The BSF Executive held a conference call meeting on the evening of Thursday, 12 April. Below are the highlights of discussions and decisions.
Attendance
Present: Stella Ackrell (President), Mike Jennings (Treasurer), 
Vicky Hall (Administrative Officer), Liz Graham and Lesley Morisetti (Tournaments Officers), Julie Calver (Website Officer), James Reilly (Coaching & Development Officer), Chris Moon (BASU Representative, Rory Lynch and Beth Perkins (Co-opted Officers).
Apologies: Mark Wigington (Marketing Officer).
Guests: Jenny Fromer, Bob Fromer (BSUK).
Welfare and Safeguarding policies
Both the British Baseball and Softball Federations have agreed that BSUK will draft and administer Welfare and Safeguarding policies on their behalf, but the policies that now exist are not widely known and applied across the communities.
BSUK Joint CEO and Head of Operations Jenny Fromer attended the first part of the meeting to request that the BSF Executive does two things: sign an agreement committing the BSF to apply the policies as drafted by BSUK and agreed and reviewed by the Federations, and appoint a member of the Executive as a Welfare Officer who can liaise with BSUK and the softball community on these matters. The BSF has agreed to both requests.
Co-opted Executive member Rory Lynch pointed out that the key issue is how to apply the Welfare and Safeguarding policies across the activities of clubs, leagues and tournaments. Jenny agreed that there is a current lack of knowledge about the policies. BSUK plans to address this by rolling out information and encouraging all leagues and teams to appoint Welfare Officers or “responsible persons” within their organisations.
Whole Sport Plan
BSUK staff members are currently drafting the Whole Sport Plan funding submission to Sport England for 2013-2017 for baseball and softball, to be submitted by 14 May.
Jenny Fromer told the Executive that a draft of the Plan will be circulated to the BSF and BBF Boards on Friday, 20 Apri, and the Boards will have a week to comment and propose changes. Formal approval from both Boards is required by 27 April.
The Executive agreed to organise a process for this to take place.
Jenny also reported that an open web-based meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 24 starting at 6.00 pm, where any member of the baseball and softball communities can join in and offer comments on the draft Whole Sport Plan. Further details about this meeting will be posted on the BSUK website.
Service Level Agreement with BSUK
Jenny Fromer and BSUK Operations Manager Tim Stride met recently with BSF President Stella Ackrell and Treasurer Mike Jennings to agree the terms of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) between BSUK and the BSF for the next financial year.
The SLA covers non-development work that the BSF pays BSUK to do on its behalf, whereas development work, the main part of BSUK's remit, is paid for through Sport England funding and is not charged to the Federations.
Previously, the Federations have paid BSUK a fixed amount for services under the SLA, and BSUK has massively over-delivered on the number of hours provided, a situation which is not sustainable from BSUK's point of view in light of the need for staff to meet Sport England targets. So the meeting identified those services most important to the BSF, and a new financial arrangement was proposed to deliver them. BSUK will devote £6,000 worth of staff hours to non-development work for the BSF before charges kick in, and the BSF will then buy £4,000 worth of additional hours – but that will be the total number of hours provided.
It means that the BSF will receive £10,000 worth of services – just over 600 hours of BSUK staff time – for an expenditure of £4,000.
But because SLA hours will now be capped at that amount, some work previously carried out by BSUK will revert to the BSF.
Among the main functions that BSUK carries out for the Federations under the SLAs are website management and reporting, event management, handling public and community enquiries, insurance management, database management and registration processes, publications (print and on-line), Welfare and Safeguarding policies and support, sponsorship and partnership arrangements, international representation support, National Training Centre management and meeting support.
Pitch booking at Regents Park
The London Softball Federation, whose role has been carried out largely by BSUK in recent years, will be phased out after the current season.
The most important function that BSUK has carried out on behalf of the LSF and London leagues is the booking of pitches in Regents Park for the many leagues that play there. BSUK will continue to manage bookings with Regents Park this season, but will relinquish the role after the year. So the BSF will need to find someone in London who can take on the job. Regents Park wants to deal with just one person or organisation, not with a variety of leagues.
Minimum ages for players
Following on from the earlier discussion about Welfare and Safeguarding policies, the Executive agreed on the need to issue a brief guidance document to softball leagues and clubs on the minimum age at which young players are allowed to play with adult teams, and the conditions surrounding this, such as the use of helmets, parental permission and risk assessment by team captains or coaches.
“For the future of softball, it's good to encourage young people to play,” Rory Lynch said, “but it needs to be under the right conditions.”
The BSF will draft and circulate a guidance document in the near future.
Criteria for BSF Development Grants for umpire courses
The BSF gives out a number of development grants each year to league, teams and occasionally individuals, and a high percentage of applications come from leagues who want support to run umpire training courses.
While the BSF regards umpire training as important and is happy to help when needed, the Executive feels that leagues need to take more responsibility, since the courses tend to produce far more league umpires than people umpiring nationally at tournaments.
BASU Training Officer and BSF BASU Representative Chris Moon has drafted the following criteria for leagues applying for development grants to support umpires courses, which the Executive adopted unanimously:
- Softball leagues and individual clubs may apply to the BSF for a grant towards the costs they incur in running a two-day BASU umpire qualification course under the BSF Development Grant scheme.
- It is expected that the minimum number of participants on each course should be 10, of whom at least two, once qualified, are prepared to officiate at BSF-sanctioned weekend tournaments.
- League/clubs running courses must ensure that places are available to members of adjacent or nearby leagues/clubs.
- If awarded a grant for this purpose, the league or club may not re-apply for the same grant for a further four years.
Softball clinic weekend
A proposal developed by BSF Tournaments Officer Liz Graham and BSF BASU Representative Chris Moon for a major national training weekend for umpires, coaches and scorers in 2013 will be pursued by the Executive in conjunction with BSUK.
BSF Officer roles
Following passage of a motion at the recent BSF AGM that allows the Executive to adjust Officer roles according to need, without the necessity for a Constitutional amendment, BSF President Stella Ackrell and Treasurer Mike Jennings will meet shortly to consider adjustments and additions to posts on the Executive.
The creation of additional roles will be made easier by the fact that two new members have been co-opted onto the Executive following the AGM: Rory Lynch from the Manchester Softball League and Beth Perkins from the East Midlands Softball League.
Stella Ackrell suggested to the Executive that roles that need to be filled or created include National Teams Officer, Welfare Officer and Youth Officer.
National Softball League
BSF Tournaments Officers Liz Graham and Lesley Morisetti have been grappling with the need to create a suitable structure for the National Softball League this year, given the restriction on pitches at the Diamond Series which means that NSL competition cannot be hosted this year at Farnham Park.
The issues were discussed in full at the AGM, and negotiations with tournaments and venues has been going on ever since.
On 10 April, the BSF announced that there will be three NSL events in 2012, plus the Premier Nationals. For this year only, all NSL teams can qualify for the Premier Nationals, with NSL competitions determining seeding.
The Premier Nationals will be held in Manchester on 1-2 September.
The three NSL competition weekends leading to Premier Nationals will be at the British Airways Tournament on 16-17 June, the Pioneers Tournament on 30 June-1 July and a special NSL weekend at Loughborough on 7-8 July. Places for all NSL teams are available at all three tournaments.
The BSF also announced that the BA Tournament and the Loughborough event will be mandatory for NSL Teams that want to play in the Premier Nationals. This is because of the financial investment made by the British Airways Club and the BSF to guarantee sufficient pitches at those events.
This particular point generated some protest from a small number of NSL teams, but the majority seem to support the one-off structure for this season, and many teams emphasised the importance of maintaining and growing the NSL.
So the main NSL competition will proceed this season as per the BSF's announcement. Between the three NSL events, the Premier Nationals and the three Diamond Tournaments, seven events will be available for A-grade teams this season.
However, Liz Graham told the Executive that plans to create an NSL2 competition for B-grade and top C-grade teams have been shelved for this year due to a lack of response from potential participants.
Online registration
A new online registration system for BSF leagues and independent teams, created by BSUK at the BSF's request, is now operational, and was judged to be working well by BSF Tournaments Officer Liz Graham.
It is hoped by both BSUK and the BSF Executive that this system will be the foundation for introducing mandatory registration of all players on affiliated teams. Such registration will eventually be necessary for insurance purposes, and would of course give the BSF a valuable database of all its participants.
National Team registration
BSF national teams have never been formally registered with the BSF, and both the Executive and the GB Management Committee believe that it will be logical to close this loophole.
Registration will enable the national teams to be covered by BSF Civil and Public Liability and Personal Accident and Injury insurance for their softball activities in the UK, whereas not all national team players were necessarily covered by both types of insurance in the past.
The BSF will decide on a registration fee for national teams that covers the cost of the insurance, but will otherwise keep the fee as low as possible.
Coaching for B-Grade and C-Grade teams
At the BSF AGM in February, the Executive made an offer to arrange and pay for special coaching sessions, delivered by GB Slowpitch Team coaches or players, for up to 10 B-grade or C-grade teams.
The offer was made in the expectation that these teams would be participating in NSL2 this year, but despite the fact that NSL2 will not be going ahead in 2012, the BSF coaching offer will proceed.
Coaching and Development Officer James Reilly reported that eight teams are interested in taking up the offer, and the BSF now needs to match the teams and potential coaches so that sessions can be arranged, if possible before league seasons begin.
GB Slowpitch tour to Holland
Plans are proceeding for the GB Slowpitch Team Challenge Tour to the Netherlands over the weekend of 25-27 May, where the GB Team will play exhibition games at three major Dutch softball events against a hand-picked team of former Dutch national baseball and fastpitch team players.
The BSF feels that the event is highly important in terms of slowpitch development in Europe, and is providing financial and other support to both the GB Team and the Dutch organisers, who include ESF President Andre van Overbeek.
Slowpitch pitching video
Plans to create an instructional video on slowpitch pitching in response to a request made last year by the ESF had been approved by the BSF, and both the BSF and BSUK had allocated funding to the project.
However, discussions at the ISF Congress last October had suggested that the video might have a wider role and, as a result, should include material on the 7-10-foot pitching arc frequently used in North America and elsewhere.
However, promised footage on this style of pitching has not materialised, and the BSF has decided that the project should proceed with European countries in mind, concentrating on the 6-12-foot arc used in the UK and Europe.
Next BSF Meeting
The next BSF conference call meeting will be on Thursday, 3 May.
Anyone with an item to bring to the meeting should contact BSF Administrative Officer .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).