't let it get to that! Please help us with this endeavor!
There are two important meetings coming up. The Junior Advisory Board will meet May 3 at New Hope Church in Clemmons. The Carolina Region Board of Directors will hold its Annual Meeting on May 4 at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro. All are invited to attend these meetings to give us your valuable feedback. An alternate way to give your feedback is with our season ending surveys. They will be posted and distributed shortly. We invite everyone to give us your feedback as we begin planning for the next season. There are links at left with more information on both of these meetings.
The 2008 Outdoor schedule has been posted to the website and will be updated as additional events notify us. The 2008 Junior Camp listing should be posted in early April.
Thanks, as always, for your support.
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