Hingham Little League Board of Directors Meeting
July 11, 2005
Hingham Recreation Center
8:00 pm

Meeting Minutes

President Rob Blomberg called the meeting to order at 8:05 pm. Present: Rob Blomberg, Bob Keyes, Melissa Flanagan, Tim Driscoll, Tim Zyrkowski, Cliff Boyle, Elliott Sherman showed up late.

Absent: Paul LeBlanc, Mike Letorney, Tia Mastromatteo, Mark Igo Steve White, Joe Craven Bruce Corwin Rich Magner Rick Linehan, Joe Granatino Owen McConville, and Elliot Sherman joined later.

Secretary’s Report
· Approval of Meeting Minutes from 6/20/05 Meeting
o Due to lack of quorum, the minutes from 6/20 meeting were not voted on / approved – to be done at next meeting. Minutes were sent to board on June 21st.


Treasurer’s Report
· Current Balance
o ,164.81. Bob reports that we are in good shape
· Outstanding Expenses
o No significant expenses at this time
· User Fee Issue-Hingham Rec
o Status of .00 charged per player per team for Little League season
o Status of .00 charged per player per team for summer travel season
§ Bill was paid, ,050.00
· User Fee Issue- Hingham School Department Fields
o Status of .00 per player user fee will be imposed by Hingham School Department
§ Unknown
Business Related Issues

· Local Little League Business Filings and Topics
o Public Charity Filings
§ Status of 501 (3) c Form
· Need to get this completed as soon as possible, is holding up ability to close books for 2003-04, collect payment for Verizon, etc. Discussed that if Joe is still struggling with administrative work that we hire the Accountant Alan Gladstone to finish the work on it. Rob will follow up with Joe Craven for a status.

o Insurance Fees and Options
· Audit of 2003/2004 HLL Financial Results
o Status of Audit
· Haven’t planned meeting with accountant yet, needs the 501 (3) c form completed, as above.

New Business

· Player Registration-Membership Committee Report & Team Schedules
o Rick Linehan and Elliot Sherman are Co-Chairpersons
o Outstanding Issues?

· Sponsorships and Donations-Committee Report
o Chairpersons are Melissa Flanagan and Tia Mastromatteo
o Outstanding Issues
· 501 (c) (3) form required for Verizon sponsorship remains outstanding
· As above
· Sponsor plaques are completing and being distributed in appreciation of sponsorship. Discussed how to distribute, may want to hand deliver around town, possibly hire Carol Ryan to mail the others.
· Lapels – has agreed to trade services for sponsor fee. Melissa has discussed handing over uniforms for cleaning, attaching of Little League patches, and boxing/storing the Majors and Minors uniforms. Will be collecting final shirts after Summer Teams complete in mid-August.

League Rules and Local By-Law Issues

· Player Agent Report
o Mike Letorney is Player Agent
· Playoff-Postscript
· Went very well; minimal complaints or issues in either level.
· All Star Game-Postscript
· Terrific day, a good time was had by all, thanks to all the hard work of the contributing Board Members. Timing worked okay with the delayed start of Majors game due to Williamsport conflict. Roadrunner race was fun, the Balloon Lady reportedly was also a big hit.
· Status of Player Evaluation Forms
· There is a provision in the Major and Minor rules that we will complete evaluations on all players in both leagues. We didn’t do that in 2004 but those of us in attendance feel we should do for 2004. A suggestion was made to use the form that we used for tryouts and add a comments section. Rob will follow up with Joe and Mike to coordinate logistics?

· Major League Committee Report
o Joe Granatino is Chairperson
· Revised Major’s Rules
· Rob took time to review the season’s worth of feedback, agreement, misalignment, misinterpretation etc. of all the rules prior to meeting. He distributed revisions to both Major and Minor rules which need to be discussed at next meeting. These need to be FINAL from this Board for handoff, and needs the input from all while the issues are reasonably fresh.
· There were a couple of issues noted regarding ties, Minors playing week/innings pitched that need to be corrected.

· Minor League Committee Report
o Paul LeBlanc is the Chairperson
· Revised Minor’s Rules
· No Report

· Manager’s Committee Report
o Joe Craven is Chairperson
o Outstanding Issues?
· Training dates for Managers, Coaches and Players
· First Aid session
· Catching clinic
· Status of practice manual for HLL
· No Report

· Equipment Committee Report
o Rick West is Chairperson
o Status of Equipment Return
· Lot of outstanding equipment to be collected, nearly 40 teams. Some teams didn’t have complete set of equipment returned, many others haven’t returned. Rick and Mark will inventory and set up 1 or 2 dates in later August after summer ball is over.
· Discussed that next year we (Board) may want to grab the bags from all teams after their last games in order to make this a less painful process. Also discussed sending another email to coaches with consequences for non-conformance!
· Discussed also to maybe consider getting uniforms for Summer teams to keep them separate from the regular ones, to be taken up next year.
o Outstanding issues involving equipment or other items
· Uniforms-missing sponsor names and patches-will wait until end of the season
· As above, see information re: Lapels handling the shirts.
o Status of batting cage at Haley/Cronin
· Still not erected; Bob was to follow up with Ted, the High School team was going to put it up but never did. We have volunteers who could help.

· Umpire Committee Report
o Rich Magner is Chairperson
· Outstanding issues?
· None. Terrific season put in up and down with the umpires, nice job Rich and Mark.
· Umps have been signed up for the summer league.

· Safety Committee
o Owen McConville-Chairperson
o Approval of ASAP Program (A Safety Awareness Program)
· Other outstanding issues
· Approval was granted for our ASAP program; among other benefits, it will help us save on our insurance policy.

· Challenger Division Report
o Chairpersons are Rob Blomberg, Joe Granatino and Tia Mastromatteo
o Tabled until Fall, 2005 or Spring, 2006

· Buildings, Property and Grounds Committee Report
o Cliff Boyle and Tim Zyrkowski-Co-Chairs
o Status of order of dirt/clay for all fields
o General maintenance issues
· Fields in good shape, thanks to all the work put in by Tim Zyrkowski
· Haley wasn’t approved for District game because the dirt is ‘too hard’. Most agreed, brief discussion as to what to do about it (tilling, raking, water?). Recommend not using the product again.
· At Hersey, need to extend backstop higher, loosing too many baseballs.
· At Haley, tree behind backstop needs to be trimmed, interfering with balls in fair territory.
· Shed needs better organization/pegboard, have equipment stored properly, etc.
· We want a storage shed for Hersey
· We want to purchase a larger model of the roller for Haley (worked great); the smaller could be stored at Hersey
· Portable mound is probably still a good idea for South
· Dirt piles at PAL – it would be nice if they were in between the fields!
· Tim Z. will solicit more ideas/suggestions for how we can better maintain the fields and equipment for next season.

· Social Committee Report
o Chairpersons are Melissa Flanagan and Tia Mastromatteo
o Identify potential fundraisers
· Golf tournament is 9/21/05
· Mike looking for volunteers – so Melissa, Rob, and Tim D have volunteered to help organize. To discuss at next meeting
· Other suggestions

· Publicity Committee/Opening Day/Fourth of July Float
o Melissa Flanagan is Chairperson
· Fourth of July Float Postscript
· Awesome job, float looked terrific. Thank you to Melissa for being the Float Committee, to Rich for use of Hingham Lumber, and to all others who contributed to making us all look good.

· Calendar of Events
o Post updated Calendar on the website

· Sandlot
o Cliff Boyle is chairperson
· Status of Sandlot
· Status of volunteers, costs, equipment and other details
· Cliff reports that Mark Gillespie will be taking the lead, has ensured there will be Adult Supervision, etc, and will report into Cliff/HLL. All accounting will be done by HLL. CORI forms were to be turned into Rick Linehan July 5th (need follow up on this to ensure). Shirts and baseballs will be provided.

· Summer Travel Baseball
· Update on Travel Teams
· Williamsport team
· Suburban teams
· South River teams

· Schedule for Upcoming Meetings
o Monday 8/8/05
o Monday 9/12/05
o Monday 10/3/05
o Monday 10/24/05 (Annual Meeting)
Adjourned at 8:55 pm.