Greetings ECYB Team Business Managers (TBMs)! This page is intended to be a central resource for you in carrying out your important job for your team and the league.

Volunteer Hours

It is the team business manager’s job to assign responsibility for and to credit families with hours performed on volunteer jobs. A complete list of league and team jobs may be found here. At the team level, the manager must keep track of hours earned on the following jobs:

Field preparation
Scorekeeper
A’s Fundraiser Ticket Sales
Picture Day
Trophy Coordination
Team Party Planning

Each of these jobs has an assigned number of hours associated with it (see link) Only scorekeeping is considered a league-level job.  Hours spent on this task should be reported separately. 

You must report these hours to the Business Manager Coordinator within a week of the end of the season to facilitate the return of Parent Participation Fees to families that have fulfilled the volunteer requirements.

Assigning Team Jobs

Your main task is to make sure all the game day team jobs are performed, particularly field preparation and scorekeeping, as well as having a snack ready at the end of the game.

How you assign these jobs is up to you. Remember to try to spread the workload as much as possible and try not to take on too much to yourself because some parents may drag their feet in offering to help. The best way to establish how the game day jobs will get done is to create a written schedule with all the assignments at the start of the season.

For field preparation, you can remind families that they will receive an hour's credit for each game they work, even though the job often can be done in fifteen or twenty minutes if they coordinate well with the opposing team's field prep squad (and it's a good way to break the ice and meet parents from other teams). Two field prep workers must be assigned for every game, home and visitor.

Scorekeeping is surprisingly easy to learn, as it's very intuitive and, so long as the parent keeps track of the salient information and interpret his or her own symbols, there's no "right" or "wrong" way to do it.

Snacks after each game are a tradition of youth sports and most families are happy to take a turn or two supplying one.  Please note, however, no team hours are given for providing snack.

We encourage fresh healthful snacks such as fruit, cheese, whole grain crackers and breads and juice or water for a beverage. You should make sure to ask your families if there are any food allergies!!! And let the rest of the team know on the schedule!!

Candy, cookies or other sweet treats are certainly permitted in reasonable quantities. As TBM you can support this by starting the season with a schedule for snack duty that contains some suggestions for snack items and quantities(see link?).

Water for the bench or dugout is sometimes supplied by the manager or a coach, but if not you can make this a part of the snack schedule, either by assigning it to the snack family or by having two assignments for each game-one snack and one water.

Other team jobs need to be performed and should be assigned early on so the volunteer can be put in touch with the appropriate league coordinator for the task.  These include: PCA coordinator, uniform assistance, Photo Day coordinator, A's fundraiser coordinator and trophy coordinator. 

Your team may also wish to plan a party at the end of the season.  This task may also be assigned to a family for volunteer credit.

Sponsor Banners

Part of your job is to keep track of the team banner that bears the sponsor's name and make sure that it is displayed at each game.

Communication

How and to what extent you will supplement your team manager's communications with parents is up to the manager. The important thing is that parents can be reached on short notice (i.e., via cell phones) in the event of rainouts and emergencies, particularly where parents may not often check emails. Also, you, the manager, or a separate team webmaster may want to set up a web page to keep parents apprized of team plans (and celebrate team successes!) Using the team website templates is easy; go to this page for more information and an ECYB-specific manual.

Team Problems

Occasionally you may be contacted by a team parent who disagrees with the attitudes or decisions of the manager -- for example, the parent may complain that the manager isn't playing that parent's child enough or is too zealous in trying to win ballgames. If the former, you should encourage the parent to speak to the manager about the decision and, if necessary, to the division president. If the latter, the parent may wish to speak to the team's Positive Coaching Alliance coordinator, who may assist them in conferring with the division president.