Board Minutes: April 25, 2025

April 29, 2025 Minutes

Sara-Placid Lakers Association

Time: 6:00

Location: Hotel Saranac

Meeting Type: Regular 

Minutes

Attendees: Adam Heidt, Lauren St. Louis, Matt St. Louis, Jeremy Marra, Lee Jopling, Jessica Martin, Jocelyn Midget, Brooke Varner, Betsy Davison, Kari Hoffman

Call to order: 6:07pm

Adoption of Agenda:

Motion: Adam Heidt

Second: Jessica Martin

Approval of Minutes: March 30th, 2025 

Motion: Jocelyn Midgett

Second: Lauren St. Louis

Public Comment: None

President’s Update (Adam):

Personnel

Appointment of Treasurer for 25-26

Motion to appoint Betsy Davison to the position of Treasurer for the 2025-2026 Lakers season:

Motion: Jeremy Marra

Second: Adam Heidt

Appointment of Website Coordinator for 25-26

Update on Lauren St. Louis

Looking for better communication on all levels, utilizing social media more to allow parents and families to be up to date

Many families expressed frustrations with the lack of communication last season 

Jocelyn also offered to help coordinate the website.

Adam suggested a monthly newsletter to communicate updates to the association on a regular basis.

Crossbar offers a scrolling ticker for public (association) events to aid in communication.

Website needs to be more attractive for association members to go to the website first for information.

Motion to appoint Lauren St. Louis and Jocelyn Midgett to the position of Co-Website Coordinators for the 2025-2026 Lakers season:

Motion: Jeremy Marra

Second: Lee Jopling

Subcommittees necessary for 25-26

Spring/Summer - Update from Jocelyn

Great retention to date for our first year

Looking for another 8U coach

Looking for solutions for additional tournaments and practices amidst losing ORDA ice for three weeks.

Both 12U, 10U, 8U are all going to the Niagara tournament

Matt D. and Matt S. will plan tournaments for the remainder of the season.

Looking to host one home tournament in August.

24 teams, including home teams

Plans to be a USAHockey sanctioned tournament

Waiting on ice prices

8U coaches are experiencing frustrations that need to be remedied.

A coaches meeting will be held with 8U coaches prior to next practice, run by Matt and Lee, to come to an agreement.

Lee will communicate with Erik personally prior to the coaches meeting about options for Erik and his athletes

Rebranding - Committee still needs to be made

Branding needs to be solidified before changing to Crossbar

Logo files, exact colors, etc. needed for website

Leigh Campbell is contact for current design ideas

Jessica will contact Leigh for current designs

North Section Spring Meeting Update - None

Spring/Summer Hockey

Dave Webb requested 5/4 and 5/11 for 14U tryout dates

14U girls requested additional tryout dates on 5/4 and 5/11

Currently have 11 athletes

Motion to approve Taylor Munn, Clarence Bell, and Leigh Campbell as 10U assistant coaches, as well as David Williams as an 8U assistant coach.

Motion: Matt St. Louis

Second: Jessica Martin

Non-sanctioned hockey tournaments

Jeremy noted Section B, items G and I.

Lakers home tournament will be sanctioned.

Parents need to be informed prior to attending any non-sanctioned tournaments.

Jocelyn will draft waiver for parents to sign before attending non-sanctioned tournaments.

Possibly use Jamie Maswick in the future to accomplish this.

Vice President’s Update (Matt): 

Previously discussed under spring/summer 

Financial Report (Amy):

Checking Account: To be given at the close of the fiscal year

Savings Account: To be given at the close of the fiscal year

Spring/Summer Account: To be given at the close of the fiscal year

Only one refund was made to a parent who registered their player for the wrong age group.

Profit and Loss

Amy is finalizing the fiscal year and will send it to the CPA for tax prep, hopefully by the end of next week.

Malone for Girls on Fire Tournament - not yet received.

Matt S. is going to connect with Malone.

Franklin Grant ($1,812.50) - awarded in the form of a reimbursement.

Grant money should be spent by August

Suggested to use it for new jerseys

Ultimate Chill Profit and Loss - Amy was still finalizing at last meeting.

Necessary reimbursements:

Reimbursement to Lee ($1600) for Danbury Tournament

Reimbursement to Adam ($1600) for Niagara Tournament

Reimbursement to Jocelyn ($200) for Canton Tournament

Unfinished Business:

1. Bylaws

Suggestion of a director’s model vs. a member-voted model in the future

Specific bylaws meeting to be held May 18th at 6pm at Hotel Saranac

Brooke will send the board bylaws as well as instructions on how to make comments 

2. Handbook

To be discussed at a future meeting, after bylaws have been finalized

3. Coaching Development

To be discussed at a future meeting, after bylaws have been finalized

4. Board Task List

Prioritize task lists and a create a timeline for accomplishing goals

To be discussed at May 18th meeting

5. Perpetual Calendar

Reminder to update with any tasks completed last month by job

Updates on the agenda will reflect tasks on the calendar

Brooke will add the following:

Raffle tickets

Spring/Summer Hockey

6. Rebranding Committee

Leigh Campbell contact - see above

Jersey Count and Design: Keep on agenda

7. Communication of Board Meetings to the Public

Dates will be added to team calendars on Crossbar by website coordinators

Meetings will be held every second Sunday of every month unless it is a holiday. In that case, it will be held the third Sunday

New board members should be added to the website.

8. Sunday Skills Sessions

37 athletes (12/14 has 30), consider third slot with an additional coach.

Suggested to allow non-spring/summer 8U players to attend spring/summer practices to keep them on the ice at a $50 registration fee.

This will be proposed at the upcoming 8U spring/summer coaches meeting.

9. 25-26 14U Boys Team

Tryouts to be held 5/4 and 5/11

Suggested re-advertising about skills sessions to encourage 14U boys to play local

10. New bottle collection box

Adam will spearhead this project and offered to donate the lumber and supplies, and suggested including athletes in creating a new box.

New Business:

1. Transition, access, and training of new board members

Jeremy, Lee, Jessica, and Jocelyn still need access.

Suggested to possibly change bylaw dates to accommodate more productive access/transitions.

Suggested to have a shadowing period for transitions.

Adam will reach out to Rusty about access timeline.

2. Future hockey pictures:

Need to have a release in registration

Jeremy will check with Alicia about password protection.

3. Jerseys

10u Blue jerseys have not been turned in

10u goalie equipment has not been turned in (2 sets)

Lee will connect with Tristan to connect with Brad Crosby regarding hockey equipment

Reports:

1. Registration (Jocelyn and Jessica):

Spring/Summer Registrations as of 3/30

14U/16U Girls -

Previous: 8

Current: 12

12U -

Previous: 22

Current: 30

2 Teams: Red, White

10U -

Previous: 16

Current: 20

1 main White team

1 smaller Blue team

8U -

Previous: 9

Current: 12

1 Team

Erik decided not to move forward coaching, mix of coaches going forward

Skills Sessions Registrations as of 3/30

14U -

Previous: 8

Current: 11

12U -

Previous: 12

Current: 13

10U -

Previous: 17

Current: 18

Fundraiser’s Report (Lauren):

Barn Party Planning - suggested for early August

Jeremy and Lauren will work together on new grant writing opportunities.

Betsy has a history writing grants.

Running ideas: Sandlot night, 90s roller skating, golf tournament, spaghetti fundraiser, donation jars, grocery store round-ups, car wash, bake sale, lawn signs fundraiser, making our own merch via an embroidery machine

ACE/ADM Report: (Lee and Jeremy):

Looking for access, as stated above under New Business

Tournament Director’s Report (Matt and Lee):

Looking for access, as stated above under New Business

Looking to create a home tournament in August as stated above

Will decide on dates and levels for Ultimate Chill and International Tournament after 25-26 registration. 

Website Coordinator’s Report (Lauren and Kari): 

Crossbar/SportsEngine Update

Kari will communicate with Travis, Lauren, and Jocelyn to pass on training notes and future training.

SportsEngine site needs to be thoroughly reviewed for corrections to future Crossbar website.

Currently set up as a “Program” playing teams outside of our association

“SLP Lakers Youth Hockey”

Locked pages feature (for board exclusive documents, etc)

People outside of the association can view and be updated on important information

Required “family volunteer” time option to add to the registration page.

Must be activated before initial registration.

Crossbar can be used for volunteer sign-ups instead of Google spreadsheets and tracks volunteer hours per family.

Can utilize other volunteer opportunities in addition to clock and scoresheet, such as setup, decorating, organizing, etc.

Kari is already moving content over and getting pages set up

Looking to attend next meeting with Travis as the registrar to learn more about set up facilities

A future in-person training should be planned for coaches and board members, and possibly a recorded training

Parents will need to learn how to use Crossbar and update their athlete’s information manually.

Items needed ASAP:

List of the upcoming board meetings, times, places.

Please include Kari on these events so she can update Crossbar

Pricing for the upcoming season and any requirements for raffles, etc.

Date registration should plan to go live

Date for when the season officially starts

Dates for evaluations (this plays into how we set up teams at the beginning).

We need players assigned to a team so they are alerted on practices, etc.

Have something like “2025-26 10U evaluation team” and all 10U players are assigned to this automatically. Then once the teams are broken out after evals, we can go in and re-roster.

Kari will work with Amy directly on finances.

Amy is ready to help with anything needed from a financial standpoint with the transition to Crossbar.

Photos from last season

Brooke to send Kari board members names, roles, and emails, and certain documents she will need.

Executive Session - Call to order: 8:28pm

Next Meeting: May 18th, at 6pm at Hotel Saranac

Meeting Adjourned: 8:45pm

Motion: Jessica Martin

Second: Matt St. Louis