I’m writing to you this evening about open board positions and upcoming positions that we are struggling to fill. A couple of these key positions are instrumental in running the club, so bear with me while I try to provide you all of the information.

Many board members have continued volunteering long past their commitment to the board? And that is because of some important vacant positions – we’ve all been running double-duty ensuring that our players are safe and having fun. This is the perfect opportunity to shadow a position that you might be interested in before some of us sail into the wild blue yonder after our kids graduate this year! Yes, it comes quickly, kids age out of youth soccer and as parents, we can take a deep breath with all of the wonderful memories and friends that we’ve made during our time with the club. Scary and wonderful all at the same time.

And yes, indeed, one of them is me! I’ve been handling registrar and communications and have really enjoyed working the concession on Saturday mornings (if I haven’t met you yet, please come by and say hi!). I can’t really come up with any prerequisites or a particular background for any of these positions, except maybe computer literacy and a desire to forge the direction of the Club. As for our treasurer, Stef (also the mom of a graduating player), I would say that a desire to forge the direction of the Club and an accounting or bookkeeping background would be helpful. We’ve also just been informed that Chris, our referee coordinator, will be leaving us at the end of the season too. Without a player in our club, who could blame him? But in all seriousness, we had a very large chunk of time without regular play to develop our refs. With the limited number of refs that we do have and a stay home if you’re sick policy, be very happy if you had a ref and, of course, AR’s for our older teams. Thank you so much Chris for all that you’ve done, and you continue to do.

Back to the whole running double-duty for our current board members, here’s a list of our open position:

• Equipment coordinator – a busier position at the beginning of the season getting the uniforms ready for teams, ensuring that we have enough stock for our teams (balls, nets)
• Store coordinator – we’re expecting some more stock in the Spring
• Concession coordinator – you don’t actually have to be there every Saturday, just coordinate supplies (I just like to see your smiling faces)
• Sponsorship
• House Coordinator – currently being handled by Jenn (the one with the orange hat), she held the position previously.

Just for a moment, I have talk about dedication to our club. Rob, together with his wife Deneen, have been handling our Volunteers. They would love to pass the torch on as their sons have long since graduated! And of course, our Vice-President, Adriano, has been around awhile too – no plans to move on yet, but if you see him, give him a big thank you, although noted, he did not ask for this or approve this correspondence.

Most board members likely started because someone talked us into it but we stayed because we made friends, the camaraderie, and wanting to make soccer great for our kids – oh, all of that, and you receive a free registration for one child when you join the board!

The Board meets once a month. We have started alternating between Wednesday and Tuesday and any member is welcome to attend.
Are you interested in taking on one of these positions? If you are and don’t really want to take on a board position, we’d appreciate your assistance. You could work with or shadow an existing board member to learn the ropes. Our key positions do you require you to be at the majority of board meetings though, running about 1.5 to 2 hours.

If you’ve made it to the end of this email, thank you for your interest, we hope that you’ll consider a position on the Prospect Lake Soccer Club Board of Directors or consider other options to get involved. Please reach out to me or another board member, we’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling some of our current directors, letting you know how they got involved with some more details on what the positions involved. We hope you’ll join us soon. In the meantime, let’s celebrate our current board and all of the work that they’ve done and all that they continue to do.