The BSF Executive held its annual face-to-face meeting on the weekend of 19-20 October in Slough. Below are the highlights of discussions and decisions.
Attendance
Present: Stella Ackrell (President), Vicky Hall (Administrator), Mike Jennings (Treasurer), Beth Perkins (National Teams Officer), Fiona Thorley (Tournaments Officer), Mark Wigington (Marketing & Communications Officer), Claire Waldron (Youth & Schools Officer), Mark Munnery (Membership Officer), Chris Moon (BASU Representative), Liz Graham (Tournaments Officer – by phone).
Apologies: None.
Guests: Bob Fromer (BSUK), John Boyd (BSUK – Sunday only), James Clarke (BSF website representative – by phone).
National Championships and other tournaments
The BSF will run two National Championship tournaments in 2014. The Single-Sex Slowpitch Nationals are likely to be held in Birmingham, at Birmingham City University's Moor Lane Sports Ground, on 19-20 July, and the combined Co-ed Slowpitch Nationals, including all grades of play including the Premier Nationals, are likely to be held at Farnham Park on 9-10 August.
The dates will be confirmed once venue arrangements, and the shape of next year's softball calendar as a whole, are finalised. One issue the BSF is looking at with regard to the calendar is trying to get a more even spread across the summer of tournaments hosting National Softball League (NSL) play.
The BSF wants to see a major three-tournament co-ed slowpitch series run across the season at Farnham Park. The BSF intends to put the three weekends traditionally requested by the Diamond Series out to tender, with bids to be received by Christmas and a decision to be made in January. The Executive will shortly be drawing up a brief for the tender, specifying the minimum that such a series needs to provide to teams that enter.
The BSF has agreed to underwrite the costs of the Softball World Series Tournament (previously underwritten by BSUK), and will be more involved in the planning and delivery of the event, even if BSUK is still contracted to organise and run it. The BSF is keen for the event to continue because of the value it delivers to the British softball community and its role in promoting slowpitch in Europe.
BSUK has told the BSF that it is no longer prepared to underwrite and have sole responsibility for delivering the Single-Sex Slowpitch Spring, Summer and Fall Balls that have been held in London for many years, in part because there is no development aspect to the series that would justify BSUK running them, and because there is no connection in terms of qualification between these events and the Single-Sex Nationals.
The Executive will make a decision about the future of these events in due course, and in the meantime will carry out research to ascertain how much demand still exists for single-sex slowpitch play.
Finally, the BSF intends to ensure that all tournaments that are sanctioned by the BSF in 2014 (and therefore appear on the events list and calendar on the BSF website) carry out the obligations to safeguard Under-18 players contained in the mandatory safeguarding motion passed at the 2013 AGM.
Nationals Working Group
It was agreed at the 2013 BSF AGM in Watford last February that a Working Group would be established by the BSF to review various aspects to do with Co-ed Slowpitch National Championships, including the quality and amenities delivered at the tournament by the BSF, grading of teams and qualification routes to Nationals places, competition levels and player qualification requirements.
It has taken a long time to turn this idea into actuality, but BSF President Stella Ackrell has announced the members of the Working Group and confirmed that it will hold its first meeting on Saturday 11 January 2014 in Slough.
Just some of the questions the group will consider are:
- Should some places in Co-ed Nationals be determined by Regional Playoffs?
- If all grades of play, including Premier Nationals, are held together on the same weekend, will this render the Platinum category irrelevant?
- Can players who play for NSL teams that fail to qualify for the Premier Nationals opt to play for their league team at another Nationals level (assuming player qualification conditions are met)? If so, will there be any restrictions on numbers that can do so?
- What is the correspondence between categories of play in leagues and open tournaments (Comp, Rec, A, B, C etc) and Co-ed Nationals categories (Premier, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze)?
Those who will make up the working group, to be chaired by Stella Ackrell, represent various leagues, categories of play and levels of experience. They are:
Andrea Dee
Jenny Fromer
Liz Graham
Tim Kimber
Chris MacLeod
Diana Maynard
Lesley Morisetti
Harvey Pryor
Bruce Saunders
Julie Spittle
Will Taylor
Fiona Thorley
Mark Wigington
Before the Working Group convenes in January, views on these issues will be sought from softball League Heads at the BSF's annual League Heads Forum, scheduled for Saturday 16 November in Birmingham.
Website review
BSUK has invited representatives from the BSF and the BBF to meet together with members of BSUK's Operations Department on Wednesday evening, 30 October, to review how well the organisations' websites are meeting their needs and what might feasibly be done (within resource constraints) to improve them.
The BSF's representatives at the meeting will be Membership Officer Mark Munnery and James Clarke from the Solent Softball League, who is also a member of the GB Management Committee.
One of the key issues from the BSF's point of view is how the registration process can be configured on the BSF website to ensure that a maximum number of players on BSF-affiliated teams register their names and a contact email address, since it is vital that the Federation has a database of its members, and at the moment that database is only partial.
The key reasons that the BSF requires such a database are to ensure that all players have civil and public liability insurance, and, with more young players than ever playing the sport, to carry out its safeguarding responsibilities.
Another topic to be explored at the meeting will be a greater use of social media linked to the BSF website, which can dramatically expand the website's reach.
Code of Conduct
The Executive discussed the creation of a Code of Conduct, based above all on mutual respect, that should govern relationships and communication within the Executive, between the Executive and BSF members and within the sport as a whole.
Emails are a key issue, since everyone has experienced how email communication can be misinterpreted or get out of hand.
Executive members discussed a number of concepts for such a Code, including courtesy, professionalism, empathy, acceptance of different viewpoints and the need to respond to people as individuals.
The elements of a Code of Conduct will be brought to the League Heads Forum for discussion, and a revised Code will eventually be published on the BSF website.
Youth and schools
A great deal of youth softball development is carried out by BaseballSoftballUK on behalf of the BSF, so the task for new BSF Youth and Schools Officer Claire Waldron is to work out how the BSF can usefully follow up on BSUK activity, and what programmes the BSF might be able to run that will complement what BSUK is doing.
To start the process, Claire has recently met with BSUK National Development Manager Chris Rawlings, who took her through the range of youth and schools projects that BSUK carries out.
Many schools are currently playing co-ed slowpitch softball, and the sport has featured in the government's School Games in a number of counties this year. However, another key target for the BSF is to get younger children playing the sport – especially girls – to create a bigger pool of players for GB fastpitch youth teams. The obvious place to start is with the top end of primary schools, and perhaps specifically girls' schools, but there need to be exit routes in place for children who become interested in the sport, and if possible, school competition structures should be set up that can keep interest going.
One exit route for younger children could be provided by widening the range and location of regional Academy Softball sessions.
An exit route for older children could be local slowpitch leagues and teams. The BSF and BSUK are working to improve communication with leagues so that any development work co-ordinates and works with the local league and its teams.
Another promising area will involve working with some of the more progressive baseball clubs around the country, some of whom want to widen involvement in their club through fastpitch activity for girls and women and/or by creating co-ed slowpitch teams.
It was agreed that BSF youth activity should start with a small number of areas that can actually be serviced and that BSF youth and schools activity should be coordinated with BSUK, with the BSF able to ask BSUK for help when required.
National Kickball Day
Late in September, the Solent Softball League ran a small but successful Kickball Tournament to raise money for fastpitch and slowpitch GB Teams.
Kickball is played exactly like slowpitch softball, but instead of a softball being struck by a bat, a soccer-sized ball is rolled in by the “pitcher” and kicked into play by the “batter”.
The BSF has approved a proposal to promote a National Kickball Day on Sunday 18 May 2014, a date with no tournaments booked on the calendar. All leagues will be invited to organise a Kickball Tournament in their local area on that day to raise funds both for their league and for GB teams, with profits being split on a 50:50 basis.
The events can also be used for recruitment, with existing softball players who take part urged to “bring a non-playing friend”.
The National Kickball Day concept will be promoted at the BSF's League Heads Forum on 16 November, and information on how to play kickball and how a kickball tournament might be run will be created and circulated by the GB Management Committee.
New youth teams
The BSF has been approached recently by two new teams made up of young players (some under-18, others slightly older) who want to register as tournament teams for the 2014 season. The question is: what should they pay? Should they be regarded as youth teams, or simply as tournament teams – or something in between?
This question became part of a wider discussion about team affiliation fees, with the BSF needing to come up a fee proposal for the 2014 AGM early next year.
Part of that discussion revolved around the perennial question of why a team put together for, say, a particular tournament or tournaments but made up entirely of players affiliated and paying fees through other teams, should have to pay again.
This is an area that the BSF needs to further define and tighten, and more discussion will follow.
Development grant
The BSF Executive approved a development grant of £250 to Chalfont Softball Club to run indoor training sessions over the winter for players recruited through successful schools development work that the club carried out earlier in the year.
BSF Accounts for 2012-13
BSF Treasurer Mike Jennings presented preliminary accounts to the meeting for the 2012-13 financial year (the BSF's accounting year ends on 30 September).
With strong reserves in the bank, the BSF had actually budgeted to make a loss of just under £10,000 in 2012-13, in order to commit more money to development projects, marketing, events and support for national team programmes, which are its main areas of discretionary spending.
In the event, revenue was higher than anticipated (because some leagues paid overdue fees from previous years) and expenditure slightly less than planned, with the result that the BSF has made a surplus for the year of about £1700.
A budget for 2013-14 will be drawn up shortly for approval by the Executive before it is taken to the 2014 AGM.
ISF Congress
BSF Treasurer Mike Jennings left the UK on Tuesday 22 October to be the BSF's sole representative at the International Softball Federation Congress in Cartagena, Colombia.
This year's gathering is both a rule change and an election Congress. The BSF has put forward a number of motions for changes to rules and regulations, and Mike has reported back from Colombia to say that our motion for the ISF to create a separate Slowpitch Rulebook has been accepted in principle, and all our other motions have either been accepted or been referred for further consultation – a good result!
But for many Federations, the key question at the Congress will be whether long-time ISF President Don Porter, who has served the organisation as Secretary-General since 1965 and then as President since 1987, will either be voted out of office or withdraw his candidacy to lead the ISF for another four years.
Safeguarding
Manchester Softball League President Harry Somers has asked the BSF if it has any plans to introduce the mandatory use of helmets or other protective equipment for adults in slowpitch softball (the use of helmets at bat, on the bases and while base-coaching, umpiring or sitting on the team bench is now mandatory for U-18s).
While the Executive strongly supports the use of helmets and other protective equipment such as catcher's masks and mouthguards, the feeling is that this is still best left to leagues to determine whether such equipment should be mandatory. The BSF adheres to ISF rules, and these do not mandate the use of helmets in adult slowpitch, nor has the membership at BSF AGMs decided otherwise.
The BSF will soon be producing a standardised paper and online Incident Report Form that can be used by leagues, tournaments, national teams etc to report incidents involving injuries that require treatment. These forms will be introduced at the League Heads Forum in November and will be used by the BSF at National Championships in 2014, and are recommended for use by other tournaments and at league and national team training and competition sites.
From next year, all national teams and BSF-affiliated club teams going on tour to other countries will be required to carry out risk assessments for those tours.
Commercial Committee
The BSUK Board maintains several subcommittees, which include Federation members as well as BSUK Board members and others, to deal with areas such as development, governance and finance. Recently, a Commercial Subcommittee has been added, with the task of exploring and developing new income streams for BSUK and for the sports, in part to address the requirement that dependence on funding from Sport England is reduced. This committee, rather than operating purely as a BSUK group, will be operating as a tripartite committee on behalf of all three organisations.
It was announced at the BSF meeting that Membership Officer Mark Munnery will become a member of both the Development and Commercial Subcommittees in the new year, joining Marketing and Communications Officer Mark Wigington, who already sits on those Committees.
The theory behind the creation of a Commercial Committee, which is working with a professional sports marketing agency called Four, is that the combination of baseball plus slowpitch and fastpitch softball in the UK represents a set of assets that can potentially be used to generate sponsorship or other revenue if the three organisations work together. The BSF's main assets, similar to those of the BBF, have been identified as national teams and national championships. What the Commercial Committee is asking the BSF (and the BBF) to do is to agree that its assets can be available to the Committee as it develops proposals for income generation.
This does not prevent individual teams, leagues etc from securing local sponsorships or carrying out local fundraising activities (though these should be notified to the Commercial Committee through the BSF), but it does mean that in general terms the BSF is committing its assets to the Commercial Committee's fundraising strategies.
If as part of its work the Commercial Committee identifies preferred suppliers, this doesn't mean that everyone in British softball or baseball has to use only those suppliers – but the BSF would be expected to strongly recommend them and it is hoped that most softball participants, all other things being equal, would look at using those suppliers for the greater good of the sport.
The BSF Executive has agreed in principle to support the Commercial Committee's efforts, but perhaps on a time-limited basis, so that further commitment is based on results after a two or three-year period. The BSF will look to discuss the issue with members at the League Heads Forum in November and at the AGM early next year.
However, one major key to the success of the Commercial Committee's efforts to generate additional income streams for the sports is that all individual participants that play on affiliated teams are registered and contactable by the Federation. On the whole, this is already the case in British baseball, but has never been the case in softball.
The BSF and BSUK will now be exploring a registration vehicle and process that can ensure that the vast majority of softball participants are individually registered. This is not just about commercial assets; it is also about issues such as insurance and safeguarding and insurance. The bottom line is that the BSF needs a database of its members.
National Team fundraising
The meeting heard a report from Marketing and Communications Officer Mark Wigington on fundraising efforts carried out this year for softball national teams under the aegis of the GB Management Committee (GBMC) and its Fundraising Officer Kat Carter.
Some of the projects were carried out on a trial basis to see if they are worth pursuing in future years.
In total, over £3000 was raised this year through activities carried out by teams, individual players and the GBMC. Activities carried out by GB youth fastpitch players and teams ranged from raking fields at Farnham Park to organising raffles, selling GB wristbands and applying for bursaries from local Councils.
Activities carried out by or through the GBMC including running a Home Run Derby, organising a Kickball Tournament and selling tournament-specific and GB merchandise at the Softball World Series in September.
For next season, a major effort to use crowdfunding websites to raise money for teams and individual players will get under way.
Meanwhile, the GBMC will evaluate the success of this year's efforts in planning how to raise even more money in future.
Farnham Park
BSUK Joint CEO and Head of Development John Boyd attended the meeting on Sunday morning, and one of the issues the Executive was keen to discuss with him was the future use of Farnham Park.
John told the Executive that BSF and BBF that he wants the Federations to see Farnham Park at their home facility. Federation use will have priority and BSUK will design its calendar for the venue around this. But this requires both Federations to plan and notify BSUK about their intended use for the 2014 season as early as possible.
One possibility that follows from this is that BSUK may be able to offer the Federations a lump sum rate covering all of their intended use at Farnham, which will represent a discount over the individual cost of each booking.
BSUK is also keen that there is some joint baseball and softball use at the facility on occasion.
BSUK is forming a new Board subcommittee to handle bookings and day-to-day management at Farnham Park and to formulate and execute a business plan for the site, and the BSF has been invited to put forward a representative. John stressed to the Executive that this subcommittee needs to handle all aspects of bookings at Farnham, including negotiations with the Council and other clubs on site when grass pitches are needed in addition to the BSUK diamonds, and the BSF has agreed to this.
In turn, the BSF will require BSUK to deliver on its needs for major tournaments such as the Co-ed National Championships, and Tournaments Officer Fiona Thorley will shortly give BSUK a proposal outlining BSF requirements for that event in 2014.
Finally, John Boyd told the Executive that capital funding awarded by Sport England for further facility development in the 2013-17 Whole Sport Plan cycle is committed, based on BSUK's Facilities Strategy, to the creation of a dedicated baseball facility in the North that may have capacity for softball (probably in Manchester), investment in a National Training Centre at Milton Keynes and Phase 2 developments at Farnham Park, which may include an additional dedicated baseball and softball field.
BSUK development activities
John Boyd reported briefly to the Executive on BSUK development activity, and noted that with just over two quarters completed in the 2013-14 financial year, BSUK has already exceeded its Sport England target for increasing participation during the twelve-month period.
In general terms, the majority of slowpitch softball (58%) is played in existing adult leagues, most of them affiliated to the BSF. But the growth of new teams in colleges, universities and new adult leagues now represents 33% of slowpitch played, with the remaining 9% consisting of youth play. In total, there are estimated to be 764 slowpitch teams and just under 14,000 players.
The increase in the total number of players in both sports since 2009 has been just over 6,500 people playing in 394 more teams. Slowpitch softball has represented 83% of this growth, baseball 14% and fastpitch (from a very low base) 3%, but the percentage growth in participation over the period is 65% for slowpitch, 41% for baseball and 586% for fastpitch.
John will attend the next BSF conference call meeting in November to get feedback from the Executive on BSUK's development work, since there wasn't time to do this at the face-to-face meeting.
The future of affiliation
Another discussion that took place between the Executive and John Boyd concerned the future of BSF affiliation fees.
On the one hand, there is the issue of whether and under what circumstances new teams formed though BSUK development work might affiliate to the BSF, and whether new fee categories might be necessary to facilitate this. For example, it might make more sense for individual players in BSUK development programmes to pay a small fee to the Federation as opposed to team affiliation.
With more baseball clubs becoming interested in starting softball sections, new fees might need to be devised that create an incentive for this to happen.
Another possibility that might be explored in the future is individual player subscriptions to the BSF from affiliated teams.
Other issues
Several final points were raised by John Boyd at the end of the meeting to be noted by the BSF Executive:
BSUK will develop a Level 3 Fastpitch Qualification over the next year, to fill what is currently a gap in the portfolio of coaching courses it offers.
The Play Ball youth baseball and softball programme, with support from Major League Baseball, will be returning next year. The programme is designed to generate local youth league play.
The BBF may adopt Little League rules for youth play next year, and the BSF could consider whether to follow suit.
BSUK has promised to speed up the completion of paperwork and the issuing of certificates for people who have successfully completed coaching courses.
Next meeting
The next BSF Executive meeting will be a conference call on Thursday evening, November 14.
Anyone with items to raise at the meeting should contact BSF President .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).