Hingham Little League
Board of Directors Meeting
November 13, 2006
Hingham Recreation Center
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Attendees:
Melissa Flanagan, Bill Ford, Ed Anderson, Skip Jenkins, Bob Madden, Tony Viola, Laurie Berlinguet, Elliot Sherman, Kevin McNally, Rick Linehan, Tim Driscoll

The first meeting of the 2006-2007 Board of Directors was held at the Hingham Rec Center. We kicked off by welcoming our new members and discussing several of our key challenges for the coming year, highlighted by our situation with playing fields now that PAL/Lynch Fields are under major construction. This will undoubtedly be a great benefit for the kids of Hingham in years to come, but the consensus is that HLL will not be planning to use the new fields this season. We shared some ideas on what other possible options we have for fields which no doubt will be a key theme for this year’s Board to manage.

Other items informally discussed for our upcoming agendas included sponsorships, potential for new scoreboards, the need to engage other volunteers from the membership to chip in our many initiatives, potential for paying others specifically for help on the fields, and the Major and Minor League pitch count issue instituted by Little League. Planning of the upcoming Hingham Little League 2007 season is underway!

As the first order of business, a motion was made and vote passed to elect Kevin McNally as a non-coaching role on the Board of Directors. Kevin had expressed interest prior to the Annual Meeting but was not able to attend, and his status as a non-coaching candidate was not available at the time of the vote. Welcome aboard Kevin! This will allow us to extend a position to the next highest vote getter from the coaching ranks in the Annual Election, and therefore Patrick McCullom will be contacted to see if he is still interested in a position.

Elections
The main agenda item was to elect the Officers and Committee Members. The following Members have been elected by majority vote of the Board

President Ed Anderson
Vice President Melissa Flanagan
Secretary Tim Driscoll
Treasurer Rick Linehan
Player Agent Kevin McNally
Safety Officer Owen McConville
Coaching Coordinator Skip Jenkins

Executive Committee
Melissa Flanagan, Elliot Sherman, Rick Linehan, Ed Anderson, Tony Viola

Nominating Committee
Tim Driscoll, Skip Jenkins, Bob Madden

Membership Committee
Elliot Sherman, Tony Viola, Bill Ford

Finance Committee
Rick Linehan, Melissa Flanagan, Tony Viola, Ed Anderson

Buildings and Property Committee
Elliot Sherman, Bob Madden, Ed Anderson, Bill Ford

Grounds Committee
Bob Madden, Tony Viola, Kevin McNally

Playing Equipment Committee
Bill Ford, Ed Anderson

Managers Committee
Rick Linehan, Skip Jenkins, Laurie Berlinguet, Tony Viola, Elliot Sherman

Umpire Committee
Bob Madden, Skip Jenkins, Ed Anderson

District Committee
Ed Anderson, Melissa Flanagan, Rick Linehan

Sponsor/Auxiliary Committee
Rick Linehan, Melissa Flanagan, Laurie Berlinguet

Major League Committee
Skip Jenkins, Tim Driscoll, Bob Madden

Minor League Committee
Kevin McNally, Skip Jenkins, Owen McConville

Farm League Committee
Bill Ford, Tim Driscoll

Summer Travel/Tournament Team Committee
Melissa Flanagan, Elliot Sherman, Rick Linehan

*Publicity and Special Events
Melissa Flanagan, Laurie Berlinguet

*A motion was made and passed to create the Publicity and Special Events Committee, to logically separate from Sponsor/Auxilliary Committee with its own tasks to attend to such as Opening Day, All Star Game, 4th of July/Float, Fundraising, weekly publishing of the Majors games scores/highlights, and other programs.

Congratulations and thank you to all for your volunteering to make these committees operate. For further descriptions of the roles for each position please see the link HLL Constitution under downloads on the homepage.

One theme of discussion throughout this process was the need to reach out to the Membership for additional volunteers to assist in specific areas. We had some success in a few areas where non-Board Members helped make the difference in the workload, and we certainly can do better in this area so all the work isn’t left to just a few individuals. Some ideas were discussed and we agreed that reaching out to the membership to help fill in our gaps should be priority for this Board

Boys of Baseball
Discussed the Boys of Baseball program, which we have hosted in the past, to gauge interest in continue with the program. This highly acclaimed Managers and Players training is a national program that has many followers, and has had terrific feedback in the past in Hingham. Steve Cosgrove, the director of the program, is trying to plan the schedule and is awaiting a response from us. There is some debate regarding the value of this program, as last year we cancelled the fall session, and had only 30 attendees of players/20 or so coaches. The charge for the day long program for the kids was .00, and HLL paid per coach for the training, deemed to be rather expensive. Timing of the training was also brought into question – May being too late as our fields availability is dwindling and would be tough to schedule.

After debate, it was agreed to have an ‘ad-hoc’ committee of Melissa Flanagan, Tony Viola, and Elliot Sherman (‘local contacts’), approach Steve Cosgrove to see if he is amenable to a charging a fixed fee to the program to hopefully open it up to more kids, and to schedule an earlier date for an indoor event that wouldn’t interfere with the ongoing season. They will report back to the Board.

The next meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, November 28th at 7:00 pm at the Rec. *Someone will need to reserve the room.

The meeting adjourned at 9:55 pm.

Tim Driscoll
Secretary