MHLL Board Meeting 12-7-2014

Meeting minutes:

Web Site Update – Larry Wessleman
-Web site is nearly done, need people to go check out the dev site and provide feedback. Need some copy\write ups for the web site.
Issue – Due to the new league age rules it is becoming very difficult to setup the age bands and levels at registration. Will need to come up with a solution for the player’s ages 8 that are counted as league age 9 based on 4-3 as the cut of date. All over players are grandfathered into the league age cutoff date of 4-30
Issue – We need a welcome message on the new web site. Joe will write up a welcome message and new web site update.

Upper division baseball update – Paul Grass
-Full interlock at minors with RHLL and BALL, 60% of games will be played within your local league
interlock games do not count towards league standings, local league separate championships
-Full interlock at majors with RHLL and BALL, 60% of games will be played within your local league
interlock games DO count towards league standings a full interlocked championship
-50/70 options. One options is to play a hybrid model for majors. 24 total games- 16 games at 46/60 and 8 games at 50/70. There are issues with the 10 year olds, RHLL president is looking to see if Gary Rowell will allow for “special games” at 50/70 to allow for 10 year olds.
Another option is to play majors at 11/12 and a separate 50/70 team. This option limits the 50/70 team to a 16 game schedule which may not be enough games for the kids to play.
Discussion on making a juniors team, will need to recruit 13 and 14 year olds.
Issue – Need to try to recruit 13 and 14 year olds to build a juniors program, Staci will try to get the last 2 years registration files so that Brian Tacker can recruit the 12 year olds from 2014 who are 13 now and the 12 year olds from 2013 who are 14 now.

Sponsorship Update – Brian “Tack” Tacker
-Brian has created a sales packet for Brian, materials look good. Godfathers will host 2 MHLL nights with 205 of proceeds going back to the league and also provide 20% off for end of the season parties.
He is working a deal with Villa Sport, for example a beginner baseball clinic\softball clinic as a way to drive membership for both Villa Sport and MHLL.

Brian will be using his downtime\slow time to work generating sponsors.
Uniforms Update – Krista Tjossum
-Waterfall uniforms from upper levels down to the lower levels now that the Minors, Majors and Juniors will be “keeper jerseys” with players names on the back.
Discussion on the use of tank tops vs. sleeves for majors jerseys, executive decision by Joe to go with sleeves. Mark to check with softball parents to see if softball should use tank tops 3 inch or sleeves.
-Krista would like to have keys to the shed to make it easier for her to handle inventory and other tasks. Mark Olivo gave her his keys.
Issue - We will need to make copies of the shed keys for Mark and others. Recommend 2 more sets.

Treasurer – Brian Kruhm
-Update on financials. Created a 5 year financial plan with 2015 and 2016 financial plan. By 2017 MHLL will be 100% keeper uniforms. Overtime MHLL with split uniforms between 2 vendors (Gear up and Pro Forma)
Discussion around giving shirts to coaches. If we give each coach a hat and a shirt the costs are approximately 25% of our annual uniform budget. Decision was to go with hats only and give coaches a 25% discount in the MHLL store. Coaches are still able to order pull overs or sweatshirts from Proforma.

Softball update - Mark Olivo

-No merger with RHLL\BALL, MHLL will stand alone. MHLL is looking to put on 4 free new to softball clinics for players ages 5 to 10 in late Jan and early Feb to help boost registration. The clinics will be held at the BALL indoor facility. Dates have already been reserved.

-Yard signs and banners to advertise the clinic will need to be created and we want them to be generic so that both baseball and softball can use them and reuse year over year. A draft was sent to Jesse Levin to review to ensure the signs and banners will work for both baseball and softball.