In Attendance: Harvey Beahm, Doug Snapp, Janet Craycraft, Jim Hendrix,
Gary Alexander, Andy Alexander, Jeannie Shaw, Les Varnado, Brooks Naffziger, Shawn Walton,
Bud Petersen, Paul Kobelt, Denica Bruce, Geri Schlegel, Vince Solomon, Arnie Jones, Deena Snapp 1. Approval of Minutes
GCTA President Harvey Beahm called the meeting to order. Harvey indicated that the September minutes had been mailed to people without email accounts. They had also been emailed and posted to the GCTA web site. He asked the group to take a moment and look over those minutes, as copies were on the tables. Harvey then asked for changes. Hearing none, he requested a motion to accept the September minutes. Brooks Naffziger made such a motion and Jean Shaw seconded the motion. Harvey said the minutes were approved. 2. Treasurer’s Report
Doug Snapp reported that Jake Will, Jr., was unable to attend the meeting but had given Doug some information. We presently have $95, 015 in our accounts. Jake would like any bills that are still out for 2003; he would like to close the books on that year. Gary Alexander said that he would like to see a more detailed spreadsheet of the GCTA accounts; he hoped Jake could provide that for the April meeting. Doug said he would pass that request along to Jake. 3. Women’s Leagues
Harvey indicated that he knew that there was a Women's Board meeting this evening and that Rita Brown would not be present. He complimented the Women's Leagues for their organization and work. Doug added that Rita had contacted him and wanted to remind everyone that the kickoff party dates had been set: January 24th and February 6th. Both parties are at the Racquet Club on Bethel Rd. Erin Ortman will be in charge this year. Doug said that Erin gave him the information and he posted it to the web site. Erin has also sent postcards to the women members, reminding them of these events.
Doug indicated that former Women's Chair and Board Member, Callie Ryan, had contacted him. She is moving out of the area and would like to be taken off the GCTA Board. Harvey praised her for her work with the GCTA. Doug indicated that a replacement would not be made until the normal nominating process before the September meeting. 4. Men’s Leagues
Harvey shared that Bob Hilborn has asked to not continue as the Men's Chair. Harvey has asked former Men's Chair, Gary Alexander, to again take the position. Gary has accepted. Harvey expressed how appreciative he was to get Gary back as the Chair. Gary indicated that there may be several changes this year. A group of teams formed their own league last year; they are likely to be part of our leagues this year. This was a 3.5 Gold group. Gary is looking into the possibility of online registration for the men. There are several options with regard to this, and Gary is researching them. This would likely be very similar to the USTA leagues that register online. There would be no change in the status of our men's leagues. 5. USTA Leagues
There was no report. There was comment that since we run a summer league and the clubs run a fall and a winter league, there likely will be more teams from our area participating at the district competition. Harvey posed a question about the money that is collected for the fall and winter leagues. A discussion of the breakdown and the distribution of that money followed: part goes to TennisLink, part goes to the OVTA, part goes to the Midwest section--what is left goes to the individual player's club. Part of our summer fee for the USTA leagues goes to pay for the coordinator of the program. 6. USTA Junior Team Tennis Leagues
It was reported that Shirley Neibauer will no longer be coordinating this program. Harvey indicated his appreciation for her work. It was emphasized out that this is an important program, both locally and nationally. 300,000 to 400,000 juniors participate in this program throughout the country. Harvey said that it would be a priority to find a replacement for Shirley. Paul Kobelt emphasized that the coordinator should have a group to help with the administrative tasks of the league, much like the Women's and Men's Leagues. The amount of work involved is too great for just one person. Paul further indicated that the program had grown immensely under Shirley's direction and that there is room for it to grow even more in the future. Shawn Walton echoed Paul's comments, saying that the program has been exceptional for the players who are not the highly USTA-ranked area players. Harvey said that the OVTA had terminated the grant money for the program, explaining the OVTA policy of using grants a seed money and not sustaining money. He further indicated that there was no reason why we, the GCTA, cannot allocated money for coordination of this program and for its maintenance. He is hoping that names of people willing to participate in running this program will be given to him. 7. Junior Wightman and Davis Cup
Harvey indicated that neither Steve Ryuse nor Michelle Jarrett have been contacted--if they are still interested in captaining these teams, he will keep them. Janet Craycraft is hoping that the event can be at OSU this year. She is willing to coordinate. The tournament has been at Wittenberg in Springfield for a number of years. Dave Engle has coordinated the tournament; he is quite willing to allow the event to be at another location in the Ohio Valley. Janet has been in touch with OSU Coach, Chuck Merzbacher. He believes the event can be held at the varsity facility as long as only 10 courts are used. If Janet cannot get the OSU courts, she feels there are alternate possibilities. She is leaning toward June 19th and 20th as the dates. The tournament has a budget of $900; this money is paid by the OVTA. If the courts can be obtained at no cost, the $900 will be no problem. It was also reported that the OVTA is offering $300 per team--$600 per area--in travel expenses. The local, hosting team would not receive this money. 8. Area and District Qualifier
Harvey was very pleased to announce that he had asked Jim Hendrix to run the Area Qualifier event and that Jim had accepted. Jim explained that he may have some conflict with the events taking place at his son's school, but he is pleased to be involved in this tournament. Harvey pointed out Jim's knowledge of the USTA computer programs. All registering and reporting need to be done online. It is paramount that the GCTA has a person who is computer savvy running this event. Harvey indicated that he is willing to help with the event. There was discussion about the losing of one of the Columbus area qualifying spots to the District Closed tournaments. Our number has gone from 14 to 13 in these events. Cincinnati has moved from 16 to 18. Jim had questioned this with Dave Engle, thinking that there was a cap of 16. Dave is investigating. It is likely that we will not lose players to the next level even if this stands; there are usually enough alternate positions available. Jim indicated that the tournament has been sanctioned and the dates are set. These dates may change with regard to the individual events.
Harvey then asked Andy Alexander to comment on the Girl's 16's District. Andy indicated that Carol was not here because she was visiting their daughter. As to the tournament, he said that Doug had done the sanctioning and that Carol was in contact with Upper Arlington High School. He did not anticipate problems. Harvey thanked him and Carol for their continued work with this tournament. 9. Ohio Valley Tennis Association
Harvey indicated that Jim Hendrix is now the OVTA Treasurer and that he (Harvey) will take the position as OVTA Area Representative. Doug Snapp gave the report. Local attendees at the fall meeting in Cincinnati were Andy Alexander, Carol Alexander, Gary Alexander, Harvey Beahm, Jim Hendrix, Deena Snapp, and Doug Snapp. In addition, Dan Witteman was in attendance with his family. Dan was honored with the Howard Dredge Award. This award is for outstanding contribution in the area of junior tennis. The GCTA had honored Dan in 2002 for the same contribution. Kirsten Flower was honored by the OVTA with the Carl Meyer Award as the outstanding junior player. Kirsten was unable to attend. Doug reported that the OVTA has raised the cap of total money distributed to the areas from $10,000 to $20,000. The base amount to each area will be raised from $300 to $600. The OVTA wants this money spent in the form of local grants. The local areas can set their own guidelines as to how the money is distributed. The only restrictions from the OVTA are that the Area Representative must attend meetings, a slate of local officers must be presented, a local budget must be established, and the minutes of one meeting are to be shown. Doug further indicated that the OVTA would pay the cost of T-shirts for each Junior District Qualifying tournament; this would be a savings to the local areas, as these areas have been charged for the shirts in the past. Doug said that the OVTA is willing to deficit spend up to $30,000 for worthy grants for 2004; this is in addition to the $40,000 already in the budget as a line item. The OVTA would like for the areas to actively help find grant programs and is encouraging financially sound areas to also deficit spend when necessary to promote tennis in the local areas. The next meeting for all Area Chairs will be in Chillicothe at the Christopher Conference Center on Sunday, March 28th. Doug continued by saying the Midwest Section is holding their annual meeting in Columbus this year. This is a big event. Everyone is welcome to attend. The dates are December 4th and 5th. The location will be decided by the Midwest; they are presently leaning toward the Hilton at Easton Town Center. The OVTA will be helping with this event and it is hoped that the GCTA can also be involved. It would be an ideal event to feature all that we do in the GCTA. We likely will be asked to be involved with selecting and paying for the mementos for the event. Doug finished by saying that Tom Price had passed away. Information had been emailed to the GCTA Board members and it had been posted to our web site. 10. Columbus Recreation and Parks
Denica Bruce gave the report. The CRPD is again running Champions. She will be working out of that location and will be running a number of programs at that site. They will make upgrades to the facilities as they can. The department has made a commitment ot the location. Fees for use of the facility will be looked into and maybe changed. Denica has been looking into grants. Some of these will be for court improvement at other sites in the system. The CRPD received $2,144 in incentive money from the USTA for the programs that they ran last summer; some of that money came from participants in the USTA Columbus Project. She shared that the CRPD will be building two courts at Carriage Place; there are no courts currently at this location. They will lose one court to street hockey at the Whetstone facility. 11. Umpires
Bud Petersen shared that there are few opportunities for certification in the central Ohio area. He did say that a person could get provisional certification by completing an online test (http://mwofficials.home.att.net). This would allow the person to umpire any USTA match. They should follow-up with other activities to get a more permanent certification. Bud said present training sessions were in the northern part of the state. He mentioned the GCTA web site and said links are there to direct one to appropriate sites for training information. At present, he thought there were only 8 local people that have been trained. He and Vince Solomon are both certified as referees. It was not clear, but it didn't appear that there were others locally who had referee certification. There was discussion as to the difficulty that events have in getting trained umpires. Many must call people in from outside the central Ohio area. Doug pointed out that the GCTA does give a stipend for the training. He asked if that stipend should be increased or perhaps an incentive program should be created to entice more people to become involved. Gary commented that Dave Engle is very willing to come to this area to do training if we can get a group of people together who want the certification. It was suggested by Geri Schlegel that information be posted at the clubs so that the word would get out that more umpires are needed. It was also suggested that information be given to the participants of our Men's and Women's Leagues. Parents of junior players would also be a group that we could possibly tap into. High school coaches were mentioned, and it was pointed out that several years ago a letter had been sent to all local coaches and there were no takers. 12. Awards Ceremony
Jean Shaw gave the report. Harvey praised Jean for the way the event went. She thanked Geri Schlegel, Harvey Beahm, Deena Snapp, and Doug Snapp for their help. Jean also thanked the members of the Awards Nominating Committee: Andy Alexander, Carol Alexander, Harvey Beahm, Geri Schlegel, and Doug Snapp. Jean thought that this year's turnout was less since the Men's Champ of Champs had not been played; those award winners were not present. She indicated that she was able to be very close to the events budget but would like to see the budget increased. Janet suggested that we use fewer trophies and more apparel--something with our logo and the name of the organization. This would give us a little more name recognition. 13. Old Business
Doug shared that David Young, the captain of the Reynoldsburg team, was very pleased with the items that the GCTA had purchased for them. We gave each player a short-sleeved shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a wind breaker pullover, and a travel bag. Each item had the GCTA name on it. Doug added that the team had been eliminated in the first round. Harvey said that it was great that they had made it to Arizona to play in the Nationals. 14. New Business
Andy talked about the Tennis Welcome Center promotion program on the part of the USTA. Each center would be sort of a clearing house for the promotion of tennis. It is hoped that many local clubs are going to be involved in this promotion. The opportunity to be a center is not limited to the clubs: many colleges and universities have signed on as Tennis Welcome Centers. Andy handed out the information and application brochure for the program; he is also going to make them available to clubs in the area.
Andy said that we should be very proud: Gary Alexander is a Vice President to the Midwest Section and Les Varnado is the Executive Vice President of the Midwest.
Arnie Jones passed out Grand Prix tournament information. He indicated that Alan Kinnard and he would be the people running this year's tournaments. Some are USTA sanctioned, some are not. The events afford tennis players of all levels a great opportunity for play.
Arnie also shared that the WTA event would be taking place in three weeks at Wickertree.
Harvey and others talked of the number one ranking of OSU's Jeremy Wurtzman. This is the first player for OSU with a number one ranking. Several people praised Jeremy for the manner in which he represents the game.
Doug asked if the organization wishes to continue to meet at the Swim and Racquet facility. They are charging us $80 per meeting. None of those present found reason to change the location of the meetings, and all felt that $80 was reasonable.
Doug explained the handout that he had put on the tables. It is a reprint of an article from Tennisweek (http://www.tennislink.com); it was written by Jon Vegosen, addressing the alarmingly high number of collegiate varsity programs that have been eliminated. Doug pointed out that 25 programs had been done away with in 2003--over 150 programs have been eliminated since 1992. Click here for the article by Vegosen--in pdf format.
Doug informed the group that Dan Witteman's father had just past away and that Dan's mother is presently in the hospital. 15. Adjournment
Harvey asked for a motion to adjourn; Vince made such a motion with a second from Janet. The motion passed.
Respectfully submitted,
Doug Snapp
GCTA Secretary