Level 1 Coaching If you are desperate for someone to get their Level One Coaching Accreditation, there is a course to be held on 13th & 14th of October 2007. Venue: Adelaide St Oval, Mingara. Duration: 8:30am to 5:00pm both days.

Youth League Rep Team [Suppressed]

Rep Teams The representative teams are moving through reasonably well.  Our Under 12’s despite not being as strong as the last two seasons are undefeated after two games. The overall standard of representative baseball has fallen dramatically. As an illustration, Hills’ Under 14 have defeated Bankstown 24-0 and Manly 14-0.

The Under 14 Association Competition playing standard is very ordinary, very ordinary indeed – the standard of the two games played is way below that of our local Hay League competition. The standard is so poor, and the games so slow, we are seriously questioning our continued participation in this type of competition beyond this season.

We are also disappointed with the structure of the competition in as much as:-

(i) Home teams playing double headers and the visitors one game. Hills’ double header is against Manly and Ryde. Surely the draw in such situation would have been a ‘graded’ draw. What gives the home team greater pitching depth when playing at home?

(ii) The unevenness of the draw which has no balance in which teams play for a second time in the competition.

The team has won its two games very easily. Greg Giffin and Raff Petrone volunteered to be coaches of the Under 14 Association Cup team. Mark Bricknell is the Manager.

The venue of the Association Cup round on 11 November has been altered to Kellyville as that round clashes with a Youth League home game at Castle Glen. That day with three home games will certainly test our ability to supply umpires. We really struggled to supply umpires for the AC round at Castle Glen and again at Bensons for Under 12 and 14. We have only one volunteer for the three games at Castle Glen this Sunday. Somewhere along the line we are going to be very embarrassed with the inability to supply an Umpire for Representative games. I will no longer be prepared to umpire games in a Baseball NSW competition.

Local Draws As you would have found, the full season draws are up on the web site.

In the end, the preparation of the draws was much more difficult than they needed to be. We were forced into five redraws in the three days after we had finished all the draws – not because of badly graded teams but by club indecision. The last redraw has some minor knock-on effects to draws we had already put on the web. To avoid any confusion we disabled all draws that were previously up on the web.

Anyone who had already downloaded draws will need to check the new draws for any changes. Most changes are only related to diamond numbers - but there are two or three time changes. The latest draws will be easily identified they carry the date of 3 October in top right hand corner.

It is in Phil Leonard North, South and East where the biggest change in the draws occurred.

• In Leonard North -

  • Kellyville Broncos has been regraded to Leonard South.

  • Kings Langley has been regraded from Leonard East

• Leonard South -

  • Kellyville Mavericks have been regraded to Under 10 Petroff

There has been a general regrading of Leonard South and East. We have attempted to put the better teams in Southern Conference and the not so strong teams in Leonard East.

• From Leonard East to South

  • Baulkham Hills Rosellas, Winston Hills Norseman and Carlingford Redsox

• From Leonard South to East

  •  Rouse Hill Jaguars and Schofields.

Generally we are short of grounds. As clubs continue to have older teams (a good thing) the availability of diamonds become an issue - our parks are just too small to be safe especially when hitters are using high tech bats. Northmead, Sutton and Murray Farm are classical examples.

Koala League was difficult to ‘slot in’. Ashley Brown host Koala on five occasions, Castle Glen three times, Murray Farm, Kellyville and Northmead all twice and Sutton once.

There will be queries with the Don Petroff League draw. Because we added a ninth team to the competition after the competition had played three games. To avoid an unbalanced draw there will be weeks were teams will not play. These days are not additional byes.

Little League. We have to discuss Little League tonight on how the proposed competition will be conducted.

Discipline There was an unsavourily incident in an Under 14 Hay League game between Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill. We have requested a report from the Umpire. That has not been forthcoming however our investigations are such that we are not prepared to take any further action. Someone did call the Umpire a “cheat” – that person was a player’s mother. We believe the Castle Hill coach should have been ejected because of the manner in which he protested the Umpire’s decision. However, the umpire did not take that action.

The matter is closed apart from the question that revolves around the ‘knuckle ball’ pitch. Personally I do not like the pitch at all and as such I do not coach it nor condone its use. But that does not make it illegal. I just think the circle change is a much better pitch.

Dispensations There is a further dispensation for consideration. I was not prepared to approve it and have left it for this meeting. It is from Kellyville. If approved that will be three Under 15 players playing in the same third division team. Rumours are that there is yet another one from Rouse Hill.

Further on dispensations I thought last so many requests (21) were ridiculous. I am convinced that we cannot legislate our way through the problem and rely on the clubs to vote.

We should establish a sub committee. Clubs will be required to submit the dispensations two weeks before the season commences. The role of the committee will be to sort through the applications and recommend those considered to warrant consideration of the Board. Anything short of that is a lottery

Age-date changes It is good theoretically but somewhere between now and next year we have to sit down and work out what happens IF we change the age group competitions to Under 11, 13, 15 and 17 at the same time as altering the cut off date to 31 March {sic: should be April}. Commonsense tells me the same problem will still exist - so the real challenge is what happens to the players that cannot be accommodated by clubs within those dates? Players will not necessarily change clubs - rather they will just give up playing Baseball. That is the real challenge.

Holiday Camps. We are ‘into’ our second camp for these School Holidays.

There were 38 players at the first camp. The majority of players were from Castle Hill. Overall we were pleasantly surprised with the standard of particularly the nine year olds that attended. Attendance and behaviour were both good. The disappointing aspect was that not all clubs were represented. There are 35 players enrolled in the second camp which started today.

Comment: From Ryde - Hornsby Annual Report 2006-07:

Stuart Tabrett (its Competition Chairman again this year) - spoke of the 'gaps' in the older age groups. They had almost weekly judiciary hearings and suspensions including one parent for five years for attacking an umpire.

David Thomson reported that he found the JLSC to be an "intensely frustrating group" which "barely managed to address the day-to-day issues and at no time during the year did long term development or direction get mentioned." He goes on to say the RHBL probably needs to continue to attend this group, to "cover our back", but a significant change of direction or enormous injection of time and energy would be required to have this group offer any added value to junior baseball. 

Equipment I am looking at purchasing new helmets. I have been offered helmets at $17 each (plus freight). I will attempt to remember the sample tonight. There may be clubs interested.

Registrations We still need the team registration sheets for Rouse Hill and Baulkham Hills. The latter sent information though when My Club was ‘down’ – I will need some more time to go through that information to prepare an invoice. The Kewpie doll being the first club to pay its player registration fees goes to Schofield – just in front of Oakville.

NSW State Teams Hills had five players (Jacob Adams, Jake Bohan, Josh Guyer, Matthew Olson & Dominic Woodward) selected in the Under 14 State team.  Not all the better players in this age group trialed for selection. Had they done so I have no doubt that we would have two or three more selected.

Bats The ‘natives are restless’ about the decision taken last meeting to ban the connexion bats.

The problems are two or three fold. The term Connexion is used both as a brand name and a type of technology. You banned the Connexion bats on virtually a technicality but allowed the carbon fibre bats such as the Stealth to be ‘legal’. The decision should be to ban all high performance bats if you ban one. Connexion and / or carbon fibre bats.

No one has spoken to me about it – but the fact remains that that a number of parents have spent a considerable amount of money in buying bats believing they were legal. There are two emails in the correspondence with differing views, these are from Eddie Bray and Guy Bohan.

Even if you do ban the carbon fibre bats – there is a question what happens if the ABF or Baseball NSW become involved – remember you agreed to be bound by ABF and Baseball NSW constitution.

I do not disagree with the banning of the bats (which do nothing to improve the hitting ability of players) in Under 14 – in fact I congratulate you on the courage it took to make that decision. It is a case of ensuring you are aware of the difficulties we may face sometime in the future.

Matters arising from Secretary’s Report:

Mr. Yard sought clarification as to what was the meetings recollection of what decision was taken in relation to high performance bats – was it just carbon fibre bats and Connextion bats?  Both types of bats were banned in local competition and it was decided to remove the clause of the blanket approval of “any bats approved by Baseball NSW” from the rules.

The Secretary’s report was accepted.

• The tax rebate for Junior registration fees was mentioned for the benefit of members.

• The Under 13 tour to Singapore has been cancelled.  Further investigations are to be undertaken into Thailand (Under 15) and Taiwan (Under 13).

• Copy of an article reporting that New York City council has banned all metal bats for Little League to High School competitions was distributed. This originated with Hills anyway (see last meeting minutes).

Mr. Catt reported that the meeting was not held due to there not being a quorum.  There was however presentations by the Umpires’ Association and Coca Cola.

• Statement of Financial Position was presented.
• Payments were approved.
• Debtors and liabilities were disclosed.
• Invoices not yet issued for registrations: Baulkham Hills and Rouse Hill. Also invoices for cost of uniform items for the four representative teams have not been raised.

Mr. Schmidt advised that he is commencing to prepare a document on Little League which will be placed on the Hills’ web site.  The document will invite players aged 10 to 12 years old to play in the Hills Little League competition.

Baseball NSW has decreed that a minimum of 12 games have to be played.  We will offer minor and major League competitions.  Hills will need to ‘split’ into two. The cost will be approximately $10 being the cost of a T Shirt.

Baulkham Hills Coaching:  It was advised that any clubs that wish to be involved, just need to attend Kellyville on Wednesday night.

Kellyville Under 9 Gala Day:  Mr. Petrone advised that the Kellyville Under 9 Gala Day has only three teams entered.

Winston Hills’ 25th Anniversary:  Mr. Hook reported that Winston Hills, as part of its 25th Anniversary, have teams playing in a ‘retro’ uniform of Gold and black stripes which was the original club playing top.

Playing Uniform:  Mr. Clapson raised the issue of teams not playing in club uniforms.  Basically the meeting was not aware of teams breaching the rule.

Level 0 Course:  Mr. Borg advised that Carlingford staged a Level 0 course.  It was disappointing that there were 35 candidates, but only one Instructor!

Cashmore South:  Mr. Yard advised that there has been a query with David Sherlock (a Cumberland representative player) playing in a Southern Conference. Mr. Yard reported that his enquiries revealed that David had not been pitching for Cumberland nor was he regularly playing for Holroyd.

Dispensations:  Three dispensations dealt with.

Under 8's not registered – Baulkham Hills have its U/7 playing ‘in house’.  These players will not be registered with Hills but will be registered with Baseball NSW.

Mr. Yard stated that if this is repeated across the board the Hills fees would have to increase. 

Mr. Petrone stated Kellyville run MiniBall and wanted the program to be supported by it being run ‘in house’ by other clubs as a part of Hills.  He considers that to be a policy decision.