SCRA Presidents Message
August, 2008
As we turn
the corner in a successful tournament season, I would like to share with you
some of our frustrations that many of you have experienced.
On the
first bullet point, Arbiter is a scheduling system which is a very useful tool
in assigning games but with any new system, it is not perfect. Dealing with a large
learning curve from an administrator to an end user has been very challenging. It
has taken all of us a great deal of time and emails to Jim Cottle, Mike
Willmott and others to resolve most of the issues. However, I think the worst
is behind us and you should start to see your assignments sooner and hopefully
attaining our goal of distributing assignments five days out before each
weekend.
On the
second point, I share with you the frustrations of putting in your availability
and still not getting games. Some of problems hinged with Arbiter while most
was due to limited game counts, age levels and matching the best referees to
the most difficult matches. Our association ranks have also grown to well over
400 members and if you are a youth, it limits the amount of positions to
assign. However, we should see a change going forward as the CSL season begins
and lower age level games become more available.
Speaking of
the fall CSL season, we are expecting at least the same number of games as last
year even with a slowing economy so it is important to now update your
availibility in the Arbiter system beyond September 1st.
For our
September general membership meeting, we
have tentitively scheduled a guest speaker from CSL to update us on any new
changes for the 2008/2009 season as well as what CSL expects from
referees. We will also have instruction
on how to correctly go over CSL game day procedures including check in and how
to correctly fill out the match reports mailing them to the appropriate
address. I should also have the CSL handbooks to pass out so you can have all
the current CSL information with you in your equipment bag when you are on the
pitch.
Always be
prepared and get ready for what appears to be another challenging fall CSL
season….
Sincerely,
Marcel
Caruana
President