Minutes for the May Leadership Team Meeting

Leadership Team Meeting - Monday, May 3rd, 2021 

The meeting was held indoors at Odell Weeks.  In attendance were members of the Leadership Team,  Joyce  Noland, George Carr, and Harve Mobley; the USA Pickleball District Ambassador for West South Carolina and our head teaching professional - Mo Garcia; the Ambassador for Aiken County and Gregg Park Player Rep , Larry Howel; the Head of the Player Reps - Marian Garcia; the 4.0 Player Reps - Cheryl Breidenbach and Chris Tubbs; the 3.5 Player Reps - Robert Bromley, Ben Stephens, Bob Fogle, Leslie McGowan and Stephanie Wolfe; the 3.0 Player Reps - Bebe Murphy, Judy DeGregoria and Nelson Swartzentruber; the 2.5 and below Player Reps - Linda Blake and Faith Loeb (via phone); and Marissa Evans our scribe.   Items discussed were as follows:

Joyce called the meeting to order.  This was our first meeting without using Zoom in over a year.  We were all happy to finally see each other in person. We went around the room and introduced ourselves to the new members of the leadership team and stated what our titles were.   Joyce announced that Bob Fogle will be our Tournament Director for 2021 and we are very pleased and lucky to have him. Jeff Beckner will remain as part of the Tournament Leadership Team

Odell Weeks – Drop –in-play, court designation and new player clinic

  • Joyce asked for feedback on the opening of the six courts for drop in play at OW. The feedback indicated that all six courts open for drop-in play in the morning were under utilized so we are going back to reservation for some of the courts as follows:

  •  Mon, Tues and Thurs – three courts (1, 2 & 3) for drop-in and three courts (4, 5 & 6) for court reservation.  

  • Wed - court 1 reserved for Drills with Little Mo, remaining five courts for drop-in play.

  • Friday – court 1 reserved for lessons and little Mo,  three courts for drop-in play (2, 3 & 4) and two courts (5 & 6) for court reservations

  • Saturday morning – all six courts for drop-in play.

  • New player clinic is May 8th 9-11am will be on  courts 1 and 2 on Gym 2. 

  • There was a discussion about the need of extra paddles for lessons and others. If you have any extra paddles that you would like to donate to the programs please contact Bob Fogle, George Carr or Mo Garcia.   We thank you in advance for your donation.

Gregg Park

  • New player clinic for GP has been moved from May 14th to May 22nd.  Bob Fogle will be taking over the responsibilities of new player clinics from Ben Stephens who will be leaving us for the summer.

  •  Seth Holly, our point of contact at Gregg Park, is leaving and will be missed.  

  • Fridays at GP - we are losing our times Friday AM but gaining two additional sessions at GP: Fri 5:30 –7:45pm and Wed 5:30 – 8:30pm.   We are in the process of scheduling Drills with” Little Mo” on Friday evenings.  More info to follow.

  •  All courts at GP are now open. Joyce suggested that this would be a good time to test drop-in play at that facility. So we are going to try drop-in with the two courts we are getting so that we do not take away any reservation courts existing. Also on Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday morning we will have courts 1 & 2 drop-in and courts 3,4,5,6 court reservations.   We encourage you to give us feedback on this.

Rating Update

  •  Ron Nelson will lead our next rating session which will be held at Smith-Hazel on May 19th from 9am-12.  The April session was cancelled as only one person had signed up.  Need a minimum of three to hold a rating session.   There are currently three signed up for May.

Spring League (Chris)

  • Chris confirmed that we have three captains for OW teams:  Mike Dickhart, Jim Wheeler and Brandon Hoffman. We would like to have four teams so if you would like to be added to the list let Chris or Mo know.

  •  For each team we need a good blend of skills 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 and would like to have about eight men and eight women on each team.

  •  We discussed the possibility of other teams in the area but we have no commitment as of right now.

  •  League play will be every Friday evening indoors at Odell Weeks.

Nets  

  • There was a brief discussion on nets and the condition of them and how to address this. We are hoping to approach the City and we might get some new nets this season. We encourage all players to use appropriate technique to put up and take down nets so they will last longer – thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Decisions between meetings

  •  Joyce and George asked if it was ok to make decisions that are time sensitive regarding court reservations between the meetings regarding demand for courts and we all agree to leave that kind of decisions to their discretion.

Social on May 7th

  • We currently have 51 people signed up. Some have signed up for the meal some without.  The chicken salad sandwich is  holding a slight lead over ham and turkey subs.  As of Monday, only about half of the meal sign ups have paid.  Deadline for payment is this Wed (May 5th). You can pay using Zelle.

  •  The pavilion reserved is the one closest to Whiskey Rd.

  •  We will have a drawing for prizes: 1) - Free private lesson with Mo and 2) – 1 session for 4 people with little Mo. Winners must be present.  If you donate a used paddle you will receive an extra raffle ticket.  Drawing will be at 5:50pm

Ladder playoff recap (Chris Tubbs)

  • The Aiken Pickleball Mixed Doubles Ladder came to its final conclusion with a hard fought Round Robin.  Christine Chandler and Brian Eberhard won the gold medal, winning all for their matches.  Leslie McCowan and George Dazell won silver, and Michele Bullington and Bob Fogel took home the bronze.  Well done.  Special thanks to Chris Tubbs for organizing the Ladder and running the Round Robin. 

  • Feedback from the ladder was positive and people would like to see different ladders at different levels. We can do this if we have enough players to sign up.

Checking account and Zelle Payment

  • Currently Ron Nelson, our treasurer,  has our account because we cannot open an account in Aiken Pickleball’s name if we do not have a tax ID number. Joyce has also access to the account balance.

  • We can now make payments using Zelle (a bank application that you can download and it works with most banks) by sending  your payment to AikenPickleballBanking@gmail.com.

Becoming a legal entity

  •  A discussion took place with Ben Stephens sharing all the research he had done and all information he received from similar organizations. He had a handout and explained pros and cons.

  • Our tournament fees are paid thru Pickleball tournaments, activities thru Zelle and checks

  •  For our group at this point, it was decided that the cons outweigh the pros so we will remain a group not a club. Most locations don’t have the benefits of the wonderful facilities the City of Aiken provides and they need the dues and fund raising. Thankfully we are in a privileged position and the decision of becoming a club was tabled for the time being. If in the future, we have the need to become a legal entity, we will address it at that time.

 

Treasurer’s report

  • $440 but that number does not reflect the checks for the Social in May.

 

2021 Tournament Update

  • Bob Fogle is our new Tournament director.

  • The tournament is scheduled for Sept 10-12, 2021 with possible additional activities on Sept 9th.

  • We are not having the social due to Covid caution but encourage everyone to go out that Friday downtown to socialize. We will keep a close eye on registration numbers.

  • Next meeting for the leadership for the Tournament will be May 13th. On May 15th there will be a formal announcement of the Tournament and on June 1st, we will start accepting players. 

  • Marissa suggested we start a sign up list for volunteers  and use the system we used for the 2019 Tournament. So if you want to volunteer look for sign up at our website starting June 1st.  

Net Repair

Mo asked Player Reps and all to keep in mind proper set up and take down procedure to make nets last longer. Take care of our equipment.

Outdoor Court update

  •  Outdoor courts are currently closed for repairs and resurfacing and will be for approximately thirty days to complete the project. There will be additional four courts added to the North side of Virginia Acres park so the new courts will have “fences" on 3 sides. So once it opens there will be eight outdoor pickleball courts.

  • Mo added that the middle two tennis courts could be taped and we are considering having nets to be signed out at the front desk.

Grandfather program and Summer Day Camp

  • There is a need in the community for help to introduce foster children to pickleball. The City of Aiken is initiating a mentoring program for foster children. Mo said it would be a great opportunity for us as a group to help these kids. We could teach them about pickleball but also about values and help them.

  • The commitment would be one day a week, for a few hours - a morning or an afternoon (not both), about 15 kids – 6 to 13yrs old. May of may not be the same exact kids from week to week and would be only during the months of June and July.

  • During the summer, there will be summer day camps so there will be lots of kids around and the outdoor courts may not be available everyday due to activities.  

  •  If you think this is something that you would like to do, please contact Mo Garcia.

Player rep input

  •  Most player reps didn’t have feedback.

  • Bebe did share with us that there have been some complaints in her group about the dividers. There was a suggestion about getting new ones like the ones that they have at GP. Mo explained that they are currently in talks with the City about adding padding to the walls behind courts 4 and 6. Mo said  he will also approach them about new dividers and feels confident that with the tournament coming in September, we will have a positive outcome.

 Next Meeting will be Monday, June 7th, 2021 at 5:30pm at Odell Weeks