Bonney Lake-Sumner Little League: News: State of the League, An Update from President Jay Lewandowski

First off...THANK YOU for signing up your son(s) and daughter(s) in our Little League program. This year we had some major changes on the board of directors (BoD) and the learning curve has been steep! All board members are putting in extra time to help make this year successful and are doing a terrific job.As you know the BoD has decided to make some changes to the way we did business in the past by launching an online registration program as well as we based scheduling, roster formation, umpire scheduling. The IT committee has been working very hard behind the scenes to make this transition flow smoothly. We are very close to having an automated system. By doing so updated schedules will have links on our website and you can go and check on practice schedules, rain out reschedules etc.  Another change this year was uniforms; The BoD decided at my direction to drive home the BLS brand. So all uniforms this year will have BLS logo on them and YOU get to KEEP your entire uniform that was provided to you. As part of the uniform change we have set up an online store where you can purchase baseball merchandise and part of the money you spend goes back to the BLS Little League program. We are also offering on line team stores where your team can purchase "spirit gear". We are continuing to work on our communication to you. This was one topic that all BoD members agreed that needed improvement. We are committed to improve this. If you e-mailed us and haven't received a reply please resend the e-mail and cc me on it. We are working on a program where each board member has an e-mail account and you can send your questions to the board member who has responsibilities to answer you questions. Example- my son is 12 and wants to play baseball this year, who do I talk to? Your e-mail should be directed to the Majors Player Agent.  The BoD also decided to not have a Picture Day/Jamboree but instead a picture day at the beginning of the season and a League Celebration day in the middle of the season. Please go to our website for dates/times.  As for team rosters and player alignment, we left the registration open with the hopes of getting everyone who wanted to play an opportunity to join. In the future we will establish teams and just add to the team(s) new players until the rosters are full. Moving forward we may need to turn away players because we have reached capacity. This is something I didn't want to do this season but it is the reality of setting rosters and schedules. We are doing the best we can to accommodate requests but at some time we have to do what is best for the division. Your patience/understanding on this is greatly appreciated. If your son/daughter isn't placed on the team they hoped to be on or requested to be on I apologize for that and hope they will still have an enjoyable season on the team they are placed on.  The weather.....I personally have no control over the weather but like you, I am chomping at the bit to get my kids out on the baseball/softball field and out of the house. At the last BoD meeting held 3/21/12 it was decided to push the games back in order to give the teams more opportunities to have practices before games started. I know this has been a real inconvenience to most but we need to make sure kids are getting enough practice prior to playing games. Once the games start there won't be as many chances for practicing.  A promise to you all is the BoD will continue to work throughout the rest of their term on writing procedures that will make next years BoD even more successful than this year. So go ahead and continue to monitor the BLSLL website for updates and take the time to provide feedback to us. We are all on the BoD to make this the best Little League program in the state.

PLAY BALL!!

Jay LewandowskiBLSLL President