It's time for elections, and both OSE and RRYB are bringing the voting to you! At your closing ceremony, held at the ball fields, you'll be able to cast your ballot.
RRYB Closing Ceremonies will be on Saturday, May 17 at 12:45 pm. with elections from 1 pm - 3 pm.
OSE Closing Ceremonies will be on Friday, May 30 at 6:30 pm with elections open from 7 pm - 9 pm.
If you have any questions, please call Rusty Charleton at 658-5887.
Applicants:
Phillip Bailey
Brian Birdsell
Naomi Esquivel
Roberta Garcia
Jeff Himmelright
Gail Johansen
Elsa Orozco
Gregory Parker
Fred Ramirez
Carolyn Ramos
Joe Ramos
Bobby Sieferman
Daniel Spells
Jule Vasquez-Martinez
Mike Whelan
Heath Wooley
Kelly Wooley
OSE Baseball and Round Rock Youth Baseball become Round Rock Baseball League at the completion of this Spring/Summer Season. The current step is the process of forming the Board of Directors for the new, combined league and you’re invited to participate!
Sign up to help with the following: Executive Committee (President, Secretary, Treasurer, VPs), Umpire in Charge, Equipment, Facilities, Tournaments, Concessions, Uniforms/Awards, Registrar, Web, Team/Parent Coordinator, Public Relations, Sponsors, Insurance/Safety, Scheduler, Commissioners (4-6, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-18).
Board Of Directors/ Volunteer Form
For more information call Debbie Davila 341-3354.
Pictures from the groundbreaking of the Sports Capital Improvement Project are on the City's Flickr page! You can find pictures of all types of events and happenings http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofroundrock/sets/
The new organization expects to be in place in time for the Fall 2008 league registration. Currently, the bylaws have been drafted and the team of league representatives has submitted Round Rock Baseball League as the name. We’re waiting approval from the Secretary of States office on the name. Once the league name is finalized, the organization will be officially incorporated. The league representatives that have put the bylaws together agreed to create a five person executive committee to oversee the running of elections for board positions in March. The new board will be in place in time to take registrations for Fall 2008.
On Wednesday, January 16, a name was given to the new unified baseball league. Keeping it simple and easily searchable for someone wanting to find out about baseball in our town, the league representatives unanimously agreed that "Round Rock Baseball" would be the best name going forward. Congratulations to Felix Lopez who was the first person to submit this name to the blog and is winner of the naming contest.
The league representatives worked with Barry Silverberg on compiling the data needed for the 501c3 non-profit status requirements on Wednesday and further discussed the election process to get officers for Round Rock Baseball in place.
The current plan is to nominate 2 people from OSE, 2 people from RRYB and 1 from Sam Bass to run the elections for the board in the interim and get the new organization up and running with full elections in the Spring. The team has worked very hard to get this far and progress is definitely taking place!
Also, don’t forget the groundbreaking for the Sports Capital Improvement Project is Friday, January 25 at 4 pm at the location for the new girls' softball complex. We hope to see you there!
Join the City of Round Rock, Mayor Nyle Maxwell and the sports community as we celebrate the Groundbreaking for the Sports Complex Improvement Project on January 25 from 4 pm - 5 pm at the North East Complex.
Athletes are encouraged to come and help us as we break ground on this project which includes many renovations to our current ball fields and a softball complex.
Project Highlights
4 lit batting cages at each complex
Drainage detention pond to help with runoff
Championship field – warming track, terraced bleachers, bull pen (all but SE complex)
Playgrounds "Tailgate Islands"
As previously promised, here is the current timeline for the sports complex improvements. Since it is a phased construction schedule, different parts of the complex will re-open at different times.
In mid-January – start Girls Softball Complex which will open in Fall of 2008.
NW and SW complex close in January 2008 to be complete June 2008.
Everything is open from June –Sept to cover summer tournaments and play.
Sept 2008-Feb 2009 the SE complex closes.
Please see the map below for further clarification.
For more information, call Round Rock Parks and Recreation at 218-5540.
Well, we received more than 140 name submittals for the new organization through this blog. If you scroll through all the comments below, you'll see that we had a lot of creative ideas coming in.
As 2008 gets into full swing, the baseball representative's meetings will reconvene next Wednesday night and they will begin the process of selecting a winner of the contest. If you submitted to the contest, hang tight and we'll let you know the final results when a winner is chosen!
At the city council meeting on December 6, council approved the contract for Journeyman to begin Phase B construction for the girls' softball complex and upgrades. We expect construction to begin after the first of the year and will post a construction schedule when it is finalized.
And the naming contest is still underway. So far we have 42 posts for the naming contest! If you think of a name, there's still plenty of time to submit before the December 21 deadline.
The team of representatives and board members from each baseball league has been working diligently with Barry Silverberg to get the final legal details of non-profit status together. While the new organization is not complete, we realize its time to start registering for spring baseball!
To simplify the spring registration process, parents interested in registering their children for baseball will go ahead and register with Round Rock Youth Baseball, Sam Bass Baseball or Old Settlers Express Baseball as done in the past. Please contact your league directly to get early registration information. The new unified league, which has yet to be officially named, will take registrations in the summer and fall.
We need a NAME!
We keep calling this new league we’re forming the “unified league” or “new league we’re forming.” It needs a name! The current leagues have pitched in to create a $100 cash prize for a league naming contest.
How it works: Submit your league name idea as a comment to this blog post. When you register for the blog, we’ll have your name and contact information, therefore if your league name is selected we can contact you and give you the $100 prize. The contest runs from today through 5 pm December 21.
The current group of team representatives and board members that have been working on the unified organization process will select the winning league name at a meeting in January. In the event that two people submit the exact same winning name, the first person to submit the idea to the blog post will receive the $100 prize. This contest is open to participants of all ages, so put your thinking caps on and let’s come up with a great league name!
Ballfield Improvement Update
At the November 21 City Council meeting Chasco was awarded the contract for Part A of the construction project. This includes all the water line, sewage and parking lots. Construction is to begin approximately January 1. The city is in the final negotiations on the contract for Part B which is the beginning of the field renovations and girls softball complex upgrades. The city hopes to announce the final construction schedule soon. This project is going to make our ballfield complex one of the premier facilities in Texas! We’ll keep you updated on developments.
The team of representatives and board members from each league continues to meet. The group is now working with Barry Silverberg from Austin Community College who is experienced working with non-profits to help with finances and with completing bylaws. The team has put together a document which includes policy and procedures and Silverberg is going to further help develop the complete bylaws and 501c3 development.
Each league will be dissolving their former 501c3 status and forming one new organization. The progress continues...
Progress is underway and the team of representatives and board members from each league continues to meet every Monday and Wednesday to push forward to have a set of bylaws and organization plan by the October 15 deadline. The group is working through bylaws and has drafted an organizational chart.
The working group to set up the guidelines for a unified organization held its first meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 29, at the McConico Building. The working group is comprised of: three representatives (board president, board member and parent representative) from each youth baseball organization; three at-large, community representatives; and one non-resident representative. Tracy Watson is facilitating the working group. Tracy has over 25 years experience in complex public negotiations, problem-solving and dispute resolution and over 450 formal mediation/facilitation hours.
Members of the working group representing the organizations are John Betz, Roy Bragadeste, Rick Garza, John Hosang, Michelle Jackson, Fred Ramirez, Rick Stevens, Shane Strickland, Dawn Steele and Mike Whelen. At-large representatives are Kelly Reeves (former Round Rock ISD athletic director), Jim Loerwald (the current RRISD AD), and Faith Zimmerman of Sertoma Girls Softball.
The group plans to meet twice week. We'll post notes from meetings here on the blog to keep everyone up to speed. You should continue to use the blog to comment on the project. We'll make sure blog input gets to the working group.
Speaking of input, we've posted the results (PDF) from our online survey. Thanks to all 242 who responded. The results will provide the working group with a sense of what preferences are for number of games in a season, emphasis on recreation vs. select, etc. It's important to note the survey is not statistically valid. That said, it should be of value to the working group as one input of many into its decision making process.
The working group set a target date for the completion of the bylaws/structure of the new organization for mid-October. As for the construction side of the Sports Complex Improvement project, bids will go out in September, with the City Council awarding contracts later in the year. If you're wondering what the physical improvements will look like, wonder no more. We just got a really cool, 3-D animation
video that shows the improvements from a bird's eye view. Have a look and be reminded of what we're working toward: first class facilities operated to the maximum benefit of the entire community, particularly our children.
We have just posted a survey on the City's web site for ballfield users. Please take a few moments to complete it. We think the survey results will provide some valuable input to the working group that is being formed to help create a unified organization for youth baseball. By the way, thanks to the 11 folks who submitted applications to serve on the working group. We very much appreciate your willingness to give of your time and talent.
We plan on running the survey for about two weeks, so you have until Aug. 15 to complete it. When it's done, we'll post the results here.
In other project news, we have met with the league treasurers, and are in the process of getting records and documents from them. Again, our goal is to get a working knowledge of the leagues' finances so we can make the right decisions as the project progresses.
Will Hampton
Communication Director
Time for a project update. Here are some of the tasks we'll be working on over the next 30 days.
-
As promised, we are working to set up meetings between league treasurers and city finance staff so we can have a better working knowledge of the organizations' financial issues.
-
We are working on a survey that we'll post on the City web site to continue to get input on the issues we've identified as the most critical to the success of the project: field scheduling, cost, practices, game times, select vs. recreational play, etc. We hope to get that up next week (week of July 16).
-
Last but certainly not least, we are working with a facilitator -- who has experience assisting community groups and local government -- to create a working group of league representatives, community members and City staff to begin the process of creating a unified organization for youth baseball.
UPDATE: Here's an
application for parents who are interested in serving on the working group (Note: It's a Word document. Click
here to download the free Word viewer if you don't have it.) Applications are due by Tuesday, July 24. Call Debbie Davila with our Parks and Recreation Department at 341-3354 for more information.
Will Hampton
Communications Director
We've posted the written comments and questions we received at the June open house meetings on the City web site. We've included the project team's responses. If you need further clarification about one of the issues raised in the notes, please send us a comment via this blog.
We'll have more open house meetings later this summer as the project develops further. For now, the blog seems to be working well to keep you informed and allow input on the project. We've had more than 2,800 views of the blog since it launched in early June. It's gratifying to know so many are using this new tool to stay up to date on the project.
Will Hampton
Communications Director
More Posts
Next page »