Northwest Chargers Hockey Association
Board of Directors’ Meeting

July 9, 2007

Regular Meeting Minutes

 The regular meeting of the Northwest Chargers Hockey Association was called to order at 6:40 pm. Present were Linda Becker, Gary Cox, Lori DeCarlo, Russ Fitton, Tom Ritondale, Lori Sall, Chris Sciortiono, Mike Silenzi, and Jim Zeman.  Doug Grupe and David Miller were absent. Also in attendance were Ken Smith and Pat Smith. 

Old Business: The minutes of the regular meeting held on June 20, 2007 were unanimously approved as were the corrected minutes for May 14, 2007.  

Guest: Melba Hartman met with the Board to discuss her interest in becoming a board member. Melba has a 10 year old player and has been a volunteer at NIHL tournaments in the past. After Melba departed, the Board voted unanimously to place her on the Board. 

Hockey Director: Pat is still trying to secure a goalie instructor. He had two different providers commit and then renege. He is considering another person to do individual sessions with each team.

Pat has secured a coach for the third squirt team, Brad Diesing. This team will be a bronze team so Pat will work with the coach to keep the practices very dynamic.

Lastly, Pat discussed the good attendance at summer skates so far. 

Communications: Mark Loewenstein has moved very quickly to get our new web site set up. Pat mentioned that he has already received some questions from the "Ask the Hockey Director" section. Mark, Russ, Linda and Mike had discussions concerning the details of on-line registration and payment. Mike noted that one exciting feature of the the new site is the calendar feature which allows parents to download hockey schedules directly to their PDAs.  

Equipment: Ken noted that the patches will take approximately 3 weeks to deliver and the cost for them has actually decreased. The design has been slightly reworked. 

Fundraising: The Board discussed whether we should change the site for next year's dinner. While the Makray banquet hall was very nice, Chris expressed  concern that we will not have enough room there next year if the attendance increases by vey much. We would like to invite alumni back to the dinner dance to increase the number of bidders for silent auction items and this could put us over the capacity at the Makray if we get a positive response. However, it is hard to guage what sort of response we might get since we have not invited alumni in the past. Chris has been out to look at larger venues if we determine that we will need one. 

Leagues: Pekin has been voted into NIHL. The Peoria rule will apply to the Pekin team. They anticipate having one team at each level. Tom also reported that Mission hockey wants to enter NIHL with a girls' team. The Board discussed whether allowing this would be detrimental to other NIHL clubs and a motion was made to vote no to allowing the Misssion girls into NIHL. The motion passed 5 to 2 with one abstention.

Registrar: No report. 

Rules & Ethics: No report. 

Scheduler: Pre-tryout and tryout dates and times have been set. Tryouts will be held September 1, 2 and 3rd.  

Treasurer: Russ gave the treasurer's report. He discussed the ad book prices and made a motion to increase the prices for many of the prime pages. The motion passed unanimously and the new prices will be posted on the web site. The Board discussed the budget for 2007-2008. Keeping player fees very close to  what they were last year was a major priority. A motion to accept the budget as proposed was seconded and approved. Fees will be posted on the web site. 

Tournament: Hoffman Estates has been awarded the girls' division for the Blackhawk cup. We will investigate further if we should request the mite or squirt divisions. The games would have to be held at two different locations: West Meadows and Sports Complex. This could present some logistical problems. 

New Business:

Tryout fees will remain the same as last year: $250 for all age levels except mites which will be $175. There will be an extra charge of $50 for walk-ins. 

Our next meeting will be held August 20th. The meeting adjourned at 10:05 p.m. 

Respectfully submitted,

  Lori DeCarlo, Secretary