February 25, 2004

US Youth Soccer Adidas Workshop & Coaches Convention
February 19-21 2004
Boston, Massachusetts

Amy Oakeson
Programs Director
UYSA

Friday, February 20, 2004, I began the day by meeting with Walter Fawcett who is with the Affinity Development Group. We discussed the new Soccer Association Online program that Affinity offers. This program offers a centralized database for all players, coaches, administrators, volunteers and teams. There are a lot of things that I really liked about this program. I like the fact that this is an online program, so anyone who has been given authorization can access this program from any computer with internet access, which means no more waiting for disks to be turned into the State office. Participants would be able to register online or the registrar could register them. You can create teams manually or you can use the automated tool to create teams. You can track disciplinary actions also you can track transfers and releases in this program. This program also offers schedule management for league play and a tournament module that would include registration, bracketing, field setup and schedule changes. Affinity would maintain the security and privacy of our associations data. I believe that this program would benefit everyone. Scott Harward and John Lowery were also in attendance at this meeting.

Next I met with Ellen who is with Logical Solutions. She gave me some ideas on how to get started on the spring schedules process. I would like to thank you all in advance for your patience and understanding, as you all know, I am new to Utah Youth Soccer Association, and this Spring will be my first involvement with UYSA schedules. John Lowery also met with us and we discussed some of the glitches that the State has experienced with the Logical Solutions program.

Later that afternoon I attended a workshop on how to run a successful Tide American Cup. This workshop was taught by Chris Dillman, IYSA. I found that Chris was very informative, he offered great ideas and even gave us packets that included a tournament time line, registration forms, ideas on what committees should be doing to help the tournament director, rules, invitation, post event report and a sample t-shirt order form which suggests that you have your teams pre-order and pay for their shirts which is really a good idea, then you are not stuck with extra shirts after the tournament is over and done.

That evening was the adidas Coach of the Year dinner. The keynote speaker was Jim Craig, the goaltender of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. I thought Jim's speech was awesome. Personally, I was inspired by his attitude and the excitement he showed.

Saturday, February 21, I started the day by attending the Online Tournament Management and Automation workshop. The instructors were Dave Fliegler and Dick Gronendal. The instructors of this session was very informative. Dave and Dick gave some great suggestions about the components that your online system should include such as, security, the ease of use and set up, registration, payment, event management, communication and registration data portability. They really stressed the need for online security. Your system should have controlled access and everyone should have their own log on and passwords. Your system should allow you to have complete control and ownership of all data. There should be no access, sale or marketing of confidential data and no storage of credit card numbers. Your system should allow you to communicate by email. Dick also suggested that participants should pre-pay for their t-shirts so that the tournament can avoid having to eat the cost of extra shirts. Dave and Dick also talked about the importance of the team list data base; your system should offer a team ledger that allows you to keep track of cash, check and scholarship transactions. Your game scheduler should be flexible, it should be easy to change scheduled fields and allow you to notify the participants of any changes. There should be an option to post referee assignments on your program as well as letting you input game scores and have mobile phone messaging and score communication. Hotel room commission management should be an option as well.

The next session I attended was "Is It Black and White, Getting Your Story Told". The instructor was Chris Branscome. Chris touched briefly on the differences between advertising and public relations. The main difference is that advertising is expensive vs. public relations which is inexpensive because you are using your own time and not paying someone else for their time. Also, with public relations it is easier to establish yourself in the community. Some other suggestions that Chris offered to us were; to read the newspaper, watch the television station or listen to the radio station before contacting them so that you are familiar with the way that they are set up. Ask them about special sections, find out when deadlines are and determine their preferred method of contact. Find out what is interesting to the media build a relationship with a member of the media, read their stories and always remember that you are on record. So be careful of what you talk about and how you talk. The last topic that Chris talked about was press releases. Your press release should be short, sweet and to the point. It should be no longer than one page. The basic components of your press release shall include; the headline, lead paragraph which should cover who, what, when, where and how. Then sum up your press release. Follow up with the media make sure that they received your release. Also include your contact information at the top of the release and send pictures if possible.

In the afternoon, I attended The Holiday Inn Database session. Unfortunately, the internet connection was down and the instructor, Ben Jones, was not able to show us the program. He briefly went over the process of the database and then went into a question and answers session. That was great for me because I had a few questions about how the database works and discussed some of the problem that I have experienced with the database. Ben told me that he would contact me and take care of the duplicate Ice Breaker tournaments on the database. In the future, I would like to be able to take applications for tournaments online.

The last session that I attended was "Soccer - A Tool for Urban Youth Development". This workshop was taught by Ashley Donoker, Brandon Blew and Cela Shukie who are all directors of the America SCORES program. America SCORES is an after school program in 11 cities across the U.S. America SCORES mission is to strengthen the youth in public schools through soccer, literacy and community service. The student based values that they instill in the youth are; leadership, teamwork and commitment. They also push the values of nutrition, health and the benefits of an active lifestyle. The games are held on Thursday and Friday. The rest of the week the children are in writing classes. This program work closely with the elementary schools, they pay the teachers $30.00 a session to teach the writing classes. Although this seems to be a good program, I don't know that it is something that our association would want to participate in.

Saturday night we attended the Score party. It was a nice setting, the hors d'oeuvres were good. But I have to say the most fun at the party was to watch and listen to the people who were singing karaoke.

I had a great time in Boston, the workshops I attended were informative and I am glad that I was given the opportunity to attend this event.