Monday, February 17th @ 7:30 pm New Mark Stingrays Board Meeting

Board Members in Attendance:

Kayla Sheer, Ashley Wesner, Melanie Rooney, Judy Nye, Laura Graybill, Jen Kimball, Liz Stalone

We began the meeting by talking about the calendar for the upcoming season:

• Meet schedule is set with the exception that July 3 meet will by moving to the 1st and the June 19th meet might move to the 17th (see below). Meet schedule is available for viewing on the website.
• March 20th Registration for Returning Members opens, April 3 Registration for New Members opens.
• Next Board Meetings: March 17th @ 7:30, April 21st @ 7:30, May 19th @ 7:30
• Meet the Coach Night: May 22nd 7-8:30
• First Practice Day will depend on when school actually ends
• Team Picture Day: May 30th
• Meet Spirit Themes🡪will be decided at March Meeting
• Possibly moving June 19th Home meet vs. Clayview due to Juneteenth? We will confirm this change with Clayview team.
• Coach Appreciation Moved to July 7-11th
• End of Season Banquet July 17th
• Field Day may be revamped as there has been lower attendance recently.
• June 19th (possibly moving to 17th ) is Senior night.

Melanie (coaches update)🡪Melanie reported that 4 are wanting to return (Nate, Jacob, Spencer, & Nick). Three coaches from last year are a “maybe,” and 1 from last year was possibly returning, depending on the salary.

• March 1st🡪applications open for new coach applicants
• April 1st🡪 Rookie Assistant Applications open (no limit)

Jen (Northland Conference Update)🡪Emily O’Conner is the new Stingrays representative. She will be coming alongside Jen Kimball and Liz Stalone as NSC Reps.

• March 3rd online Rules Committee Meeting for Northland Conf-Liz will attend this

Liz (Officials update)🡪We need all we can get! Mike Hill, Barry Crilley, Will Wells, and Michelle Sousley are definitely returning this summer. We haven’t gotten confirmation from Pat O’Keefe and Amanda Merten.

• Recruiting: We are continuing to offer incentives for officials (new and returning): 25% discount for swimmers, premium parking, free food, reimbursement for officiating training, volunteer-exempt, drawing for a free swimmer (to take place on Meet the Coach Night).
• We can now have Jr. Officials(age 13+)—can’t stroke & turn older kiddos, but could earn community service hours.

Committee Updates:

• Megan O’Keefe has agreed to do the printing of heat sheet again this year.
• Mandy Hill has agreed to do Spirit Wear.
  • Board members shirts will be hot pink (tank tops), Coaches-neon blue; Melanie Rooney- neon yellow

Melanie (Volunteer Update)🡪The board talked last month about charging parents for missing volunteer shifts that they signed up for. It was proposed that we charge $50 (1st offense) then $100 (2nd offense). The board will need to agree on this so that we can put the wording in registration agreement. We had a discussion about how to follow through on charging the fee. Two options were presented: 1) Having card information on file (collect this info during registration along with a signature authorizing the charge, in the event of a failure to complete a volunteer shift. 2) Keeping a “tab” of these charges that must be paid prior to their child signing up for the 2026 season.

Last year we had 93 families (not sure how many were rookies). 15 were volunteer-exempt. If we have 93 families return this season, each family would only need to complete 2.9 jobs per family (theoretically). Last year we had 213 volunteer jobs total for the season (+45 for conference). 4 shifts were required in 2024. In order to make sure that all jobs get covered, we will require 4 per family in 2025.

The board discussed offering a volunteer job buy-out ($500) during registration. If this well-received and we end up with a shortage of people volunteering, we can hire workers (ie: non-swimming siblings).

Ashley (Treasurer Update)🡪We are considering raising registration fees to offset coaches’ salaries and future unforeseen team expenses (equipment replacement, etc). It was reported that concessions was profitable last year. Since it was the first time we had done it in recent years, we learned a lot about supply and demand. Ashley predicts that this year we can be even more profitable, based on our knowledge from last season.

• We may need to add some volunteer jobs to help alleviate concessions duties.
• Swimmer Registration🡪We need to coordinate ordering of team shirts and additional adult shirts so there is less confusion at registration this year.

Judy (swimsuits & caps)—Judy will get the store link up and running prior to registration and speak to our about the caps. She has begun looking at suit options but needs to find options with good size ranges available. Laura gave Judy contact info regarding ordering caps. We may have a good amount of leftover (laytex?) caps in the cage from last year. We need to check into this prior to ordering for this year. Pricing info will be reported to Ashley for online registration.

Judy Nye will send minutes to Kayla so that they can be posted on the website within a week or two.

Meeting was concluded at 9:45 pm.