Abilene Tennis Association Board Meeting Minutes
Fairway Oaks Pavilion
Monday August 28, 2017 at 6:15 pm
Board Members present: Beverly Guthrie, Kevin Crousen, Lydia Couch, Julie Beckham, and Valerie Giles
Board Members unable to attend: Jimmy Schaeffer, Mary Noel Corn
Other Attendees: Susan Clark, Karen Wilkins, Rick Meyers (Advisory Board)
Business
Beverly Guthrie called meeting to Order. Minutes from the July 17, board meeting were presented. Lydia Couch made a motion to approve, Kevin Crousen seconded, all approved.
Beverly Guthrie handed out Amended By-Laws and Standing Committees. Subsequently through an email exchange, several changes were presented and incorporated, and via email, Lydia Couch made a motion to approve the Amended Bylaws and Kevin Crousen seconded. The motion passed through the email responses of six of the seven Board members. The effective date of the new bylaws is August 31, 2017.
A discussion was held about the Board’s lack of awareness and therefore support to date of the upcoming Over 18 Mixed Sectional tournament. The Board discussed their intent to foster improved communication and teamwork between committee members, coordinators and the Board. The Board is looking for the committees to work with their Board chairs to ensure we are ahead of the game on tournaments and events, and to leverage off of other committees to help budget, promote and communicate these activities.
Treasurer’s Report –Beverly Guthrie
Beverly Guthrie handed out financial reports for the first two months of the year, and continues to work on the financials from that period forward which includes Grand Slam income and expenses.
Committee Updates
Junior Tennis
o Tournaments - Julie Beckham discussed the USTA website changes and login difficulties that are still not resolved.
o Julie Beckham discussed next year’s tournament schedule which would mirror the current year (to submit to USTA). Beverly Guthrie made a motion to approve the 2018 proposed scheduled tournaments with Tom Chicoine as the tournament director for six tournaments and Chris Redman for the four larger tournaments. Valerie Giles seconded, all approved.
o JTT registration is currently underway.
o The “Get Newked” event is coming up Sept. 8-10 for Adults and Juniors at ACC. ATA is assisting with getting the word out to sign up.
o The USPTA Team has been selected and Lydia Couch will be our Team Abilene Captain. The tournament is at Newks Sept 15-17.
o The SuperSmash is the weekend of November 10th. An adult/child event will be added to the tournament this year.
Rick Meyers informed the Board that the USTA was requiring all sanctioned tournaments for 2018 to be bid again, with the exception of the Grand Slam. The bids would come out within the next few days and are expected to be 2 year bids. As earlier discussed, the ATA will bid on all the same tournaments that we hosted in 2017.
Adult Tennis
o Adult Mixer - Lydia Couch discussed the Adult Tennis Committee will be meeting early September to set up an adult mixer. Abilene’s 3.0 and LoneStar ladies teams took 2nd place in the August tournaments.
o Over 18 Mixed Sectionals – Karen Wilkins and Susan Clark discussed the upcoming tournament with the Board that will be October 6-8. 400 plus players are expected to attend. We are planning a player’s party Friday night with door prizes, hors d’oeuvres and drinks, and are seeking sponsors and donations. It is planned to have food such as bananas, nuts and crackers made available for the players, and the ATA will supply water for the officials (about 2 cases of water per site). A motion to approve a budget not to exceed $1,500 was made by Valerie Giles. Kevin Crousen seconded, all approved.
o Men and women’s leagues at ACC are starting early September at ACC. Rose Park has not yet scheduled their Fall leagues.
Fundraising
o ATA Banquet – Beverly Guthrie discussed that we still need to reserve the site for the banquet and set a date after determining when the state tournament is held.
Community Tennis Development & Marketing
o Website – Valerie Giles demonstrated to those present the new website that is in development. The website uses Wordpress and the recommended host is Digital Ocean for a monthly fee of $5. The hosted site will include the website, email addresses and cloud storage. It is the intention of the board to go live as soon as JTT registration is over. In order for that to happen, Valerie Giles will follow up with Tennis Connect regarding obtaining the ATA’s domain name.
o Newsletters and flyers – Valerie Giles is tasked with taking the lead on pulling together samples and content.
Financial and Operations
o Community Grants – Beverly Guthrie stated we sent a check to ACS for $1,000 to help buy a ball machine.
Officials and Referees
o No report or activity.
The meeting adjourned at 8:15pm.
New Business
Subsequent to the August Board Meeting, on September 12, 2017 Julie Beckham brought forth the recommendation that the ATA should also put in an application request to USTA Texas for three other possible SCMZ dates just in case they choose to remove our July SCMZ from the Junior event calendar and move it to another city to help increase player participation. Chris Redman, our SCMZ TD agrees that if USTA Texas would give us an SCMZ in a month other than July that his would work better for him and Rose Part TC. The applications are due the week of September 12. The tourneys that we recommend submitting additional applications for:
· March SCMZ 16/18
· Nov SCMZ12/14
· Dec SCMZ 12-18
Tourneys we have already submitted:
· July SCMZ 12-18
· Nov SCMZ 16/18
Valerie Giles made a motion to approve, Beverly Guthrie seconded. The motion passed through the email responses of all seven Board members.
Announcements
· Next Board meeting is September 25, 2017.
Prepared by:
Valerie Giles, September 2, 2017