GCTA Board Meeting
9/16/04
Attendance: Jake Will, Jr., Deena Snapp, Harvey Beahm, Janet Craycraft, Gary Alexander, Doug Snapp, Jean Shaw, Geri Schlegel, Denica Bruce, Jim Hendrix, Les Varnado, Bud Petersen, Jane McMeekin, Rita Brown, Terri Jones, Paul Kobelt
Annual Meeting
1. Nominating Committee Report
Doug Snapp gave the report. Two trustee members had asked to be removed: Callie Ryan and Kim Shepherd. They were replaced with Erin Ortman and Dave King. Erin will have a renewal year of 2007; Dave will have a renewal year of 2006. Two other trustees were removed: Jack Warren and Ron Linville. Bob Schafer and Art Haus were the respective replacements. Bob has a 2007 renewal year; Art has a 2006 renewal year. Doug then reported changes to the Executive Committee. Ron Linville and Janet Craycraft will no longer be Vice Presidents; they will be replaced by Jane McMeekin and Geri Schlegel. Janet will replace Harvey Beahm as President. Rita Brown will continue as a Vice President. Jake Will, Jr., will stay as Treasurer, and Doug Snapp will continue as Secretary. Doug thanked those of his committee who gave input: Jane McMeekin, Geri Schlegel, and Jane McMeekin. Harvey thanked Doug for his report and asked for discussion or a motion to accept the recommendations of the Nominating Committee. Gary Alexander moved to accept, Les Varnado seconded, and the motion passed.
2. Budget Committee Report
Gary Alexander was the committee chair. He thanked Jake Will, Jr., for having laid out all of the information so clearly. He also thanked Rita Brown, Denica Bruce, and Sharon Rusk. The actual revenues were slightly higher than the projected amount for the 2003-2004 year. He expects that for 2004 we will end the year with a little over $2,000 income. Gary explained a couple of changes in the proposed 2004-2005 budget. One was an amount of $2,500 for hosting the Midwest Section meeting. This meeting will take place in Columbus in December of 2004. As the host, there are expenses that the GCTA will have. Grants were added as a continuing outreach to support tennis in the community. There is an increased Champion of Champions budget. Jake made some corrections to numbers. The projected income is $51,800, and the projected outlay is $51,670. Gary continued that a line item for insurance has been added. The USTA is offering insurance to cover any non-USTA event. Presently, only USTA events are covered. The policy will be available from the USTA as of January 1st at a cost of about $400. Additional insurance can be bought. Janet Craycraft suggested that we look into the need and possibility of additional coverage and discuss this further at a later date. Hearing no further comments or questions, Harvey asked for a motion to accept the Budget Committee's report. Deena Snapp so moved, Jean Shaw seconded, and the motion passed.
3. Adjournment of the Annual Meeting
Harvey said that this was the end of the Annual Meeting and asked for a motion of adjournment. Jane McMeekin made such a motion, Janet Craycraft seconded, and the motion carried.
Before the call-to-order of the Quarterly Meeting, Harvey made the following remarks. "I've been honored and proud to have served as your President for the past two years. I've tried very hard to be an active and pro-active president by involving myself in virtually every aspect of our organization. I've tried very hard to be a neutral but responsive president when any and all decisions had to be made that involved me in the process. I've also tried to appoint well qualified and experienced people to new positions, yet people who have the energy as well. What I see as our most important need is to get new, young, and energetic people involved as volunteers and committee members. I hope I've made a few of these appointments that will help in that respect in the future. I would like to sincerely thank everyone for all their support as well as individuals who helped me tremendously during these past two years--Doug Snapp, Gary Alexander, Rita Brown, Jake Will, Jr., and Jim Hendrix. Thank you."
He then introduced the new GCTA President, Janet Craycraft.
Janet echoed Harvey's remarks about experience and the need for new, young, and energetic members. She thanked Harvey for all his work.
Quarterly Meeting
Janet called the Quarterly Meeting to order.
1. Approval of Minutes
Janet noted that the minutes from the July meeting were on the tables. They had been mailed to those without internet accounts and had been posted to the web site. She allowed a moment to review the minutes and then asked for a motion to accept them. Jake Will, Jr., moved, Les Varnado seconded, and the motion was approved.
2. Treasurer’s Report
Jake Will, Jr., gave report. He sited a checking account with $491, the flex fund with $78,157, the junior fund with $5,372, and the Mansfield fund with $1,461. This totaled $85,481. These numbers were as of August 31, 2004. There are bills that still need to be paid for the 2004 year. Jake believes that when all expenditures are accounted for, the GCTA will have about $75,000. Janet asked if this amount was going up or down. Jake's response was that it was very similar to the last couple of years. Janet asked for questions and/or comments. Hearing none, she asked for a motion to approve Jake's report. Rita Brown moved, Bud Petersen seconded, and the motion passed.
3. Women’s Leagues and Champion of Champions
Rita Brown gave the report. Their season ended by the beginning of August, and the Champion of Champions tournament has been concluded. There were no problems. She thanked the following clubs for hosting the Champs of Champs: Worthington Hills Country Club, New Albany Country Club, and the Lakes Country Club. The Women's Leagues will have their final meetings to go over recommended league changes--if any--and that will conclude their activities for this year. Janet thanked Rita and the Women's Board.
4. Men’s Leagues and Champion of Champions
Gary Alexander is the League Chair and gave the report. He recognized the score keepers: Doug Snapp, Jake Will, Jr., Andy Alexander, Brooks Naffziger, and Jake Will, Sr. The league ran smoothly: there were no appeals or conflicts. The numbers were a littler lower than two years ago but a little higher than last year. 3.5 and 4.0 playoffs have just concluded. Doug Snapp reported that the Men's Champion of Champions was slated for the 18th and 19th of September at Northam Park. He has made the draws and placed the first-match times to the web site. The numbers are down in comparison with past years. Doug indicated that he would not be available on the 19th; Bob Schafer has committed to doing the tournament on that day.
5. USTA League
Terri Jones is the coordinator for the USTA Adult Leagues and reported that there had been no problems. She indicated that there were 40 teams this year: this is an increase in the number of participating teams. Terri said that there was a push to get more involvement in the mixed doubles area. There is some talk of doing away with summer USTA leagues. Gary asked if it was at the section level or at the local level. Terri said she believes it to be at the local level. There is a desire to get away from adult set levels and go to teams with combined levels. Janet asked Terri to check into these possible changes. Jim Hendrix said he was unaware of any changes to be made in the organization of the leagues. Gary Alexander questioned who has jurisdiction over the organization of these leagues. Rita Brown asked why there would be a change. Terri thinks part of the issue is the number of teams that are getting a chance to participate at the district level. This is causing problems for the hosting sites. They are overloaded and additional hosting sites need to be found. Terri will keep us abreast. Janet thanked Terri for her report and her efforts.
6. Ohio Valley Tennis Association
Harvey Beahm will continue as the Area Representative to the OVTA. He reminded everyone of the Annual Meeting in Cincinnati on November 7th. All GCTA/USTA members are invited. Harvey commented that this a nice event to attend. If members plan on attending, let Doug Snapp know so that he can give a number count to Dave Engle. Also, nominations are needed for awards for this event. Such awards as Tennis Family of the Year, Sportsmanship Award, Parks and Recreation Award, Outstanding Player award, award for a non-player who has done a great deal for tennis, an award for outstanding contribution to junior tennis--all of the awards are listed in the OVTA Yearbook. Harvey said that we have been well represented in the past--we need to be represented with nominations this year as well. Les Varnado said that there should be nominations from our GCTA level not only to the OVTA level but also to the Section and National level for awards. He indicated that these needed to be submitted by the spring.
Harvey continued by indicating that he had appointed two delegates at large to the OVTA: Kelly Craycraft Lewis and Julie Beahm Blankenship.
Doug Snapp indicated that the OVTA grant money needs to be spent. To his knowledge, we have appropriated $500 to the Grandview Parks and Recreation Department and we spent $188 for Whitehall Parks and Recreation. This does not come close to the $2,600 that the OVTA has given us to distribute. This is money the OVTA expects to be spent--not money to grow interest in a banking account. Doug recently received an email from Dave Engle asking how we had spent this money. Harvey received a similar letter. Doug again emphasized that we have allocated about $1,000. This grant money is not the regular money that we get from the OVTA for USTA membership. Jim Hendrix will check the grant situation when he attends the OVTA Executive Meeting on September 19th.
Harvey reminded us that the Midwest Section of the USTA will have their meeting the weekend of December 3rd, 4th, and 5th here in Columbus. Everyone should plan on attending. As previously indicated, the GCTA will be part of the host organization. There will be some expenses involved with this. Harvey said that maybe we could use the unspent portion of the OVTA grant money to cover those expenses. Harvey said there would be many informative meetings. Janet suggested that a note should be sent to all members encouraging them to attend.
Deena Snapp said that we need to let people know of our involvement. She sited the information that Cincinnati had passed out at the November 2003 meeting. We do make a report at that meeting that includes our activities, but how many local GCTA members know about this? How many of our local members know of our total involvement with tennis? Janet said that it might be a good idea to do a mailing to the membership with this information. Jean Shaw said that the newsletter is very expensive and time consuming. Janet reaffirmed that we need something that is more than what we are presently doing. Gary Alexander said that from past experience it is extremely difficult to get people to submit information for newsletters. It was also questioned as to whether people actually read such things. Sending a newsletter is an especially expensive proposition if people are just going to throw it in the trash. Jane McMeekin echoed the feeling that more needs to be done in this area of self promotion, however. Rita Brown said that a flyer could be put into the packets that they distribute for each of their Women's League teams. It was said that the only person likely to see those would be the captain; we would need to provide a number for each packet so that the captains could distribute them to the individual team members. It was pointed out that all of this information already exists on the GCTA web site. Geri Schlegel commented that until the USTA went to online sign-ups for their leagues, most people were unaware of the information on the USTA site. She suggested that perhaps we could go to online sign-up for all of our leagues and, in a sense, force people to look at the web site. Doug said the we would need increased staffing for the web site if we went to such a system of online sign-ups. There would be nothing automatic with such a system: a person would still need to collect all of the sign-ups that were sent to the web site and place them into a data base. At this time, he is the only person that we have to do this. Paul Kobelt suggested that we have a number of GCTA banners made with our web site address on them. These could be on display at the different the clubs where our league teams play. It was suggest that cards with information about the GCTA be on display or be distributed at the different events: Area Qualifier, Girls 16's District, etc. Geri asked if we had a logo. Doug said the logo is the tennis ball can that is at the top of most of our web pages. It also appears on our letterhead. Bart Snapp had taken the letterhead and created a graphic to be used on our web site. The blue color of the side bar was also his doing. He had looked at pictures of the GCTA members doing events at the Buckeye tournament and noticed the blue color of the shirts that the volunteers wore. Janet liked the idea about the banners and will check into the cost of having banners made. Paul said we should put our web site address and logo on the T-shirts and other items that are given out. For example, the OVTA provides shirts for the District Qualifier; we could take those shirts to a screener and have our information added. Denica Bruce said that would be something that they would do for the Columbus Parks and Recreation events if we could provide them a screenable logo. Janet liked all of these ideas and emphasized that all articles that appear in print should have our name and web site address in them.
Doug Snapp concluded by saying that the Midwest would like to see more participation by college intramural teams. There are leagues established with championships. This year, he believes the University of Michigan is hosting the championships. OSU has participating teams but OSU has not sent a team because of recreation budget restraints. Gary Alexander said that it would be good for our relationship with the OSU Recreation Department to help support sending these teams to the next level. There could come a time where the GCTA would want to use the new recreation courts that are being built. There are other college teams in this area that might also be interested in support. Again, this could be one of the things that we could do with the OVTA grant money. Gary and Doug will try to contact OSU.
7. Columbus Recreation and Parks Department
Denica Bruce gave the report. Kelly Hoffman was not able to attend, but Denica shared that the fall adult tennis lessons are in full swing at Woodward (Feddersen) and Schiller Recreation Centers. Kelly asked for money to purchase a few items for his recreation center at Woodward. Denica related what he is asking for. Specifically, he would like to get a portable tennis system for use in the winter time in Woodward's gym. Palos Sports has them for $339. Kelly indicated to Denica that Woodward would get a lot of use from them. Kelly would also like to get some "Spinners" balls for the little kids for their development. They go for $34.95/dozen, also from Palos Sports. Doug Snapp said that Kelly's center is one of the centers where he has seen very active indoor tennis programs with the smaller kids. These items would be put to good use by Kelly. Jake Will, Jr., said the best way to handle this would be to have Kelly purchase the items. The GCTA would then reimburse after receiving paid bills. Rita Brown made a motion to do exactly that. Jane McMeekin seconded and the motion passed. Denica handed out several sheets that cover the CRPD tennis programs. A total of 1336 youth participated in summer programs. A complete breakdown with locations and numbers is listed on the GCTA web site on the Columbus Parks and Recreation page. Denica said that there were some staffing problems but things ran smoothly. She will try to start indoor programs this winter and spring with weekly clinics. This will be new for this year. The Antrim, Whetstone, Westgate, and Woodward courts have been redone and two new courts are at Carriage Place. Six to eight sites will be renovated next summer. Again, Denica said she would like to get a GCTA screen logo so that it can be applied to T-shirts given out with their programs. She was given the name of a screener that might be able to help.
8. USTA Junior Team Tennis
Jim Hendrix gave the report. He was not sure that Rebecca Stanchin was aware that she needed to be at this meeting. He added that she was at the USTA Team Tennis captains' meeting which was taking place at Tower Tennis this evening. Jim felt that the league had run well with few problems. Harvey Beahm complimented Rebecca for her work. Doug Snapp said that he had talked to Joyce Engle and that Joyce was pleased with the way things had been run.
9. Awards Ceremony
Jean Shaw said the the ceremony is ready to happen. It will be the 26th of September at 4:00 PM in the Upper Arlington Municipal Building. She thanked Geri Schlegel, Deena Snapp, Harvey Beahm, Rita Brown, Gary Alexander, and Doug Snapp for their help. She concluded by saying that the invitations had been sent.
10. Umpires
Bud Petersen commented that there was nothing really new to report. The umpires are through the busiest part of the year. Come January, they will begin to do college matches. Bud concluded indicating there is always a need for new members. It seems that any gains are followed by a loss of active umpires.
Geri Schlegel reported that the umpire promotion posters were done and ready to go to the clubs. She showed the group the completed posters and passed out a number of them to be distributed. Janet commented that Geri had done a very nice job. Janet hopes that players will look at the posters at the clubs, take the information, and get involved. It was indicated that these posters and their information should be available at the events such as the Junior Area Qualifier, the ITA Tournament, etc. Denica Bruce of the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department said that she would place some of the posters in their recreation centers.
11. Old Business
Doug Snapp shared the following information regarding the GCTA web site. Since September 15th of 2003, the GCTA web site has had 63,936 visits. The top five pages are 1) the Women's League page, 2) the Local Tennis Information page, 3) the Columbus Parks and Recreation page, 4) the Men's League page, and 5) the Courts page--a page that lists as many of the local tennis courts as he is aware of: high school, middle school, community, etc. courts. He emphasized that any information or updates should be passed along to him so that he can put that on the site.
Doug Snapp reminded members of the Jim Tose tennis outing and dinner catered by Paul's Catering. It is planned for September 25th at Northam Park. The cost is $35 and the information is on our web site.
12. New Business
Janet indicated the dates for the quarterly meetings for 2005: 1/20/05, 4/21/05, 7/21/05, and 9/22/05.
Gary Alexander made a motion to thank Harvey Beahm for his work as president. Gary noted that the meetings under Harvey were always energetic and fun. Doug Snapp seconded the motion telling that Harvey was one of the few presidential nominees who actually showed excitement in his nomination. The motion passed with applause directed at Harvey.
13. Adjournment
Janet asked for a motion to adjourn. Rita Brown moved, Jane McMeekin seconded, and the motion passed.

Respectfully submitted,
Doug Snapp