Jun 27, 2023 | Kyle Lake | 296 views
News from the Board - Important Information Regarding Next Season
Hello Blazer Families,
We hope this note finds you all well. As we head into the summer, we wanted to send out a note in preparation for next season. We would like to express our thanks to all the parents who helped the organization in many different facets last season. Whether you were a coach or trainer, a timekeeper, a sponsor, a volunteer at our tournament, or involved in the Belmont Santa Claus parade, your time and contribution was indeed appreciated. We cannot do this without your support.
The board has just finished it’s fiscal year and we are happy to report we are in a strong financial position which has allowed us to keep our fee increases to a minimum. With this, we made the decision to acquire new jerseys for our teams. We will do this over the next two seasons with the U11, U13, U18C, and Senior teams receiving new organization jerseys this upcoming year. The season after will see the U15, the U18A and U18AA teams get organization jerseys. Not to spoil the surprise but they look amazing.
In that same vein we are happy to say that London Sports Excellence is our official supplier of Blazers merchandise. There is a link on our website to their store and we are continuing to work with them to get the products you would like. If you have any ideas, please let us know and we will see what we can do.
If you’ve been to one of our rinks over the last couple of months, you might have seen our banners that now hang out in the lobbies. This was an investment the board made to give us some more exposure. We will continue to make investments to increase our presence and ensure everyone who is looking for girls minor hockey knows who we are and what we are about. Next season we will again run a BAD Day, put a float in the Belmont Parade and hold our annual tournament. We are looking for other ideas as to how we could be more visible in our communities.
The Blazers Annual Tournament will be held Jan 19 – 21, 2024 and is already receiving lots of interest; we fully expect it to sell out again. This is the biggest fundraiser we have but it is also a whole lot of work for our small board. Last year we leaned on high school students to help with timekeeping and were hopeful they would all enjoy getting some volunteer hours. Alas, itended up costing us a few thousand dollars to pay them all.
As a result of this, the board has decided to implement a bond system to ensure that we get the help we need to run the tournament smoothly and profitably. Many of you will be familiar with bonds and how they work through your time with other associations.
In essence, a bond is a requirement for a parent of a player to volunteer their time to help the association. At the beginning of the season, team managers will be collecting a cheque from each family in the amount of $300/player. The cheques are to be post-dated to April 30, 2024. You will be required to put in 4 hours of time (per registered player) to ensure that your cheque is not cashed. The Board expects that many parents will fulfil their bond hours by helping at the tournament and we expect to have a link to a live Google Sheets spreadsheet with bond opportunities available on the website by mid-August. Please monitor badgha.com.
If you are a coach, trainer, or team manager – your bond is paid. Another way to get your bond hours would be to join our board. We are always looking for more help and would be happy to have you. If you don’t want to join as a full-time member, similar to last year, each team will be required to have a team rep at our board meetings from Sept to March, which would qualify as a bond position as well. There may be other opportunities that arise, but we believe all hours will be filled with the above examples. Timekeeping for your teams’ regular games is NOT considered a bond position.
We thank you for your dedication to our organization as we continue to strive for fair play, teamwork, and commitment. Our goal is to aid in the athletic and personal development of our youth through the vehicle of hockey. We aim to unite and empower our players, families, and staff to create positive, extraordinary life experiences while feeling proud of representing the Blazers organization.
Have a great summer and see you at the rink in the fall.
The Blazers Board