The BSF Executive held a conference call meeting on the evening of Thursday 14 November. Below are the highlights of discussions and decisions.
Attendance
Present: Stella Ackrell (President), Mike Jennings (Treasurer), Beth Perkins (National Teams Officer), Liz Graham and Fiona Thorley (Tournaments Officers), Claire Waldron (Youth & Schools Officer), Mark Munnery (General Officer), Chris Moon (BASU Representative).
Apologies: Vicky Hall (Administrator), Mark Wigington (Marketing and Communications Officer).
Guests: John Boyd and Bob Fromer (BSUK).
Youth team fees
The BSF has agreed that any new teams that form and affiliate to play in adult softball where the majority of players are under 18 will pay the youth team fee (currently £60).
Use of Farnham Park
The BSF is preparing a set of specifications around its requirements for the Co-ed Slowpitch National Championships in 2014 at Farnham Park that it will ask BSUK to meet.
The BSF is also drawing up a proposal for the total amount of usage it requires for softball at Farnham Park in 2014, for the dual purpose of negotiating over any competing baseball requirements and negotiating over a package fee that will represent a discount on the rate card figure for each individual use.
Single-sex tournaments
The BSF will be polling teams that have competed recently in the Single-Sex Nationals and in the Single-Sex Slowpitch Spring, Summer and Fall Balls in London, previously run by BSUK, to see how much demand exists for this format before making a decision on whether these tournaments will continue to run.
Indications at the League Heads Forum held on 16 November were that the format remains popular, but that it would be worth holding more single-sex slowpitch events outside London.
ISF Congress
BSF Treasurer Mike Jennings attended the International Softball Federation Congress in October in Cartagena, Colombia, where the big news was that long-standing ISF President Don Porter stood down after 27 years in office and was replaced by Dale McMann from Canada.
However, this was a rule change as well as an election Congress, and Mike reported to the Executive that a number of rule changes and motions submitted by Great Britain had been passed. These included the ISF agreeing to create a new rule book specifically for slowpitch and the ISF adopting a new standard for 12” softballs for slowpitch use of .52 COR and 300 compression.
This new standard has been adopted for play in the United States this year, and reports are that the ball is not only better from a safety point of view (it is slightly softer on the outside and therefore less damaging) but performs well and is long-lasting. As the ISF has adopted these characteristics as standard, the ESF will follow, and the BSF will be recommending the use of this ball in British softball.
Financial report
Mike Jennings is still in the process of finalising BSF accounts for the year that ended on 30 September, with a few final bills still coming in. But as Mike reported at the BSF's October meeting, the overall picture should show a small operating surplus on the 2012-13 season.
With regard to services purchased from BSUK through the Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the two organisations, BSUK has reported that after the first two quarters of its financial year, approximately 50% of the contracted hours have been used.
Development grant
The Executive has awarded a development grant of £250 to the Solent Softball League to help run a series of weekly indoor sessions in Southampton over the winter, with a view to recruiting and training new players and expanding the number of league teams from that area. Solent League Development Officer Andy Burgess believes that “the sheer size of the Southampton region compared to Portsmouth or Chichester should eventually result in a considerable number of new teams joining the league.”
The BSF has also agreed that while the maximum amount awarded to any one development project has traditionally been £250, it may be prepared to increase that amount in future for projects based around coaching and coach-training.
GB Programmes Manager
Over the past year, and by special arrangement between the BSF and BSUK, Stan Doney has been working for both organisations.
For BSUK, Stan's role has consisted largely of day-to-day management of the new facilities at Farnham Park along with some development responsibilities; for the BSF, his role was to support GB Softball programmes in a variety of ways.
Starting from December 1, Stan will no longer be continuing with his BSUK responsibilities, but he has been offered and accepted a part-time role with the BSF as GB Programmes Manager. The job will consist of providing support for GB national teams and fastpitch development.
BSF AGM date
The BSF has provisionally chosen Saturday, February 22 for its 2014 AGM, to be held in Manchester. The date will be finalised and officially announced after a venue has bee confirmed.
BSUK subcommittees
Members of the BSF Executive attend a number of BSUK Board subcommittees dealing with Governance, Finance, Development and Farnham Park, plus a recently-formed Commercial Committee which is attempting to develop new income streams for the Federations and BSUK based on the organisations' key assets.
As far as the Governance subcommittee is concerned, Mike Jennings reported to the meeting that tripartite talks between the three organisations are ongoing with regard to improving the structures and processes by which they work together.
The Finance subcommittee has approved BSUK accounts for 2012-13, which are looking better than the original budget projections. This subcommittee is also discussing BSUK's reserves policy.
BSUK Joint CEO and Head of Development John Boyd, who was attending the meeting to get reactions from the BSF to recent development projects and achievements, reported that the Development subcommittee was creating a number of position papers on strategy which will be circulated to the Federation Boards. BSUK is also considering the use of outside agencies to deliver coaching for development initiatives.
Finally, John told the Executive that the new Commercial Committee is still finding its feet and deciding on the most effective way to work.
Website review
A meeting was held on October 30 involving representatives from the BSF, BBF and BSUK to review issues and functionality around the organisations' websites. BSF General Officer Mark Munnery and James Clarke from the Solent Softball League attended on behalf of the BSF.
One of the key issues for the BSF is to ensure that there is a user-friendly and robust registration system on the BSF website where all affiliated teams can register and roster their players, and various ideas for creating such a system were discussed both at the website review meeting and then at the BSF Executive meeting. The BSF is placing increasing importance on having names and contact information from individual players so that it has the ability to identify, count and reach people who are its playing members. Such information will be subject to strict data protection requirements.
Other issues identified at the website meeting were that the BSF would like to see more and better use of social media to drive people to its website and more and larger images in website stories. In addition, search engine functionality on the website needs to be improved and a mobile-friendly version of the site should be created, as around a third of visits are now from hand-held devices.
The BSF has also asked BSUK to create a new section on the website on “Starting a Team”, with appropriate information, links and resources.
British umpires for the Slowpitch World Cup
The GB Slowpitch Team will be competing at the 3rd ISF Slowpitch World Cup in Plant City, Florida at the end of January 2014, and the ISF has requested that the BSF nominate two BASU umpires to officiate at the event.
The meeting approved the nominations of Chris Moon and Pete Saunders as the umpires who will take part.
Development discussion
The latter part of the meeting was given over to a discussion between the Executive and John Boyd regarding BSUK development strategy and achievements.
John reported that so far in 2013, there has been a cumulative growth (taking new teams created minus teams that have folded) of 70 teams and around 1200 new people playing the sport, with many more teams in the pipeline based on initiatives that BSUK is running. In general, BSUK is well on the way to meeting Sport England targets for Year 1 of the current Whole Sport Plan funding cycle.
On behalf of the Executive, Mike Jennings expressed his pleasure at these figures, but requested specific information on where these new teams are located and what their activity consists of, which John will be happy to provide.
Some of the new teams have come in the Further and Higher Education sectors, and Mark Munnery wanted to know what BSUK was doing to connect university and college students with local leagues. John replied that BSUK has been working on this issue in a number of ways. One element is to make connections between university softball and local leagues where these exist and another is to integrate university teams into BSF league or tournament competitions, so students can get a better sense of community softball opportunities. In the East Midlands, for example, a Nottingham University team has played in the East Midlands Softball League for some time, and teams from Leicester and Loughborough Universities are set to join them.
BSUK is also looking at ways of tracking university graduates so that when they leave university and move elsewhere, they can be connected to softball clubs or leagues in their new location.
The main area in which the BSF would like to have more engagement with BSUK, and more support from the agency, is with regard to youth development. More slowpitch leagues are now interested in setting up youth sections, and there is a need for programmes that will bring more young players – especially girls – into fastpitch.
John Boyd replied that BSUK was happy to provide support, and this area will be the subject of ongoing discussions.
Next meeting
The next BSF conference call meeting will be on Thursday 12 December. Anyone with agenda items to bring to the meeting should contact BSF President Stella Ackrell.