By Pete Saunders & Bob Fromer
The 2020 BASU AGM was held in Nottingham on Saturday 15 February, with a good attendance of 17 people despite the inclement weather over the weekend brought by Storm Dennis.
Training and mentoring were once again high on the agenda for BASU, with plans to run a “train the trainers” course in 2021 and the introduction of mentoring this coming season at all levels of play.
DBS checks for umpires will also be completed during 2020.
Report from the Umpire-in-Chief
Umpire-in-Chief Jes Sandhu submitted the following report to the meeting on BASU activity in 2019:
“We covered over 41 tournaments (including fastpitch events), with new crew chiefs being introduced to the fold. The new crew chiefs did our organisation great credit, covering all their games, and I’m sure they will be happy to cover further tournaments this year. All feedback received from tournament organisers was positive, but we must not rest on our laurels and must continue to encourage new blood into the system.
“It is still the case that 30% of our qualified umpires do not actively umpire at national tournaments; hopefully 2020 will see more of them do so.
“The biggest requirements in 2019 were again for the Diamond Series held at Farnham Park. The 2020 Calendar is extremely crammed, and BASU will once again be under pressure to get all games covered with fully-qualified umpires.
“All regional tournaments in 2019 were covered successfully, with no manning problems to report, and tournament organisers were positive in their feedback.”
“National Championships again went well, with most games at the League and NSL finals covered with two-man systems. This was received positively by the teams, and in 2019, the NSL3 Nationals were hosted in Manchester and also went well.”
Discussion issues
Game timings were discussed at the AGM, with a focus on the need for consistency. BASU’s recommendation is to go back to 50 minutes before “no new inning” and to play out all final innings at all tournaments.
The WBSC rule on jewellery is centred on “distracting adornments” as much as safety. It says: “No exposed items, including jewellery, that is judged by the umpire to be distracting to opposing players, may be worn or displayed."
However, BASU suggests that we only disallow jewellery that is liable to cause harm to another player.
Training
BASU Training Officer Chris Moon reported that BASU had six umpire-trainers in 2019 (two for fastpitch) and eight assessors (two for fastpitch).
In 2019, two-day BASU courses were held by the East Midlands, Bristol and Windsor Leagues and the GLSML (now the London Softball League). One-day courses were hosted by the Bristol, Solent and Swindon Leagues and the Eastbourne Softball Club.
Chris Moon also ran two one-day courses in Belgium.
At the time of the AGM, two-day courses had been booked in 2020 by the Bristol, East Midlands, Manchester, Windsor and Jersey Softball Leagues.
BASU kit
In 2019, according to Kit Officer Yuki Ono, BASU sold the following items:
57 navy polo shirts
62 powder-blue polo shirts
17 zip-up jackets
30 ball bags
18 caps
BASU Committee
The BASU Committee for 2020 will be:
Umpire-in-Chief
Jes Sandhu
Assistant Umpire-in-Chief
Lesley Morisetti
Training Officer
Chris Moon
Secretary
Pete Saunders
Treasurer
Steve Getraer
Fastpitch Officer
Darrell Pitman
Kit Officer
Yuki Ono