SSSA BOARD MEETING MINUTES MAY 13, 2020

Present : Ken Shepard, Frank Lyons, Dan Martin, Bob D’Angelo, Jack Zimmerman, George Wacaser, Ron Grande, Dave Wulfsohn, Chuck Cason . NO ONE ABSENT

Ken Shepard called the meeting to order at 1:05 PM.
Minutes of the April 8, 2020 meeting were unanimously approved.
Dan Martin submitted the Treasurer’s report. We still are still holding money from 11 players who paid for the awards luncheon. It will be applied to their winter fees if they do not request it prior to the start of the season. Also reported on outstanding bills due and recently paid and the current association balance. The financial report was approved unanimously.

Old Business

Update on fields _ Chuck Cason. 17th St. Fields are going to be repaired as requested, slopes and other issues will be resolved. Chuck will inform Sarasota Parks and Recreation of our intention to follow USSA distancing and cleanliness rules as conveyed to the board in a memo from the Venice organization ‘
Sponsor Letters –Frank Lyons. It was agreed that Frank will compose a letter and the board members will comment on it and request any changes. There will be a final review for approval by the board at June 10th meeting.
Discussed the sponsor fees that were approved at the February board meeting. Fees will be$200 a renewing sponsors and $275 for new sponsors.
Final Draft List and draft Sequence was submitted by George Wacaser and approved unanimously. There will be 71 players in Wednesday league and 60 players on Thursday.
George presented SSSA Board Members jobs and responsibilities and assigned board members to them.
Domain name – Frank Lyons contacted the current provider and the annual rate remains at $14/year. It was agreed that we will renew this in August when it is due for payment.
Discussed Tim Manning and voted to leave his status as is, with no further action at this time.

NEW Business

Summer season – It was voted on and agreed to start the summer season immediately after fields are released for play. Therefore the draft will be held May 21. Bob D’Angelo offered to have the draft at his home lanai. The Wednesday league draft will be conducted at 9:00 AM and Thursday will be at 10:30. The season will start on June 3 (if allowed by Sarasota County) and run through October 22. There will be no days off in August due to the shortened schedule. The Winter league will start on Monday November 2.
Balls and shirts will be assigned to each team. These are shirts that have accumulated over the years. They will be given to team Co- Managers at the draft for distribution to their team players.
Silver League Prayer Ministry was discussed and it was voted and approved to not take any action. The only stipulation is that games must start on time , and not be held up because of prayer time. It will be the responsibility of league coordinators to be sure this is done.
Verify summer rules: both days will use the 1 and 1 count at bat, to speed up games. All games will start at 8:30 sharp. All games will be at 17th St. and each team will provide umpires.

Presidents Report

A response to Sarasota County regarding volunteer hours from SSSA has been completed and forwarded

A new SSSA logo was submitted for consideration and approval. A vote was taken and the measure failed mainly due to the cost of printing a label that is multi colored.

Discussed the possibility of changing to a different (Tattoo) softball for league play. Ken will look into the difference in cost and performance, between this and the current Trump softball and advise

Should we consider having one hat for all teams and having the SSA letters on different colors ? TBD

A proposed league budget that is from July1 to June 30th will be presented to the board members for review at the June meeting.. We will vote on this for approval at the July board meeting.

Decided that if there are not enough summer players , we will disperse any remaining players and reduce the number of teams if necessary.

Meeting adjourned at 3:22 PM

Next meeting will be June 10 at 1:00 PM. Location TBD