Sunday, September 27, 2009

Team Meeting at Auger's Bar!

After all the turmoil around team numbers and clear communication we have finally settled on a night to meet and discuss all our issues. We will meet at Auger's Bar in Guilford at 6.30pm this Monday, 28th September. I have copied the agenda into the comments page below. If i haven't covered everything just add further topics. I know not everyone can make the meeting but we have a core group of 7 that hopefully can make it. If you can't make the meeting but want to volunteer to help out with some of the issues mentioned or have ideas about how we can improves things just blog it, e-mail or tell me! I will post any minutes and recommendations from the meeting on the blog as soon as possible.

12 comments:

  1. Hi guys

    hope we can still all make Monday nights meeting at Augers Bar in Guilford starting at 6.30pm.

    Here are some agenda topics that we can cover, if i have missed any just add them;

    * Team Communication, Accountability and Clarity;

    ISSUE 1); We need an agreed system for communicating with the team on key issues or information. Examples would include the team roster for an upcoming game.

    I would suggest that we have a core group of 8 or 9 players that are computer savvy and we can clearly use that method for communicating with them, although i would make a plea for us to use the blog comments page as a more effective way of communicating and to keep the e-mail number down. There is another subset that have computers and e-mail but do not reply or interact with the blog. It seems they need to be phoned for confirmation. We need a team phone list and at least two guys in charge of getting the team roster confirmed by no later than Friday morning or Thursday afternoon of a playing week. I will keep the blog going but we need volunteers for the roster chasing. We also need an accountable person to say we have a final number or not.

    ISSUE 2); Effective interactions with the league/Town on fixtures/refs/fields/discipline;

    I for one think we should be getting out of this league because it is run so badly but we are stuck in it until next year. Currently Tom and Behrooz are the main two for interacting with the league and Town around fixtures, fields referees, rulings, fines etc. We clearly have issues making this operate effectively Anyone else want to be involved in this part of the process? I am willing to partner with Tom on this but a core group of 3 doing this with clear accountability's would work.

    * Finances; Ron is willing to become the treasurer. We actually need this in a team this size so we can have openness and effectively plan costs etc for a full year eg fees, balls and so on. We may even be able to get some of "float" money going so we can plan ahead for specific needs eg having a pool of shirts, socks etc already bought and ready to be given to new players. Maybe even an annual night out?

    * Player Recruitment; We need new players but they don't just fall off a tree we need to go out and recruit them. Someone, or a small team, has to come up with a plan for finding and vetting new players. Maybe every year or twice a year we should advertise and have practice sessions with any potential new players. Who is up for helping with this?

    * Entertainment; This is still part of the reason we turn up to play every week. A good game and a chance to interact after the game with a beer(s) and a snack or two.. We kind of leave this to chance but again if someone was willing to take the responsibility of organizing volunteers for the season it takes yet another burden off of Tom.

    Of course all of this still leaves the on field stuff to be done like tactics, practice sessions, subbing etc......but if we can get the first list sorted out we will be in a far better shape for doing the rest. So, are you up for this?

    Anything i have missed?

    See you at Auger's!

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  2. I guess we had another miss communication here.
    George, This Sunday Madison was to play New Fairfield at New Fairfield's home. On Sat I e-mailed the Madison Manager to confirm the game and to let Madison Know the game would be on as we have a turf field on wet days. Madison has played on our turf before last year. I recieved no response from Madison , then they failed to show for the game. I had checked my e-mails and was at home until 9:15am on Sunday but no messages or calls. We had to pay the referee $85.00 as required. Please advise Thanks Ray New Fairfield United Manager

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  3. I want to clarify that I did not receive any email from New Fairfield's manager on Saturday. Unless Tom has received one. If I knew he was not informed previously, I would have definitely notified him. I guess we need one person and one person only incharge of notification and communication with other team managers.

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  4. Behrooz, this is exactly the type of communication and accountability issue that we have to sort out. I guess the league must think we are really badly organized, which is a real bad joke coming from this league!

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  5. I agree, as long as one person is finally accountable for the communication to the league and team then we should not have an issue with this. A back up person would be good too, one that is working in harness with the accountable person. But, it has to be agreed who is actually responsible for communicating!And remember communication is a two step process...sending and receiving!

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  6. I talked to Danny yesterday and he was trying to recruit two of his friends who were interested. He will let me know this coming week. Hopefully that would work.

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  7. That would be very useful! Getting 4 more good players would make a big difference! We need to get to the point where there is never any doubt we will have at least 12 players for a Sunday

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  8. I agree. One person should be "the" voice with the league managers. They normally do not want to respond to different names that they are not familiar with. The back-up person is a great idea as long as it is understood the back-up person will respond on behalf of the main communicator.

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  9. This is a bit like us playing against a better team.....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CXY6TVBMc&feature=related

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  10. I am happy to be volunteer for roster call, working with one or two others. We will blog the roster call in a yes/no format, as john used last week. The data will be posted on the blog, and we should send one e-mail to all team members by Friday morning at the latest.

    I think we should work hard to train together once a week. We can use this opportunity for inviting prospective new players, and for builing team morale...We're all very busy, but this is key to our long-term sustainability and camaraderie

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  11. Roniildo...i agree getting some sort of weekly practice would be good, although not everyone can make it, but it may allow us to meet and capture new players

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