Time for new blood

[Fat Bastard]

I have not been actively involved in the MWSL for the past four years. And to be honest, I am not interested in coming back. I was on the board for a few years, and it was a frustrating experience, because the 'lifers' rules the roost, and new ideas were often dismissed. Alot of times, this was said: "we've always done it like this."

Coachrich makes some good points. However, I disagree with him on one point: as someone who has been involved with 5D and the GMSL for five years, the scheduling is no better with the girls than it is with the women. It astonishes me that the VMSL and FVSL, as well as boys selects, get their schedules done with simple ease.

Part of the differences is that the MWSL provides fields to lots of teams. At the youth level, each club provides fields. And on the girls side, schedules don't include venues, and the venues and times are not often announced until the week before games. But this field provision makes things that much more difficult because you have more than two teams sharing one field, or you have mens and womens teams sharing fields, and so on.

As for changes to the MWSL board, I wish you the best of the luck. Each team gets one vote at the AGM. You need to get the teams there, and you need to get as many of them to be represented by people who care - not the players who drew the short straws.


FB. Out.

 

[Captain Shamrock]

Well, Cormack has done it again. After his Vice-President said we could reschedule our game against Burnaby Selects Canadians.......he has sent this tonight.


To RGSA Club Ireland A,

The question of whether the above noted game against Burnaby Canadians Selects should be a cancelled game or a default was circulated to the MWSL Directors. Our decision was that RGSA Club Ireland A defaulted the game. It has been posted as such

Bob Cormack
for the Board of Directors



Well done. Cormack, phone the Renegades and congratulate them for winning the league now. I'm sure they'll be really happy knowing they won it thanks your decision making. You must feel good about yourself. The big man has spoke again.


Round Two

 

[Captain Shamrock]

So the Vice-President says......

If I am assuming correctly - why don't we (the league) just stay out of this and let you and Gary sort out a time and field for your game. ONce you have done this you can let Leslie know and she will try and get a ref - SIMPLE!

The scheduler sent this.........last Tuesday.......

If you can't field a team for this weekends game let me know and I will
cancel the game.

If you wish to contact any of the teams you have make-ups with and see if
they can play on the Friday night, please do so and let me know so I can
schedule the ref. I don't have time to do that.


Then the king pin sends this.......

To RGSA Club Ireland A,

The question of whether the above noted game against Burnaby Canadians Selects should be a cancelled game or a default was circulated to the MWSL Directors. Our decision was that RGSA Club Ireland A defaulted the game. It has been posted as such

Bob Cormack
for the Board of Directors



Anyone else see this as being unfair and showing that communication is missing somewhere here? I"m just curious if anyone sees this as being a proper way to decide this scenario? Better yet, if you were in a position where you could win your league, how would deal with this or react to it? Any input is appreciated. I know how it's going to be dealt with but anything else would be good. Cheers.

 

[coachrich]

At any level of league soccer to win league title in the board room w/ paperwork is not football as the game should be settled on the pitch.

 

[Regs]

Looks to be a major control issue here. It's a shame that the women do not have any other league to turn to?

 

[spongebobhotpants]

If you contact teams you have a make-up with to see if they can field a team
for Friday night it is probably easier and quicker as you would avoid the
middle person(me) and can get right to it. Just let me know and I will get
you a ref.


This is one of the responses I have received from the scheduler, we take it upon ourselves to reschedule and she will post it and find us a ref. No Bob involved and if I knew how to post it myself and get a ref I could do that as well. Most other teams are pretty good about trying to make-up games if you give them enough time. Not everything has to be by the book cause we all just want to play

 

[Captain Shamrock]

Looks to be a major control issue here. It's a shame that the women do not have any other league to turn to?

Spot on, Regs. If there was another alternative it would have been taken after the first year. Believe me.


I have had some extremely angry players respond to this already......and I can't blame them.

 

[Riderz18]

I have had the same issues and the same emails this is like deja vue here........the league must just send out a cut and paste answer to everyones emails about re-scheduling games.
We have 2 make up games to play but we are still in cup so when I tried to get the games played after being told to go ahead and do so etc...... the Bob email comes out and No can do.And when I call him on it I get told" back off"
So we will be in the same place if the team we are in competition for first place gets to play their make up games and we dont.Bob did assure me that we have won the league but how is that going to work if we wont get our games played and the other team does and winds up with more points than us?
Oh I see then what happend to us last year will happen again but we will be the lucky one's and just be awarded points due to our record for the season and be relegated up. Still not fair when it is possible to play your make up games they should be played and allowed to be played we PAY we PLAY and then we see where eveyone is at the end of all GAMES. This isnt the freakin GOV. here leave your politics at the door MWSL and do what is expected of you as a board member.
Anyone interested in making a change email me and we can figure out how to really do something to re-organize this league in some way. Even if it is getting someone else on the board elected that is a start. I would email all the teams but I tried that when I was exploring the possibility of putting together a new league but some of the managers/coach of some of the team's are friends with Bob and stirred things up for me.
Not that this isnt a free Counrty or anything.

 

[One Dart]

What's sad is that this entire situation could, and should, have been avoided had the scheduler scheduled us for the home game. How difficult is it to see that teams should play one game at home and one game away against their opposition? If they weren't able to field a team on Friday night then why should we be punished as a result? That is our home time. I know it's been said before but how difficult is it to set a schedule for the season at least showing who is playing who and who will be home and away? The teams that have turf home fields can have their schedule done, with park and time, for the whole season. It's sad and pathetic that the league would allow for a team to be promoted based on a forfeit that they themselves can take all the blame for.

 

[coachrich]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the MWSL policy on make up games is to give teams 10 days notice. If that has changed the new policy should have been globally distributed to all the teams.

Again, put the operating rules in black & white so things are decided in the board room or precedence is used where it's not in black & white ie. when the lights go out if 60 minutes has been played it's a game. How many teams got that in a global Email????

 

[Fat Bastard]

Hey folks. High school social studies time: a little history and little politics.

(1) An attempt at a new league was launched several years ago by a fellow out in Langley who was fed up with this stuff. I was on the Board at the time, and while he had some good points, he was offbase on a lot. His league was called the Independent Womens Soccer League. His biggest beef was with the BCSA, so the main basis of his league was that it was unaffiliated. That's a no go. You can complain about BCSA all you want (and God knows I do) but they have absolute control over soccer in this province, as the CSA does in Canada, and FIFA in the world. It's just how things are. We tried to work with this guy to get him on our board because as I said, he had some good ideas. Anyhow, he never got off the ground. But what he did do was give some of us 'revolutionaries' some leverage for a while. Didn't last though.

Bottom line... starting new league takes alot of effort and time. You have to jump through hoops with the BCSA, and you get into turf wars with existing leagues. It would be easier to invoke change from within. Actually, 'easier' isn't the right word, but you get my point.

(2) If you want to make change in the MWSL, here's what you need to do. You need a slate of 4 (or a couple of more) candidates. There's 8 directors. The website lists 10, but scheduler and past-president are not official executive positions. (Past-president was unilaterally added by the current president a few years ago, and scheduler is a paid staff position.) Then promote your candidates to the teams that you think will support it. Stay away from teams in Burnaby and Vancouver. They tend to be very supportive of the current leadership. And don't forget about Premier teams, they're never happy. I know the lower division teams don't like the premier 'attitude' but most of those people have been around along time, and they know how to get things done if you can motivate them to do so.

So promote your candidates to the other teams. Urge them to show up at the AGM. Use buzzwords like financials, constititution, accountability, scheduling. Then when you get to the AGM, ask questions about financials. Do they even present them? And they should real financials: income statement, balance sheet, bank statements, etc. (these people know full well what these things are, so don't let them plead ignorance).

Finally, remember this. The MWSL has a long and storied history. More national team players have come out of the MWSL than any other amateur league in Canada. It is not only the largest adult league in Western Canada, and holds one-half of all the votes at the BCSA level. On top of that, despite the problems of recent years, the MWSL has always managed to find that balance between competitive and recreational soccer, and looked after the needs of each, without sacrificing the other.

This isn't a condemnation of the current leadership so much as as a statement that it is past it's best-before date. Frankly, it was stale ten years ago. I haven't been involved in some time, and I can only go on what I hear from colleagues and read on this site. But I do know that regardless of how things are going or have gone, change is good. Change brings new ideas. New ideas spur debate. Debate spurs progress.

There are good people on TTP. You all have your hearts and brains in the right place. Time to step up and put your money where your mouth is. I did my time a decade ago. I hope you will take this challenge - but have more success than I did.

 

[Captain Shamrock]

Hey folks. High school social studies time: a little history and little politics.

(1) An attempt at a new league was launched several years ago by a fellow out in Langley who was fed up with this stuff. I was on the Board at the time, and while he had some good points, he was offbase on a lot. His league was called the Independent Womens Soccer League. His biggest beef was with the BCSA, so the main basis of his league was that it was unaffiliated. That's a no go. You can complain about BCSA all you want (and God knows I do) but they have absolute control over soccer in this province, as the CSA does in Canada, and FIFA in the world. It's just how things are. We tried to work with this guy to get him on our board because as I said, he had some good ideas. Anyhow, he never got off the ground. But what he did do was give some of us 'revolutionaries' some leverage for a while. Didn't last though.

Bottom line... starting new league takes alot of effort and time. You have to jump through hoops with the BCSA, and you get into turf wars with existing leagues. It would be easier to invoke change from within. Actually, 'easier' isn't the right word, but you get my point.

(2) If you want to make change in the MWSL, here's what you need to do. You need a slate of 4 (or a couple of more) candidates. There's 8 directors. The website lists 10, but scheduler and past-president are not official executive positions. (Past-president was unilaterally added by the current president a few years ago, and scheduler is a paid staff position.) Then promote your candidates to the teams that you think will support it. Stay away from teams in Burnaby and Vancouver. They tend to be very supportive of the current leadership. And don't forget about Premier teams, they're never happy. I know the lower division teams don't like the premier 'attitude' but most of those people have been around along time, and they know how to get things done if you can motivate them to do so.

So promote your candidates to the other teams. Urge them to show up at the AGM. Use buzzwords like financials, constititution, accountability, scheduling. Then when you get to the AGM, ask questions about financials. Do they even present them? And they should real financials: income statement, balance sheet, bank statements, etc. (these people know full well what these things are, so don't let them plead ignorance).

Finally, remember this. The MWSL has a long and storied history. More national team players have come out of the MWSL than any other amateur league in Canada. It is not only the largest adult league in Western Canada, and holds one-half of all the votes at the BCSA level. On top of that, despite the problems of recent years, the MWSL has always managed to find that balance between competitive and recreational soccer, and looked after the needs of each, without sacrificing the other.

This isn't a condemnation of the current leadership so much as as a statement that it is past it's best-before date. Frankly, it was stale ten years ago. I haven't been involved in some time, and I can only go on what I hear from colleagues and read on this site. But I do know that regardless of how things are going or have gone, change is good. Change brings new ideas. New ideas spur debate. Debate spurs progress.

There are good people on TTP. You all have your hearts and brains in the right place. Time to step up and put your money where your mouth is. I did my time a decade ago. I hope you will take this challenge - but have more success than I did.

A solid post, FB. However, I all I want them to understand right now is that each team deserves a home and an away game against each team if it is possible, which is was. It doesn't seem to difficult but obviously it's something personal.

Did you realize that the teams don't actually get to vote on the positions now? That's something that has changed since you left. Now, if a person is nominated........the members of the Board make that decision. It had 2 years ago at the meeting and the two guys, along with the majority of the people there, were blown away that the teams that were represented didn't get to vote. Figure that one out..........Unfortunately a lot of decisions that teams should get a say in don't........How can we forget the decision last year by the Pres just to change the age that players could come up on a youth permit at the start of the season without bringing it up at the AGM and/or letting the teams even have a say in it..........

 

[coachrich]

What I would like to hear from the MWSL on the 10 game notice for make ups which I don't think was applied.

 

[Fat Bastard]

The teams have never voted on the actual board positions. The members vote a board of directors annually, and then the board selects its positions at the first meeting.

This is according to the constitution. I can recall one very colourful board meeting where we actually had to vote positions. Only happened one time in four years.

Lots of societies do it this way. It's easier to get people to step up if they're not committing to anything!

With regards to the home-and-away, and the 10-day notice, it would seem to me that common sense should prevail in these matters. Yet, as Alikira points out, there is certainly appearance of personal agendas taking priority. And that shouldn't happen.

 

[Can'tHeadABall]

Time to weigh in in this discussion. Please note that I have no opinion, as many will tell you but I want to pose a question that seems to me to be missing here. Assume you follow the 10-day notice, how does one even do that after say.....January of each year. What I mean is this, Home and Away is great when a complete league schedule is produced and teams can prepare or ask players to free up that date. That is easy enough to figure out, regardless if games are Friday though Sunday evening. The subject now becomes a little greyer once you hit playoffs and what I mean is this. Say a team gets eliminated on a sunday, only then can a league make-up game be scheduled for the coming week of play at which point, the schedule would go up on either a Monday or Tuesday but I assume that cannot be done until the last game is reported. Let's assume that the last game is reported on time Sunday night and a make-up schedule is done that evening. I think it woud be difficult for any team to play a friday night with 4 days notice (3 days in some case) but it would be easier to play on a sunday morning since that is when most teams play. This comment is not for or against Friday night but rather a question that I would be interested in hearing some feedback. Even if you agree or not that a team would have to be prepared to play a friday night with 4 days notice, my question goes back to the 10-day notice that has been raised. Once playoffs hit, there is no way any scheduler could do it within 10 days because logically, you don't know your next opponent (be it the next round of the playoffs or a make-up game) until that sunday night.

Maybe you need another rule to account for that or a rule for a regular league schedule and another to accomodate playoff and make-up games (because often this is done last minute). I don't know the answer thus the question.

Go at it you guys as I just like to see a solution and right now I have no opinion but would be interested in your opinions on this and if it makes logical sense then.

Now that our team knows we might have to play Friday night or sunday night, next season we can be prepared for that possibility.

 

[Captain Shamrock]

Time to weigh in in this discussion. Please note that I have no opinion, as many will tell you but I want to pose a question that seems to me to be missing here. Assume you follow the 10-day notice, how does one even do that after say.....January of each year. What I mean is this, Home and Away is great when a complete league schedule is produced and teams can prepare or ask players to free up that date. That is easy enough to figure out, regardless if games are Friday though Sunday evening. The subject now becomes a little greyer once you hit playoffs and what I mean is this. Say a team gets eliminated on a sunday, only then can a league make-up game be scheduled for the coming week of play at which point, the schedule would go up on either a Monday or Tuesday but I assume that cannot be done until the last game is reported. Let's assume that the last game is reported on time Sunday night and a make-up schedule is done that evening. I think it woud be difficult for any team to play a friday night with 4 days notice (3 days in some case) but it would be easier to play on a sunday morning since that is when most teams play. This comment is not for or against Friday night but rather a question that I would be interested in hearing some feedback. Even if you agree or not that a team would have to be prepared to play a friday night with 4 days notice, my question goes back to the 10-day notice that has been raised. Once playoffs hit, there is no way any scheduler could do it within 10 days because logically, you don't know your next opponent (be it the next round of the playoffs or a make-up game) until that sunday night.

Maybe you need another rule to account for that or a rule for a regular league schedule and another to accomodate playoff and make-up games (because often this is done last minute). I don't know the answer thus the question.

Go at it you guys as I just like to see a solution and right now I have no opinion but would be interested in your opinions on this and if it makes logical sense then.

Now that our team knows we might have to play Friday night or sunday night, next season we can be prepared for that possibility.

The ten day notice for the most part has been non-existent this season mainly because of the weather. However, if a team can get a Friday night EVERY week, it shouldn't be an issue. Just say you're playing on Friday the whatever the date is and there is no questions asked. They have appropriate notice and there is nothing that should be said. So if a team finds out they playing on a Sunday night at 8:00 in the North Shore 5 days in advance, that is okay? The bottom line is that the VMSL has few problems like this. Certainly teams get priority and that's how it seems to work.

For example, CHAB.......we are in a similar position and we discussed this a couple of weeks ago. It would have been okay to play that game on Friday. It didn't happen as you had a cup game on Sunday but if your girls knew in advance, would it have been too much to play two games on a Friday/Sunday. The league had us scheduled to do that IF we won our Selects cup game against Coquitlam, which we didn't. That was the way the schedule was set and we were going to deal with it.

This situation we're in right now is wrong and I'm sure the board knows that now. How we are punished with the default is beyond us, especially when we had given Burnaby at least two weeks to play a night game of their choice OR even playing a Saturday morning game. They can't field on any night apparently now.......and we default game. Logic is missing in this equation.

 

[Captain Shamrock]

Now that our team knows we might have to play Friday night or sunday night, next season we can be prepared for that possibility.

CHAB, the league KNEW this at the start of the season as our fields and days were all given in at least two weeks prior to the start of the season. All the teams should have been aware of that at the time.

 

[Wings]

Alikira, I completely agree with you.

If a team's home time is Friday night, and it has been that way for the entire season, nobody should be allowed to weasle out of it claiming they can't field a team. Everyone knows who they have make up games against, and its very easy to look up the cup schedule and see if they are still in Cup Play. If both teams are out, you should be prepared to play that game, even if it hasn't been posted on the schedule yet. (That's a little convoluted, but hopefully you get my point).

 

[Wings]

So if a team finds out they playing on a Sunday night at 8:00 in the North Shore 5 days in advance, that is okay? .

This happened to us for the last game we played, except it was West Van. Quite the trek from Maple Ridge...We found out on the Tuesday...

BUT...We scraped together 11 players and headed out there...Sometimes you just gotta do what you can to play the game...There are some teams out there who would rather bitch and moan than put in the effort it takes to rearrange thier schedule and get to the game. I understand that sometimes it just isn't possible, but it isn't always the case.

 

[Fat Bastard]

This another issue where the League seems to be stuck in the stone age. The MWSL has grown by almost 100 teams in the past ten years. And at the youth level the growth has been astronomical. This point can't be disputed. Registration numbers in BC continue to grow exponentially across the spectrum.

Yet, facilities have not kept up - in terms of quantity or quality. The sudden influx of suitable artificial surface parks has begun to help alleviate some of the shortage, but the bottom line is that in order to meet the demands of the soccer playing public, soccer has had to become a game that is no longer just played on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

And why should it be? Hockey - with similar registration figures and similar facility issues - is a seven-day-a-week, anytime of night sport.

Non-traditional playing times are going to have to be accepted. And not just for senior, but also youth. And I'm just not talking Friday nights. Sunday nights, Saturday nights, mid-week games. As soccer continues to out grow the supply of available traditional field times, then we had better accept the fact that we're going to play more and more games on these odd days and times.