Minutes from AGM, News (South Muskoka Minor Hockey Association)

Present:  Steph Oates, Naomi Atkinson, Brenda Yeoman, Sheena Besseau, Tia Reading, Debbie

    Marling, Norm Webb, Mark McGrath, Kevin Babcock, Andrew Guthrie, Andrew Besseau, 

     Katey Gillis

            Regrets: Chris Bonden, Jody Somerville, Tim Lefler, Kimberley Earley 

1. Call to order - President Oates called the meeting to order at  7:07pm

1. Director Year End Reports




1. President:

Thanks to everyone for your patience as we sort through the complexities of this pandemic and for attending our 2020 AGM.




This season we saw progress and change in many initiatives which began last year as a relatively junior board.  We’ve become a very transparent board and have seen the proactive and positive use of feedback email  on many occasions throughout the season providing members another option to escalate any issues/comments or positive items. 




Our enrollment continues to remained strong  with our largest season ever with over 410 with the IP program continuing to bring the largest portion of enrolment.  The novice and below pathway pathway continues to bring successes and challenges with new parent involvement. We invested substantial money in coaching and equipment necessary to operate a functional cross ice and half ice program which will increase to Atom (U10) next season.




We continue to struggle with sponsorship and a focus next season needs to be on our record keeping of arena advertising, team sponsorship etc.  This has been an issue for many years with unpaid invoices and lost revenue for the Association and as we move into COVID19 related hardship, we may find ourselves in further difficulties.




Special thanks to many board members whom have stepped down this season and those that have stuck by through the pandemic. Your dedication and commitment to minor hockey is unwavering.




There will be Town Meeting held in August with South Muskoka Minor Hockey and the Skating Club to safely move forward to get back on the ice with protocols in place.  




Asking for any motions to come forward with in the next 30 mins please email Brenda - secretary, you have until 7:45pm to get them in. 

Motion - every player is required to purchase their own jersey annually based on the structure of their team requirements and at the SMMHA Board 1st by Atkinson 2nd by Guthrie

11 YES

1  NO

PASSED


Board Positions are as follows:

President - Steph Oates

Vice President-   Naomi Atkinson

Secretary- Katey Gillis

Treasurer- Sheena Besseau

Registrar- OPEN

Director of Local League - OPEN

OMHA- Andrew Guthrie

Ice Scheduler- Kevin Babcock

Player Development- Andrew Besseau

Equipment -        Mark McGrath

Director of Fundraising - Jody Somerville

Director of Sponsorship - Mark Jennings

Director of Tournaments - Stephen Roche

Director of Volunteers/Time Clock - OPEN

Ref in Chief - Norm Webb

b)     Vice President: 

Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time during this 2019-2020 season. This was a difficult end to a hockey season. Many players were not able to finish their season as it came to an abrupt end. I want to thank everyone for being patient during this time.

Year End banquet was unable to take place due to COVID-19. That being said  the association was able to save money, unfortunately that meant no trophies or year end awards for players. We were able to order year end gifts for all bench staff and players (that are available for pick up at Kevin Babcock’s house) Address available by contacting the ice scheduler. 

JERSEYS - need to be returned before a player can register for hockey in the 2020-2021 season. The jerseys are a huge expense for SMMHA and we need them all returned, including practice jerseys.

VVS - this season we saw the most completed VVS since I have been on the board, this is a mandatory requirement to volunteer within SMMHA and to have your volunteer fee refunded. This is the most difficult.  

      c)      Secretary: 

   Thank you all for the last couple of years on the board.  

Getting board reports was a challenge at times, it makes our meeting go more smoothly and faster          when they are presented.

Attendance to monthly board meetings were the same people not attending and not submitting board reports. Volunteer position but dedication and punctuality, attendance also plays a roll.

  Managers  not posting scores which sometimes fines were applied. 

  Getting people to post their own articles to the website. 

  I also think there should be more time allotted for  training for each position for them to get more    comfortable with the website.  

    Welcome aboard to all the new members.  

   i)         Player Development:

Coaching Development-

-Coaches were offered 4 specific clinics this year. Skills, Planning a practice, Skating Skills 1 and Goalie Part 1. We were the only association to offer clinics in MPS.  The first two skating and Planning a practice (same day) were well attended.  The Skills had to be cancelled (only 2 from SMMHA signed up) and the 3rd was a success with 17 coaches (3 from SMMHA).  Personally I attended all of them and gained something as a coach from each one. I am a teacher and love learning. It is a problem in the province and I am sitting down with OMHA this spring to see if we can find better solutions to get coaches more involved. 

-Along with the clinics I made it out to some LL practices. 

- We had a coaches meeting in the fall that was not well attended compared to the year before where I had almost everyone.  When I reached out after to ask why, the answer was this year is good,  I know what I am doing, your stuff last year helped.  I also communicate online easily which helps coaches. It was a very similar group to the previous year.

 Budget --- My only expense (2 clinics).  I am never sure of the final cost but the bills will come.  Please reach out if you have questions. Fees were paid by coaches to be reimbursed for the clinics.

Coaching Selection process-

1. I strongly recommend the same process that was implemented last year.  We had no complaints and all felt that the process was fair.  Some were not successful and upset but not at the process just at the selection made.  This is understandable and shows thier passion to coach.

2. Panel of at least 2-4 outside hockey people plus at least 2 board members. This is in the manual. This was used and should continue.

3. Interviews still need to take place and should be done shortly

4. Prior to the coaching selection process the new Player Development Director should introduce themselves and outline the process.  They can also provide the coaching feedback that SMMHA received if the coach chooses.

Tryouts- 

-The goalie evaluation was mostly a success.  Unfortunately, some parents thought that it had more weight than the tryouts but it was supposed to be an added evaluation to showcase them as a goalie.  I would recommend doing it again and make it mandatory for goalies trying out for Rep.  Having 3 non parent evaluators with the coaches was great.  We may want to consider hiring someone for next year? A lot of difficult goalie decisions had to be made.

-Posting the numbers online was also a success.  After we worked out a few kinks it worked well. I strongly recommend doing this again and doing it for the final cuts as well. We need to protect coaches and last year parents had the opportunity to unload at will.  We should consider as a board some type of better "exit" for players not being successful. 

Development ice was not utilized this year as well as the year previous.  But with every problem you need to find solutions.  2 years ago I ran development ice-times every wednesday.  It varied from 25 kids to 2 kids.  I found the time slot is very difficult to utilize and because it was free people never felt committed. This year it was a really late start to Wednesday ice slots and we had 2 select teams that utilized the slot.  

Here are ideas for the Player Development person next year or.....when hockey gets back to "normal".

Development Ice Time next year. Concept

Overview.  15 week program.  6 power skating, 6 stick handling shooting, 6 goalies.

People that have been approached and confirmed they would do it.  

-Glideabiltiy 

-Lemayazing  

-Dan Blum 

-Goalies (I have talked to Jeremy K and need to talk to Norm).  Still working on this.

SMMHA would provide the ice.

25 skaters per group.  6 sessions for Atom and under and 6 sessions for Peewee and up per skill set mentioned above. For the goalie clinics all kids who sign up.

This is an idea of what it would look like.

1st skill set -  skating

Atom and under 6 sessions $150X6= $900 /    25  =  $36

Peewee and up 6 sessions $150X6= $900 /    25  =  $36    

2nd skill set Goalies

Atom and under 6 sessions $80X6= $480 /    25  =  $20

Peewee and up 6 sessions $80X6= $480 /    25  =  $20    

3rd skill set shooting (would include the goalies)

Atom and under 6 sessions $80X6= $480 /    25  =  $20

Peewee and up 6 sessions $80X6= $480 /    25  =  $20    

Create a Pro/ Con list, this is a start

Pro's - 

-Times would be set.  

-Money paid people show up. This was my biggest issue last year. We did 8 clinics and it varied from 2 skaters to 25.  

-No cost to SMMHA other than the ice.  

Con's-

-Ice harder to find for select teams.

- Maybe some kids do not get in if the list fills up?

Feb 26th is a good example of the complexity of this.  The younger kids want lots of ice time.  The older ones are a little harder to reach.  On Tuesday we reached our 25 limit for the younger ones and had only 14 Peewees and up.  I reached out and got a few more for the older group. We had 6 cancel with the younger group the day of but I got the number back to 23. Maybe weather, sickness, who knows?  We only ended up with 5 Peewees on the ice. It ended up being a great night and was a good idea. I am glad we did it. They are just tricky nights with how to sign kids up and then actually having people show up consistently.   The clinic was good but nothing new and anyone of our coaches could have done the same lesson.

j) ice scheduler:

New year...same challenges with our facilities and available ice. We continue to work with the 3 towns to make sure ice needed is available. The largest challenge was the under 8 program and the 1/2 ice. We will continue to assess how to maximize our ice. Covid has and will present a new issue with ice and I await governing bodies to pass down what the restrictions will be for the coming year.

 k) Registrar: 

For the 2019-2020 season we had a total of 417 participants register throughout various stages of the season. This was an increase from our numbers last year. There are a few outstanding accounts and notifications sent out to account holders. The remaining balance will be applied to their account for the upcoming season. Funding approvals have been recently provided from Children’s Foundation of Muskoka (CFM) and applied to the appropriate accounts. Moving forward – SMMHA and CFM need to work more cohesively to get these approvals in a timelier manner so they can be applied properly to the hockey accounts and not have an outstanding balance at the end of the season. This is something that is starting to be worked on with CFM and should help in future seasons with registration and funding approval, however, better communication between the two organizations would be recommended.

Also this year the treasurer, with the approval of executives and board members, was able to secure in the later half of the season a POS system and implement to help with financial transactions and allow for email money transfers for registration and other association costs, if required. This proved to work well for the short time it was utilized and would be recommended to continue to use in the future for registration and other association fees.

This season the SMMHA also worked with CFM to offer support to new hockey players in the 5-7 age group through the George Corn Memorial Fund. The fund covered registration and equipment costs for up to 3 years for those families who may not otherwise be able to participate in the sport due to financial barriers. SMMHA promoted this and CFM was able to support three local families this year. The fund will continue to be available to new applicants on a year to year basis through CFM in conjunction with minor hockey.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and current status of minor hockey, registration for the 2020-21 season has been delayed at this time with SMMHA. The hope is that following the AGM to open registration at a zero cost to see the potential interest and what registration numbers may look like under a modified season. A news article can be posted following the AGM with a proposed date at the board's discretion.

Registration is to be opened online at a cost of $0 for people to enroll as we need the number figures to work accordingly.

l)  Equipment:

No Report

m) Sponsorship:

Nothing to report

n) Fundraising:

I’d like to start by thanking the association for the opportunity to join the board for the 2019/2020 season. Our board is comprised of so many amazing people with great ideas and solutions to make each hockey season enjoyable, safe and a proud place to play.

As I was new to this 1 year position this term, I wanted to learn from what had been done in the past seasons and determine what works and what needed to be modified. I have put together a list of the current fundraising initiatives, what the outcome was and future suggestions.

I would like to breakdown the fundraising opportunities we explored this season and how each one of them ran. We started the season off with the opportunity for both individuals and teams to raise money to help reduce the cost of registration, tournaments, fees and clothing. Many teams took advantage of our Banner fundraiser, where interested teams would source out funding from local businesses in our community and in exchange their logo would appear on a roll up banner which then was taken to all home and away games with the teams. These banners looked fantastic and really made the lobbies look vibrant. This fundraising option was all around successful and I would recommend allowing teams to do this again in future years. The one thing I would also suggest is allowing each team to open up a bank account for deposits but allowing the team manager to have access to removing the funds, so that teams can use it at their discretion – i.e. pizza parties, clothing, team building activities.

The second bit of fundraising we did was on an individual basis where families had the opportunity to sell product to their family and friends with all profits going directly back to the families. We chose 2 different companies this year, one being Don’s Bakery and the other MacGregor Meats. There was certainly a decrease in participants on these then I had hoped for. I’m confident that these numbers will increase with the implementation of a few things. First, collect all member emails from the registar so emails about the programs can go directly to the members and not just through a website post. Secondly, look at a few different companies’ products and possible try a new one for 2020/2021. Lastly, making sure our members are educated on the products and potential profit margins.

Finally, our last association initiative was our “Swag Store” members and their families could purchase Bears Gear for a nominal cost from hoodies, t-shirts, hats, bells, toques, stickers, iron on patches, warm up gear and water bottles. The response on the merchandise was fantastic, all thanks to the kids at BMLSS and Mark McGrath for doing all the hard work of putting logo’s on all the inventory…well done! There are a few things I would like to suggest we do differently this year. I would like to have the option to pay debit directly, order more Youth Large and XL and Adult Small and XL in the hoodies, add a few more items to the inventory like new hats, winter gear (scarfs and lined pants on special order), a girls line of clothing  - maybe some pink! And lastly the store to be better organized with open shelves, labels etc. and a key for the Director of Fundraising for easier access.

In conclusion, if we take into consideration the suggestions mentioned above then we have no reason why Fundraising can’t benefit EVERYONE. I would like to finish with, as a member of the association we are keen on making each season a success and I am always open to suggestions on how we can make fundraising most beneficial to our members. My communication line is always open, so please don’t hesitate to contact me at any time with ideas.

o)  Ref in Chief:

We had 19 Refs this past season, trying to recruit more for this season as we are alway short

Thank the Board for their support for any issues that occurred during the season.

1. Committee Reports:

a) Coach Selection & Evaluation Committee - Chair President