Meeting opened at 7:00 pm

Members Present: Wayne Pineau, Joan Finn, Bev Lynch, Kathy Pelletier, Houston Galloway and Marie Joerger.

Richard Maghakian Scholarship Fund: Joan suggested the BHYSL make a donation to the fund. Kathy said she would rather wait to decide until the details of the fund are disclosed. The discussion was tabled until more details are known.

Spring Registrations: Joan went over the registration process with Marie. Joan reported the she spoke with a representative of the Hollis Recreation Committee and much like the previous year, they did not have time to discuss our use of Nichols Field at their January meeting, so they will address it at their February meeting, we will not have our dates at Nichols Field confirmed until then. We do have the Jr. High School Field reserved for the spring season. The registration forms came back from the printer today, Joan distributed them to board members to do the mailing. The mailing should be out by the end of the week. Kathy offered to distribute to the schools, they also would be done by the end of the week.

Referee Clinic: The date of March 9th has been reserved at the Brookline Elementary School Library for the clinic, a Grade 9 Referee License. Kathy is waiting for the NH Soccer Association to get back to her on an instructor for the class. We discussed total participants, and decided 50 should be the maximum number allowed.

Publicity: John Porter was unable to attend the meeting. Joan reported that she sent him the application via email along with the publicity contacts, so he should be taking care of getting the word out on the spring season

Equipment: We are still looking for an Equipment Director. We should be all set on equipment on hand since we purchased hundreds of new balls and dozens of new pinnies and ball bags last season.

Fields: Houston inquired about the fields he would be required to line. The Jr. High School field is usually taken care of by the school. He will need to line Nichols Field. John Finn offered to help him on the first day when all of the measuring needs to be done. John also has the paint machine at his house. We will need paint before the start of the season.

Concession: We will not do the concession as we have done in the past. It has proven to be much too much work for little or no profit. We do not have a concession director. Joan has asked the Hollis Recreation Committee if their concession could be opened for soccer games. She told them we have a number of volunteers if staffing is an issue. They should be discussing this at their February meeting.

Wayne told us Brookline Baseball was cutting 2 T Ball baseball diamonds into Mountian Road Field. Much discussion ensued. Joan reported that Mountain Road field historically has been reserved in the spring for soccer practices. Wayne was not aware of the history. Bev reported that when Tom Moran deeded the field to the town his intentions was for the field to be for the neighborhood kids to play, fly kites there, etc. If the baseball diamonds are cut, this will permanently destroy the field for soccer or any other sport. Bev also reported that the full size soccer goal that had been at the field for years has now been dismantled and thrown outside of the fence. We discussed how we could address the issue with the town. The Recreation Commission is responsible for the fields – Tom Walker is the head of the Recreation Commission, he is also the President of Brookline Baseball.

Wayne reported that the Brookline Youth Sports Association would like to begin charging the 3 sports that are associated with the BYSA (soccer, baseball & basketball) a $5.00 per player fee. The fee would go to the BYSA to spend at their discretion. ie. Starting new sports, building a concession/storage facility at CSDA, etc. This money would be in addition to the money they earn from selling the banners. Wayne also reported that baseball has taken over the selling of the banners. Wayne stated that soccer has always told the BYSA to keep our proceeds from the banners since we haven’t needed the money. Joan reminded Wayne that he has decided for the board in the past that the BYSA should keep the money. The BHYSL board has never seen an accounting of the funds from the banners, nor have we ever voted to allow the BYSA to keep our proceeds. Joan asked if we could get an accounting for the banner funds from the BYSA. Bev agreed and requested the President of the BYSA come to a BHYSL meeting to give us the accounting. Bev disagreed with charging families from Hollis. Wayne reminded her that Brookline families pay a $5.00 per player user fee to the town of Hollis for Nichols Field in the spring. The BHYSL is not necessarily opposed to donating funds to a combined project (we gave $18,000 for the soccer field at CSDA and $10,000 for the new soccer field at the Jr. High School). We prefer to make those decisions on a case-by-case basis and not use the BYSA has a “holding tank” for our funds. We also prefer to write checks in these cases directly, so the BHYSL may get some publicity and the families involved in soccer know where their money is spent. As an example, only the BYSA was thanked for the money for the new fields at CSDA. The BHYSL was thanked for their donations to the new Jr. High School field. Wayne said the BYSA is trying to raise funds right now to offset a warrant article for a new concession/bathroom/storage facility at the CSDA fields. Wayne said he would ask the BYSA to attend one of our meetings to make the request directly. Wayne also added the the BYSA was looking for another soccer representative, Joan said either she or John would take the position.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm.