Attendance: James Colgan, Kristy Nowak-Lovato, Lydell Brown, Tom Roelfs, Mike Brown, Svenja Ellision, Susie Schillaci, Danielle Zollinger, Tony Jaurique
James Colgan gave an overview of the annual meeting. It looks like the switch from birth year to school year will happen for the fall 2026 season. Santa Fe has been successful in securing funding from the state for additional fields at the MRC complex. They are also looking at additional private donors to make this a possibility.
A questions was brought up regarding the team logos that are present on the Duke City website. We would like to see the LAYSL logo added to the website. It was requested to see if LAYSL could play double games on a few Saturday’s this spring to not have to travel to Bernalillo for the 8 weeks. LAYSL is considered a local team as opposed to teams coming from Colorado and Texas so this will not be a possibility.
The New Mexico united team is looking to conduct community outreach and would like to bring players and coaches to run a one day clinic up on Los Alamos. We will look into finding a time to make this happen for the players. There is also a Top soccer league that runs for a total of 6 weeks in Albuquerque on Sundays for approximately 2.5 hours. The league will start on March 2nd and supports special needs folks of all agest from kids through adults.
Referee training – Lydell will reach out to set up a training for March 2nd if scheduling allows.
Recreational program – The recreational program flyers are ready to go. We will send the flyers to the schools for them to print out. Flyers are not given to all kids. The kids are able to pick up flyers and take them home if they are interested. There is a link on the LAYSL website to view these flyers. The banners for “coaches” and “recreational registrations” will be placed at the overpass this week. We are looking to have individuals place the LAYSL yard signs out for viewing. In addition, we will look to post these flyers on Facebook and on the LA Daily Post website. Danielle is looking into the possibility of setting up a LAYSL Facebook site. We are hoping to see if we can obtain permissions to post pictures of players in action on the website. We will discuss with Alyssa (registrar) whether this is something that could be added on the website registration. Alyssa is also our contact to obtain information regarding team registration numbers. The recreational program will begin on March 31st with six games occurring on friday nights.
On March 25th, Rick Flores will be coming to Los Alamos to run an in person coaches clinic and we will hand out recreational gear to coaches on that day as well. The recreational program will end on May 23rd.
There is a scheduled field meeting with the county on February 11th. One big point of discussion is gopher maintenance and keeping the newly resurfaced Dara Jones field clear of gophers. LAYSL will continue to log their volunteer hours. We have acquired over 700+ volunteer hours thus far.
Equipment update – The program is good on recreational gear. Coaches that have requested additional gear have received their items. There was a proposal to purchase a 10×20 foot shed to keep at North Mesa, vs. the originally requested 10×12 shed. The county has placed a concrete pad that will accommodate the 10×20 shed. It is not believed that a permit is needed for the 10×20 foot shed. If it is possible without a permit, we will hold a special board vote and Lydell will share an estimate/quote. For the trace cameras, we currently have two cameras for the league and use it to send out game film and highlights. We are able to utilize the two cameras to cover eight teams. If we would like to cover additional teams, we will need an extra subscription. Lydell put in a request to increase his credit card limit from $1,000 to $2,000. The equipment coordinator has previously purchased canopies for all of the LAYSL teams. These canopies can be requested along with benches. Lydell has purchased two bubble canopies to see if these will work well. The bubble shelters are approximately 50 lbs. The shelters come in four and eight seat sections.
As tournament fees are increasing, the board has approved to increase the allocations for teams above U13 to $1,500. The board would like to look into the possibility of increasing fees for competitive teams in the fall to help increase the availability for additional tournament fees.
There was a question regarding a LAYSL policy on how many practices per week a player must attend to be able to play in the game on the weekend. There is no LAYSL policy for this, it is at the coaches discretion and should be discussed with the players and parents at the beginning of the season.
The program will have a cleat/gear swap planned for April 4th on a Friday evening.