Posted: 5/13/09

May 8, 2009 VSWGA Meeting Minutes

VERMONT STATE WOMEN’S GOLF ASSOCIATION 

Meeting: Board of Directors / Committee Chairs
Date/Time: May 8, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.
Place: Lake Morey Inn

Attended by:Tracy Sloan, Phyllis Simon, Mary Corey, Cindy Paquet, Sarah Lee, Ellen Sheffer, Nancy Myers, Judy Manley, Jeanne Morrissey, Deb Warner, Harriet Parot, Kathy Allbright, Suzanne Neville, Jeanne DiBattisto 

Recorded by:            Mary Corey  

President Tracy Sloan called the meeting to order.

President’s Report:  Tracy Sloan welcomed the Board and Committee Chairs back for the 2009 season. Tracy asked that we start the meeting with the Secretary’s Report.  

Secretary’s Report:  The October 14, 2008 Minutes were reviewed and edited by the board members prior to publication.  Everyone agreed that it was unnecessary for Mary to read the Minutes.  The Minutes were approved as written.  

Treasurer’s Report:  Tracy Sloan changed the Treasurer’s Report from an Excel spreadsheet to graphic pie charts.  She thought it would be easier to understand the cash flow using a visual analysis.  

2008 VSWGA Income: 

GHIN                        $47,703 - 30%  
Tournaments                33,425 - 22%  
State Day                     32,405 - 21%  
Membership,                20,055 - 13%  
Grants,                         13,850 - 9%  
CTP,                              6,198 - 4%  
Interest,                          1,738 - 1%  
Total                       $155,374 = 100% Income  

2008 VSWGA Expenses:  
            Tournaments             $71,344 - 44%  
            Salaries                      43,530 - 27%  
            Office                         16,447 - 10% 
            GHIN                          7,503 - 5%  
            Grants                          8,270 - 5%  
            Travel & Meals            6,503 - 4%  
            Conferences                4,050 - 3%  
            Depreciation                3,484 - 2%  
            Total                    $161,131 = 100% Expenses - (for a net loss of ($5,757)).

Items from the Office:   

State Days:   

Membership:  Suzanne reported for the 2009 season we have 427 paid members with 22 new members.  

80^th Anniversary:  2010 will be the VSWGA’s 80^th Anniversary; the committee will be Ellen Sheffer, Kathy Allbright, Suzanne Neville and Tracy Sloan.  The Board agreed that we should do something special.  Tracy suggested that we invite past presidents and past winners to attend the Amateur banquet in honor of this occasion.  

Turtle System:  In an effort to speed up play during the 2009 season the VSWGA has activated the Turtle System in Chelsea.  Both your starting time and finishing time will be recorded.  Your scorecard must be turned in to the scoring table immediately after the finish of play.  If you go to your car, change your shoes, etc. your scorecard will reflect an incorrect finish time and could subject you to a “Slow Play” penalty.  The players who finish more than 15 minutes behind the group in front of them will receive a warning after the first occurrence; a second occurrence will result in a penalty (Your position in the field will be taken into account.  For example if you finish 20 minutes behind a twosome, but played in 4 ½ hours, you would not be subject to a warning or a penalty.)  EVERY golfer in the group will receive the warning or penalty.  The first infraction will receive a warning; the second infraction will result in a “turtle” designation in the Chelsea system for 4 weeks.  The third infraction will result in the designation for an additional 8 weeks.  A turtle designation will prevent you and any golfer in your group from receiving a tee time before 12:00 p.m.  In the case of a smaller field where tee times don’t extend that late, you will receive one of the last tee times. If you sign up as a twosome and Chelsea pairs you with a turtle player your group must play in the designated turtle time frame.  

Chelsea Telephone Line:  The Chelsea phone line greeting will be changed to include the statement that you can also access the web for tee times at www.vswga.org.   

The last State Day booking only had three groups use the Chelsea phone line all others were made using the internet.  The VSWGA is committed to having the Chelsea phone line for the 2009 season but to save costs would like to have it removed for 2010.  

State Day Standbys:  The VSWGA office will no longer contact State Day standbys; it is the participant’s responsibility to find an open State Day slot by calling the club of choice beginning on Saturday prior to the tournament.  

VSWGA Tee Markers:  Suzanne suggested that the Board approve her purchasing special tee markers to be used during all of the VSWGA major tournaments.  We would need to purchase 36; they should have the VSWGA emblem and be lightweight for easy transporting.  The estimated price would be around $250.  The Board approved her request.   

VGA Scholarship Fund:  To raise money for the VGA Scholarship Fund the VSWGA sold 11 flags out of 18 that were used during our major tournaments in 2008. The flags were embroidered with the supporters name under the VSWGA emblem and cost $150 each.  Suzanne encouraged all Board members to join in and help sell all eighteen flags for 2009.  

There will be several items of ladies golf equipment for sale on the VSWGA website.  The VGA received these items as scholarship donations; they gave them to the ladies association in hopes that we can convert them into cash for the Scholarship Fund.                

Items for sale:  
2 Lady Fairway Putters (Model 1007), retail cost $119.  
1 Set of Adams Light & Easy (square two) Woods (1,3,7.9)  
1 Adams Light & Easy Putter (1912), retail cost $65.  
1 - 10 piece full set - Adams Light & Easy (light flex) - Left-handed  
1 - 10 piece full set - Adams Light & Easy (regular) - Left-handed  
1 Pair Hi Tech Shoes, V-Lite Venice, Size 5.  

Course Rating:   

There are 24 courses that should be rated during the 2009 season.  

Nancy Myers is working on a tentative schedule of 14 courses in the North.  Thursday will be the rating day and the first course on the list is West Bolton. Six raters are need for an 18-hole course and three for a nine-hole course.   

The VSWGA needs more raters.  It is not required but is recommended that a Rating Seminar be taken prior to volunteering.  There is an online course available that takes about 45 minutes per module.  Nancy recommended taking it twice, once prior to rating, then again after you have rated a few courses.  To become proficient and qualify as a team leader it takes about 3 or 4 years. .  The Calibration Seminar is only available to people who have been rating for at least three years, each association must have at least one person attend every couple of years to retain our license to rate courses and have a person qualified to be the Course Rating Chair.  Carolyn Barbieri took the course a couple of years ago, Marilyn Patton and Jeanne DiBattisto took it last year.  The VGA has offered to help the women get caught up; the overall rating procedures are the same but they will need to use the ladies handbook to do the ratings.  

Vermont National CC has lengthened the 9^th hole by moving the ladies tee back. To accommodate this change Harriet will make a temporary rating adjustment that enables the members to have an accurate handicaps while waiting to be rerated.  Any courses that have lengthened holes or made holes shorter and need a quick fix to their Rating/Slope should contact Harriet Parot asking her to make a temporary rating change.  Harriet will enter that information into the Rating Software, which updates the course’s Rating/Slope.  

When a course has been rated Harriet Parot enters that information into the Rating Software, a new Slope/Rating is created then transmitted to GSI, in turn when GSI transmits updated handicaps to the Club the new Slope/Rating will be pulled back into their system.  (This is the same process followed when Harriet does a temporary course rating adjustment).  

A question was asked why we sent rating teams to the private Stowe club when they do not belong to the VSWGA.  The answer was, their members do belong to the GHIN handicap system.  The VSWGA receives 30% of our earning from the GHIN fees, which makes us responsible for rating their courses.  

Tournament Procedures:  

Kathy Allbright distributed a new condensed draft copy of her Tournament Procedures manual for our review.  In the past Kathy has separated the tournament procedures into individual manuals, consolidated all procedures, then separated again and finally consolidated one last time.  She asked that we never separate them again.  There is only one manual for all the major tournaments with separate paragraphs addressing any differences.  

Scoring for the tournament:  The Pro shop staff will take care of the actual posting to the scoreboard and the Administrative Assistant will post all scores into the TPP computer program. (It would be acceptable to have the Pro shop enter the individual scores into the TPP program).  

Director of Administration:  The Director of Administration receives calls from courses asking to be on the tournament rotation list.  The Board takes that list and makes a selection.  The Director will send out the rotation contract for signature.  

Shotgun Start:  The Shotgun start was tested in Middlebury and it will be open for discussion on the Message Board.  

Tournament Procedures Manual:  

Page 1.  Item # 5. Instead of Universal Certificates for awards - Pro Shop Certificates for the host club may be discussed at the time of the contract at the discretion of the Board and the quality of the Pro Shop merchandise.  

Kathy asked the Board if securing a course for the tournament rotation was contingent on awarding Pro Shop Certificates instead of Universal Pro Shop Certificates how would we vote.  The Board voted for Universal Pro Shop Certificates participants will be encouraged to use their certificates in the host Pro Shop but it would be unfair to say YES to one course then NO to another.  Item #5. Should be removed from the manual.  

Page 5.  Under Prizes and Play Off - the Board voted to do a Match of Cards for the Super Senior and Legend trophies.  

Office Evaluation:   

The Office Evaluation Committee, Sarah Lee, Jeanne Morrissey, Phyllis Simon and Tracy Sloan met with Suzanne Neville, Director of Administration and Kristine (Krissie) Lohrman, Administrative Assistant on Thursday, May 07, 2009.  Krissie was hired as the Administrative Assistant and began working on Wednesday April 29, 2009.  Suzanne was impressed with how competent she was and asked that she demonstrate several different office procedures for the committee.  The Committee found a few areas that could be run a little more efficiently and they were overall impressed with how quickly Krissie had grasped the systems operation.  She will be working with Suzanne on updating the Office Procedures Manual with improved methods.  

Jeanne Morrissey suggested that we should create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) area on the website.  Suzanne Neville should make a list of the most frequently asked questions with the answers and send them to Cindy for posting on the website. Examples:  How do I join the VSWGA?  What are the requirements to play in one of the VSWGA tournament?  Have the answers with a link to the applicable applications.  The Board was encouraged to submit questions too.  

The office phone greeting should be changed to have an official greeting which says if your are calling to change or cancel a tee time, please call the applicable call-in number as listed in the State Day book beginning on Saturday prior to the State Day.  If you had Verizon.net as your Internet provider please remember to change your profile in Chelsea to myfairpoint.net.  If that does not help, please leave a message.  This change would stop many interruptions and give the staff time to research real problems.  

Member Communication (Website):   

Cindy Paquet completed research on establishing a Message Board/Bulletin Board/Forum for the VSWGA website.  

Purpose:  To provide a place where VSWGA members can freely express their concerns, suggestions, opinions, complaints, etc regarding VSWGA activities and issues.  

Other possible uses of a Message Board feature could allow members to post golfing equipment they would like to sell.  It would also be a place where members could post their club tournament announcements.  

Requirements:

1.  Ease of use, navigation  
2.  Easy to set up an install  
3.  Customizable appearance  
4.  No advertising  
5.  Security, registered users, password protected  
6.  Customer support  
7.  Seamless link from vswga.org  
8.  Reliable and fast server  
9.  Provides a voting poll option  
10.  Allows multiple forums or sections (state days, championship, administration, rules, etc.)  
11.  Search for postings by keyword  
12.  Blocks SPAM and hackers  
13.  Backs up messages  
14.  Moderator notification of new post  

Websites:   

Free Message Board Websites: Cindy looked at free websites but found they have pop up window advertising, there is no security, and they could close out your Message Board if it was not used for 90 days.  Overall free sites are unreliable and have limited customer support.  

Paid sites which meet above requirements:  

www.bulletinboards.com/www.message-boards.net

Cindy thought this site had nice features with a good format but was too expensive because they charge extra for some features such as Spell Check.  Cost $101.50 per year  

www.boardhost.com

Link: http://vswga.websitetoolbox.com/  
Cindy didn’t like the format.  Cost $59.88 per year  

www.websitetoolbox.com

Link: http://vswga.websitetoolbox.com/  
Has the required features, including spell check, with a nice format.  
Cost $59.95 per year  

Recommendation:  Cindy recommended that the VSWGA go with websitetoolbox.com because it has all of the requirements with a nice format plus spell check.  

Cindy will be the Web Administrator.   

There will be seven Forums with five Moderators:  

1.  Administration Forum = Tracy Sloan, Moderator

2.  State Days Forum = Suzanne Neville and Nancy Myers, Moderators

3. VSWGA Championships Forum = Kathy Allbright, Moderator

4. Rules Forum = Shari Pfannenstein, Moderator.

5. Miscellaneous Forum = Phyllis Simon, Moderator.

6. Local Tournaments Forum = No Moderator.

7. Flee Market Forum = No Moderator  

There will be a message at the top of the Bulletin Board outlining the guidelines for posting messages.  

The board thanked Cindy for doing all of the research and voted in favor of spending $59.95 per year for the Message Board Service.  

Other Business:  

Maximum Handicap:  Jeanne Morrissey made a motion that all participants will be limited to a maximum of a 36.0 USGA handicap index but will be authorized to play to the clubs full handicap for that index beginning with the 2010 season in September 2009.  Motion passed.  

TPP Seminar: There will be a TPP Seminar in Rutland on May 29, 2009.  

Website Postings:  Tracy Sloan, VSWGA President, made a request that all VSWGA material be cleared through her prior to being posted on the website.  

Tri State Selections:  Phyllis Simon announced that the Tri State selections have been made and she would be sending out e-mails this afternoon.  The Tri State committee would like Jeanne DiBattisto to send Vermont’s entry fees for the 30 participants and two alternates.  

Next Meeting: Seniors Tournament after play on the first day, July 22, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.            

Meeting adjourned at approximately 1:45 p.m.  

Completed: May 11, 2009