Arlington Southwest Little League: Open Letter to Members
July 28, 2009
An open letter to the members of Arlington SW Little League,
You have spoken.And we have listened.
We are going to attempt to change the culture of the league in an effort to make it more customer and user friendly.To that end, we are making several changes that will start with the 2009 fall season and help us transition into the 2010 spring season. Several of the changes will be behind the scenes,but many will involve the entire membership.Listed below, in no particular order, are some of the changes that you will begin to see immediately:
1) The web page will be changed and updated with a new look every Tuesday morning;
2) Volunteer badges will now be required for on field access—there will be no exceptions to this rule—if you have any need or desire to be on the field for any reason,you MUST have a volunteer badge on your person. Pictures/badge application will be available at all in person sign ups at the Skills Center throughout the month of August. Badges will be mailed to your home address.
3) We have created new positions on the board.We will now contact the coaches and managers of each team in each division at least twice weekly to make everything is going smoothly—and each person will be contacted by at least different board members during the week. We will also have someone assigned to notify each team of their schedules for the week so that teams are always made aware of what their current schedules are. Each team will have at least four different people on the notification list so that it will not be just the manager getting the notifications.
4) We have started a scorekeeper’s club—The Queens (and Kings) of the Diamond—special shirts and equipment bags have been ordered and will be ready for the fall 2009 season.All official scorebooks will now be kept by the league (instead of the home team being responsible).We will be requiring each team to send at least one person to the scorekeeping tutorial that will be led by Kristi Camp sometime in late August or early September.
5) Each team at the minors’ level and below will be required to have at least one volunteer umpire that can work their games. Each game—at every division—will have at least two umpires—the T Ball and Coach Pitch will each have a volunteer from each side out on the field. This is not a request for volunteers but rather a requirement for each team. Once again, all volunteers will have to have a badge before they will be able to go on the field.
6) We will offer a concession cart that will run each and every game night—it will travel between the red and green fields about every twenty minutes—so just know that drinks and snacks will always be available.
7) We are in the process of adding another field for play at MLK for spring 2010 to help alleviate overcrowding.
8) Members will be receiving an updated e mail from the league at least once weekly with any news or new information.
9) We are going to place a much stronger emphasis on the junior and senior levels to try and encourage more of our youth to stay involved in the league.
10) League scorekeepers will turn in pertinent information after each game—and that information will be downloaded and then loaded onto the web site for all to see—more on this as we perfect the process.
11) All teams will be required to line up and say the Little League pledge prior to each game.
The transformation and culture will not change overnight—and certainly will not change without help from everyone involved in the league. We already have a reputation in the area for being the best at what we do—it is our responsibility to set the bar so that others will want to do the same.
2009-2010 ASWLL Board