Cedar Park Youth League

Cedar Park Youth League

President’s Corner

As we turn the corner toward the end of our fall season, we begin to focus on 2012.

Prior to the end of 2011, we have several upcoming events:

1. October-November – CPYL End of Season Tournament
2. November 11^th thru the 13^th: Wildfire Blowout. This is an open baseball tournament and the Board of Directors has voted to donate all proceeds to charities supporting local victims of the past Wildfires. On a side-note, this tournament was named well before the unfortunate tragedy and we felt it was appropriate to keep the name. More details can be found at www.cpyl.org & on Facebook at CPYL Nation.
3. November 12^th: Wounded Warrior. This is an adult softball tournament benefiting soldiers impacted by the Central Texas Wildfires. www.woundedwarriorproject.org This is another great event that the Board of Directors is supporting. The event is full however; if you are interested in playing, contact SGT Hung P. Nguyen at 512.744.3000 or rprcgroup@gmail.com to see if any teams could use additional players.
4. December 2^nd thru the 5^th: The Annual Grinch Tournament to benefit Blue & Brown Santa Programs. CPYL will not be one of the hosts this year but we anticipate some great teams representing our organization.

As we start into 2012 we have many items that are in the process of change. These range from capital improvements (fields), baseball structure, softball structure, budgets, and manager/parent meetings.

As most of you are aware, we have invested heavily this year on our fence improvements. These expenditures have significantly impacted our reserve fund. Even with that, we are currently evaluating finishing the last three fields: Catalina, Ebbets, and Wrigley. In conjunction, we are also considering improvements on all infields. Many of our fields have lacked periodic maintenance since their inception and the time has come to rebuild them. Should we move forward, this will result in broad field closures until the spring 2012 tryouts. In addition, we will be looking to retrain our managers and coaches on proper field prep work. The Board of Directors would like you to know your fundraising efforts, tournament participation, and sponsorship dollars are hard at work for you. There is plenty more to do and we will need everyone’s help in the community to reach our goals.

We are in the process of notifying managers of our Spring 2012 baseball manager policy. We are the first to admit, that continued change can have negative consequences and are committed to minimizing additional tweaks going forward. As we reflected on the current change, it was very clear that our league has 3 primary groups that we serve: Select, Tournament, and Recreational. We have always supported Select baseball at different age groups and we do not expect this to change. Our former national league has continued to evolve into team that desire to stay together with friends, classmates, and similar talent. The majority of these teams have played in additional tournaments around the region. As a result, we have decided to open this division to allow it to be more conducive to those desires. This has resulted in an age specific team environment that is generally open to all. Our recreation level has been enhanced to allow additional protects so that they can remain competitive and provide an environment for growth of all players. The latter two items remain in a potential conflict as we grow into them, but CPYL remains committed to providing an environment for all levels of play to flourish. More details to follow and we appreciate your patience as we navigate through this next season.

 Softball continues on the path of growth. With increased participation both in the Spring and Fall of 2011, it is promising that the program will continue to grow. The softball committee is in the process of evaluating Select softball and it is expected that a proposal will be provided to the Board shortly. As a part of our field projects, we are also evaluating the ability for more flex fields to allow for additional growth within the CPYL complex. This is great news for a program that has represented CPYL well through out the years.

We are currently reviewing our budgets for 2012. With record registration numbers in 2011 also came record expenses. We are pleased that we have weathered the storm well and our facilities are in decent shape. Our process is fairly simple; we look at last year’s budgeted expenses vs. our actual expenses with no anticipated growth in registration. If our current fees can be maintained without going over budget, our fees remain unchanged. Conversely, expenses must be covered with the income that we can reasonably anticipate. As previously noted, we are undergoing several capital projects and monitoring our cash flow. These types of improvements are unbudgeted from separate expense categories and are not funded from the normal budget.

We have received feedback that we need to return to the traditional “mandatory parents” and “mandatory managers & coaches” meeting format. The dominant reason for this has been the desire to allow a dialogue between CPYL and its various constituents. Many of our issues can be clarified with a short convenient meeting. More information will follow as this evolves for the Spring 2012 season.

On a more macro item you may recall that there was a challenge to both the Board and to the League in the last news letter. The challenge to the Board was to grow the league to serve 2,000 players by 2020. Informal presentations have been made to both the City of Cedar Park and the City of Leander with a consistent message: We are open to all members of our local community. We have the capacity for more players and we look forward to seeing you at CPYL.

From the last letter, we asked the league to “take a step back and occasionally send the Board a note of the things we are doing right”. A huge THANK YOU to those who have taken this to heart. We know we are not perfect, but we sincerely have the best interest of CPYL in mind. Thanks also to those who have shared the positive notes. I am very proud that I have received more positive emails in my inbox than in previous years.

On behalf of the Board, thank you for allowing all of us to serve you and work towards creating a positive environment for the upcoming year and years to come.

Yours in Service,

Scott J. Foster

CPYL President