Greetings USASA Members:

It has been a busy past few months, during which I started the process of conducting 1:1 member meetings via Zoom with the Executive Director, Bruce Bode. Many thanks to those members that have already participated in that process (Wisconsin, Ohio-North,

Cal South, Arizona, the Beer City Cup, Cal North, Kansas, Vermont, Ohio South, New Hampshire, Georgia, Michigan,and Idaho). While it came as no surprise to me that some common themes have emerged, Bruce and I have also learned something new with each meeting, so please make the effort to schedule a meeting using the scheduling link in the weekly newsletter, which is:

One on one Schedule Link

As we look forward to 2025, my main focus will be finding ways to increase the value

proposition of being a member beyond just providing insurance and offering competitions.

Along those lines, I wanted to remind everyone that the key to adding value, such as by

attracting sponsors, is being able to present a potential sponsor with information about the

organization’s players, teams, and leagues. We can’t do that, though, when our members do not provide us with basic, required information about each registered player.

At the beginning of my term, I asked Bruce to start sending reminders about the importance of complying with payment and registration requirements. I also asked Bruce to provide the NBOD each month with a color-coded registration report. Members in the “green” category were those that had submitted both payment and player registration data. Members in the “yellow” category had provided payment, but either no registration data or incomplete/partial registration data. Members in the “red” category had not provided either payment or registration data.

In today’s registration report, which will be posted to the member portal, there are 27 members in the green category, 31 in the yellow category, and 10 in the red category. It is possible that some payments and data submissions may still be in transit, but if not, as of the last day of this year, more than half of the members have not fully complied with payment and reporting requirements, and about fifteen percent of the members have not paid anything.

Bruce will be following up with those members in the red and yellow categories so that hopefully they will get moved into the green category prior to 1/15/25. But be forewarned: members that do not comply with payment and reporting requirements will be held accountable by the NBOD. Sanctions could include a fine, a loss of voting privileges, revoking (or not allowing the issuance of) a certificate of insurance, or some combination of those things. I really hope that it won’t get to that point, so please reach out to Bruce right away to find out what your organization needs to do to get into the green category. Having complete player data from all of our members is a critical step that we must first take in order for us to be effective in reaching out to potential sponsors.

Thanks to everyone for the thankless jobs that you do for the good of the game, and best wishes to everyone for the upcoming new year.

Jim Sadowski

jsadowski@usasa.com