Report from Barry Salter, President, ENYYSA
August 4, 2007 ENYYSA Annual General Meeting

As I complete my first year as president of the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association, I want to thank my fellow board members and the presidents of our member leagues for the tremendous support they have provided me as we moved to strengthen our financial position, worked to improve our programs and started several initiatives during the past 12 months.

As a team, our board and our leagues have accomplished much over the past year.

We have greatly improved our financial position. For the past few years, as everyone involved with ENYYSA knows, we had suffered some financial losses. However, thanks to the work of our Committee chairs and several board members who stepped forward to help manage budgets of our biggest programs – like the ODP program whose budget was managed by trustee Lonny Unger – it looks from our preliminary numbers that we will have a virtually balanced financial picture or better for the past year.

Also in the financial arena, we underwent a rigorous financial audit by an outside accounting firm. The audit – which has been distributed to all leagues – gave us a clean bill of financial health, with our auditors recommending several ways to improve our financial controls. I want to thank Lynne Thibdeau for helping manage the audit process.

As part of our financial rebuilding, we signed a very beneficial four-year agreement with Score America and they have already shown they are ready and willing to be a terrific partner.

Importantly, our programs overall have shown improvement during the past year, thanks to the strong work of our committees and program heads.

· Our State Cup competition – headed by State Cup Committee Chair Ray Ward – continued to be one of the best run competitions in the country. One of our teams, the U18 Boys Terryville Fire, won the USYSA Nationals in Texas and several of our teams made it to the regional semi-finals and finals.

· Our ODP program continued to do very well, this past year under the supervision of Jack Cohen. This past month, ENYYSA placed 59 boys and 38 girls players in Region 1 pools, more than any other state in Region 1. And, as noted earlier, the program was conducted with strong financial vigor and it is now a program whose expenses match income.

· We reinvigorated our Coaching Education program, adding several instructors under Director of Coaching Education Michael Swanwick and conducting several licensing courses during the last 12 months.

· We had another successful ENYYSA Premier League season, under the direction of Committee Chair Gregg Knight. While we didn’t have as many age groups as we did in the past, and the expansion of sub-regional leagues, has impacted this competition, we were able to meet a need by conducting this league.

Looking ahead to the second year of my term as ENYYSA president, we are moving on several fronts to make further improvements to our programs.

ODP

We are continuing to streamline the ODP program, putting separate Technical Directors in place for the boys and girls. Mike Swanwick has been appointed to head the boys program and we are working to appoint a girls Technical Director. These Technical Directors will work to put together a curriculum that will lead to continued success at the regional level and also continue to recruit qualified, licensed staff coaches. We are also working to enhance the administration of the program.

Further, working closely with the league presidents, we will be conducting a pilot program that will change the way the 1996 Boys and Girls ODP state teams are selected for the 2007-08 seasonal year by choosing teams using more localized initial tryouts via what we are calling “District ODP” teams. The 1995-1991 Boys State ODP teams and 1995-1990 Girls State ODP teams will be chosen as per the past for the 2007-08 year. We believe this pilot – which may expand in future years to the older age groups -- can be a more family- and player-friendly ODP selection system that cuts down on the amount of travel and time required to participate in state ODP. And importantly the new pilot system can provide more opportunities for players to be seen prior to selection for the State ODP team.

Coaching Education

We will continue to expand and enhance our Coaching Education program. We’ve already seen fruits of this, with and F an E and a D License courses being conducted during the next few weeks, and more courses are planned for this year than ever before. The ENYYSA Coaching Education Program is also going to work on better promoting the courses state-wide.

Club/League Development

As part of an expanded role for our Coaching Education Program, the Coaching Education staff will be offering ideas, consultation, and education initiatives to Recreation programs throughout ENYYSA in order for those programs to provide a memorable experience for our young recreational soccer players.

Director of Coaching Education Swanwick is also planning to meet with clubs and leagues across the state association to offer ideas for a systematic, progressive club-wide approach that will create the best possible environment for optimum development of our young soccer players, providing ENYYSA clubs with an opportunity to promote and broaden athletic participation and increase personal player satisfaction.

State Cup

This coming year, for the first time, ENYYSA will be offering an under 12 8 vs. 8 (small sided) in addition to the u12 11 vs. 11 (full sided) Open State Cup Competition for both boys and girls teams in the spring of 2008. The winner of the State Cup competition will represent ENYYSA at the Region 1 Championships in Portland, ME. We are also increasing entry fees for State Cup to ensure this program properly balances income and expenses.

Premier Leagues

We are currently examining ways to enhance this program and work more cooperatively with the sub-regional and regional leagues.

In closing, I thank everyone – from Hilda and Richie in the state office – to the state cup age group commissioners, to my fellow board members, to the league presidents and many, many volunteers throughout the state association who have made my first year as ENYYSA president a challenging and rewarding experience. I look forward to another 12 months of working to better soccer for all of our participants.


Yours in soccer,

Barry Salter
President, ENYYSA