• The Major League proposal to take control of the Under 16 representative competition was not well  received by the  JLSC. There have been differing reports about the future direction of  the proposal. Reg Renouf was originally quoted as saying it would proceed irrespective of the views  of Juniors – a similar comment was made by a Macarthur person outside its Executive.
• As I understand it, the Major League Committee at its last meeting opted to conduct an Under 17 competition as an early game to the Under 18 competition. I cannot see where they would get players or teams from to make such a competition viable … an Under 19 competition maybe, however most 16 year olds are already playing Under 18 and the good 17 year old player is playing second or first grade.
• Major League and Sydney Winter are being hurt by the number of good older players wanting to play only on Saturday. It is not a new ‘happening’….. however, it is reflecting upon the relatively poor overall playing standard of Major League.
• It is the old adage: you need a large number of players to find the less than 10% of players who can really play. Junior Associations have to find them year in and year out for their representative teams. Major League just selects the best of the crop. IF they treat them right they have the player for his entire playing career.

Development

• There have been more offers for the older age players to take part in development on Tuesday night. The weather and the various viruses among the players have hampered the program in recent weeks – tonight will be the first time that we have been able to use the infield.
• Some of the players in Development are not doing themselves any service as they will not make any changes that would improve themselves as players. With that attitude they are wasting their and the Association’s time. Depending on numbers we get tonight we may actually vary the program and concentrate on a ‘core group’ of players for the Under 16 players representative team for next season.
• The Sunday morning Development program is a disaster and is likely to be concluded this Sunday. The maximum number of players we have had on any day is five. The Sunday before the long weekend there were two players there - the week before, five attended. The winter competition has the players that should be in development, but they want to play and if the competition was not offered there would be not be any great influx of players into development. Players just want to play. Unfortunately this is already starting to show in the reduced skill level of Hills representative teams.

Other Matters

• Kellyville has obtained funding from the Regional Sporting Facilities grants to enable the lighting of Kellyville. The project has been commenced with orders placed for the poles. The cost is upward of $100k. NSWJBL contributed $ 9,650, that figure was matched by Hills - (Baseball NSW contributed zero).
  • Depending on what funding Council are prepared to contribute, if any, then Hills will make a loan to Kellyville for any shortfall in funding. That loan will also see most of Hills’ available money tied up for some considerable time. The opportunity was far too good to pass up and we feel quite proud of our role in the project.
  • The grant does have a downside for clubs in Baulkham Hills Council as Council now regard Kellyville as the Regional ‘home’ of baseball in its area. It may just make Council funding that little more difficult.

Camps

• We are prepared to conduct camps in July school holidays. At this time our thinking is to conduct a general camp for up to Under 13’s week one and a series of specialist camps on the second week. There will be a charge for these camps and one that is closer to user pays than there has been in the past.

Equipment

• The new brouhaha will be over Licensing – you know that thing Baseball NSW said was “dead and a non issue”. Well it is far from dead. I have sent you some information from the ABF and there is more in the correspondence. Clubs can expect that there will be a totalitarian type approach to compliance of Licensing.
• Hills’ existing uniforms for representative teams don’t comply at present but that is not a problem. Future supplies of our caps will be a problem once current stock of say 200 odd caps is exhausted as they are made overseas and the agent will not be involved in licensing. Caps will be a major problem for a lot of clubs as there is no good cap manufacturer or embroiderer in Australia. The raised embroidery that Hills uses, is done before the camp is assembled it cannot be done after
• We are again prepared to source cheaper type gloves for T-ballers as well as supplies of Kenko ball and Kenko bats if clubs wish to avail themselves of the service. At present we are attempting to negotiate a deal for baseballs. We make no profit from these sales, nor do we want to.
• There were gloves left over from last season, Oakville has taken most of those.
• We still have some stocks of stress balls for resale if clubs want to use them in their Come and Try Baseball Days. Cost is 50 cents a ball.

Other

• The Baseball NSW Annual General Meeting is on next Monday. There are some matters we need to address in relation to that meeting
  • (1) is the authorization of Peter Schmidt as the Hills’ delegate to the meeting.
  • (2) determine who we wish to vote for as Directors – there are six nominees- Bruce Auty, Trevor Watters, John Wingrove, Poole, Grant Anderson, Andrew Ross. Of the six, some are unacceptable to the Executive. Our prime focus in voting will be the persons ‘track history’ in the sport and their support for Junior Associations.
  • Baseball NSW has not provided any details in relation to the candidates back ground. Peter wrote to them last week seeking information but none has come to hand as yet. Maybe we could individually canvas each on their views to certain parts of baseball administration. We have formally applied for membership of Baseball NSW – paid $200 for the privilege of entering Junior teams in representative baseball.
  • An aside of the submissions to ACCC re licensing was the schedule produced by Luis Almenara which shows that registration costs have increased by 321% for seniors and 264% over a five year period! For all the extra costs and the loss of identity for Juniors in the real decision making process it is not even .01% better than before – in fact it is worse. We cannot get answers to questions; general news and communication is much worse and there is no clear demarcation or cohesion between the various parts of the organization.
  • We have requested information from Baseball NSW re costs and possible dates for Level 0 coach’s accreditation course to be held. As I reported previously Hills has no instructors who are qualified by Baseball NSW.
  • Rick Cone is still to receive a reply to his complaint about the State Under 14 trials and last seasons Under 14 Development. At least one person has ‘ducked’ for cover.. another is attempting to say that there was no policy for compulsory attendance on Saturday sessions. Bit tough to sell when the person told of the policy was Rick himself.
  • The start date for the 2006/7 competition in live ball and Under 10 competitions remain unchanged and will be 10 September, 2006.
  • Hills’ Annual General Meeting will be 11 July. Nominations for Executive positions will close at tonight’s meeting
  • NSWJBL Annual General Meeting will be 28 June. Nominations for its Executive positions have closed and the current Executive was the only nominations.
  •  Trials for Under 16 Youth League have been delayed by one week and will commence on Saturday 5 August with a midweek trial on 8 August and again Saturday 12 August.
  • Trials for Under 12 and Under 14 will commence Sunday 6 August.
  • To be eligible for selection players must be registered and regularly playing in a Hills’ competition.
  • Accusations of harassment and unacceptable conduct were levelled at Nigel Hern by Baseball NSW following a complaint by Russell Smulders. This created an enormous level of stress for Nigel and his family but all bar one allegation were deemed to be untrue and the other as a result of a ‘misunderstanding’.

• The Kellyville Under 9 Gala Day was canvassed – half the addresses for clubs in Baseball NSW site are incorrect.
• The Smulders issue was raised as it affects a NSWJBL coach and that the issue will be used to discredit NSWJBL.
• Reports are due for the Annual Report.
• A website for the Pan Pacific Tournament has been established. The Pan Pacific Tournament will be held between 18 and 23 August, 2006.
  • There is a need for volunteers for the tournament.
  • Mrs. Moya Muller has been appointed as Publicity Officer for the tournament.
• Nominations were received for the Executive as follows:
  • Mrs. Barnier (President), Mr. Farrell (Vice President), Mr. Yard (Secretary) and Mr. Royce (Treasurer).
• The MLSC Under 16 proposal was presented to JLSC and rejected.
• Mr. Dawes has threatened to take legal action against Macarthur for comments it made to Baseball NSW.

There were two main components

• an address by R. Taylor on Try Baseball and
• R. Renouf of the MLSC on the Under 16 Major League proposal.
• Hills had issued its written response to the proposal. The issue is still alive as the MLC want another game to support the Under 18.
• Apart from these two issues there was no other business decided due to lack of time.
• There are no minutes of the meeting as yet – there is another meeting tomorrow night.

• Statement of Financial Position tabled and accepted.
• Accounts for payment approved.

• Nothing presented

Annual General Meetings: Mr. Blundell advised that Kings Langley has held its Annual General Meeting and a new Committee elected. Mr. Rymer has left the committee as he and his wife have purchased a Michel’s Patisserie at Richmond.

Mrs. Fox advised Baulkham Hills has held its Annual General Meeting. The committee is virtually unchanged apart from Don Beileiter being President and Barry Moore Vice President – a swapping of roles.

Defaulters: Mr. Blundell advised that the Kings Langley club has junior players in default to it. He asked whether other clubs would decline the player’s registration if the debts remain. Mr Yard replied that the aim is always to recover the money owed. There is the option of defaulting the players and/or organize an action in the Small Debts court. Mr. Bray advised that there is a new procedure re naming and treatment of defaulters – he will forward a copy to the Association.

Recruitment: Mr. Schmidt advised the information on recruitment, including the spreadsheet on ‘Come and Try Days’ was due last Sunday. Also clubs were asked to advise the number of scattercards required.

Baseballs: Mr. Yard advised he is negotiating the supply of 20- dozen baseballs which he hoped would be at a considerable saving to clubs.

Bats: Mr. Bray sought clarification as to the legality of a new TPX carbon fibre bat.

Knights Field: Mr Bray advised that Knights Field will be closed during December for renovation work.