Squash Ontario

2008 - 2010 Squash Ontario Board of Directors
Name (Portfolio)	Email	Role
Mark Sachvie President	msachvie@whiteoaksresort.com	Spokesperson for Squash Ontario (interim overseeing High Performance)
Brenda Forbes Vice President	blforbes@rogers.com	Infrastructure
Jennifer Bennett Vice President	ryan-jennifer@hotmail.com	Finance and Operations
Vice President		Vacant
Chris Sadler Vice President	csadler@nuclad.com	Business Development and Membership
Andrew Mount Vice President	andrew@londonsquash.on.ca	Programs
Tom Craig President	tom.h.craig@gmail.com	Past President

Tom advised that Squash Canada has hired a writer to pull together all of the components; it is hopeful they will have a first draft by the end of April.

Sport Awards – Tom advised that he and Sherry had attended the Sport Awards Banquet and Ceremony on April 15th. Squash Ontario nominated Vincent Taylor for a Syl Apps Outstanding Volunteer award and The Jesters Club, Ontario Chapter for a Corporate Citation. Vincent attended as did John Hobart and his wife representing the Jesters. Over 300 people were in attendance including the Minister of Health Promotion, Margarett Best.

North American Junior Championships – has received sanction from Squash Canada. Will be run at the new Jonathon Power/Jamie Nicholls facility in Toronto in the summer.

Other Correspondence – was only received at 3:40 p.m. Sunday afternoon the day of the meeting. It will be circulated to the Board and added to the agenda at the Board’s next full meeting.

Geoffrey Johnson and Andrew Mount are working on a new drills manual for teachers and for Squash Ontario instructors who go out into the schools to present introductions to squash. Andrew also feels that we need to provide more materials for the teachers such as score pads, abbreviated rules and draw sheets.

Funding has been slashed for squash, tennis, etc. Competition cut down to 1 event a year from 3 and a very competitive league prior to 2001

Potential for a new start up university league – Andrew , Mark and Sherry are working with coaches of OUA teams to set up a strategic planning meeting. There is potential for Squash Ontario to act as a facilitator/partner to encourage continued university growth.

Mark Sachvie reviewed the proposed changes to the committee roles and responsibilities and the Board approved same. These will be included as agenda items for the various committee annual meetings.

Mark also reviewed with those present the revised Board portfolios which now complement the revisions to the committees. These include the portfolios of:

Infrastructure – membership, special events, regional development – Brenda Forbes

Business Development – fund raising, marketing, strategic alliances, sponsorship – very key portfolio

Programs – Coaching, Officiating and School and University Squash – Andrew Mount

Motion to reflect a 60% operating fund on the balance sheet effective 2010. Sherry Funston to advise BDO Dunwoody.

Approved – reinstatement of Athlete Funding Program to maximum $300.00 per person for 10 athletes

On hold – High Performance Strategic Planning Forum – until final budget is approved and profit/loss analysed

Approved – Squash Ontario sending two people to the Squash Canada annual meeting, Tom Craig to be one and Board to determine second person

Approved – Squash Ontario will bid to host the 2011 Squash Canada annual meeting – Sherry to prepare the bid

Approved – Squash Ontario would carefully consider nominating individuals for the Squash Canada Board of Directors

Approved roles and responsibilities for Administrative Assistant – Sherry Funston to post in appropriate sites.

All but one facility has renewed its membership in 2010. Retention percentage is 82% which is on par with the last 2 years.

The Board will appoint a small owner/member task force to review the current membership structure and fees.

Have purchased a DVD with Ontario School Board and school contracts and Geoff Johnson is sending out program information electronically

Andrew and Geoff will review responses at the end of the season and target school boards for next year which did not make use of the program

Loaner program may need to be extended from 2 weeks to 1 month to give the school clubs a longer period for use

Major initiative right now is to promote the High School Championships – market to current equipment loaner users and squash pros – Andrew and Mark will discuss with coaches and managers of the OWG at the Games next weekend

Mark will provide Geoffrey and Andrew with the entry list from last year for follow up

Both programs running smoothly; next year will target juniors for the coaching foundations

Funding has been slashed for squash, tennis, etc. Competition cut down to 1 event a year from 3 and a very competitive league prior to 2001

Upon discussion and subsequent unanimous agreement, appropriate action approved.

On hold until new data base management system is in place and league and tournament components operational. This will allow Squash Ontario to identify areas of squash activity and review and redefine regional boundaries based on this assessment. Will also assist in identifying new volunteers

Everything on budget; small savings (one month) due to departure of Administrative

Activity continues in terms of development and circulation of Request for Information.

Approved for invitation: Brenda Forbes, Chair, Tom Porter, Ray Kerslake, Brian Clarke, Gordon Robertson, Andrew Mount and Paul Ryan

Approval for initiative; Mark Sachvie and Sherry Funston to develop – time line prior to June 30th

LTAD – McAuliffe will edit final version; contract being signed with freelance writer shortly; no completion date

PAR SCORING – Alberta believes decision needs to be made at a Special General Meeting; Bob originally thought to make a motion at his Board meeting that results would be counted provided they did not impact team selections; Tom pointed out that they could in future impact team selection for current under 15 athletes; Bob will rethink the motion

RANKINGS – Squash Canada will have new ranking program by August; Management system is currently cost-prohibitive; is considering holding a high performance strategic planning forum

PATRON’S FUND –Dennis Bishop is spearheading revamping of terms of reference -

2010 CANADIAN MASTERS TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIP – many problems including changing of the draw midway through the event. David Sly, captain of Team Ontario has presented a full brief on the event and Squash Ontario has sent it to Bob Wyma, Dennis Bishop, Frank Boyer and Linda MacPhail as well as Chair of the Canadian Masters Committee, Mike Bertin.

Tom reported on conversations and communications with respect to league sanctioning and membership and advised that he hoped that all had been resolved.

Chris is working on understanding the economic dynamics of Squash Ontario – where it spends its time growing revenues – what are the challenges.

He is consulting with other business people and will circulate a strategy at the next Board meeting

In Andrew’s absence, Mark reported that the Squash Ontario High School Championships have been recognized and sanctioned by OFSAA and the event will be posted on its website. This is a major step forward to gaining provincial recognition.

Revised selection criteria for the women’s masters team will be written and circulated to the Masters Committee

Some tournament chairs of Silver, Gold and Ontario Championships still have some difficulties with scheduling

Doubles participation has increased this year; we are using a small group of active doubles players to seed our events and Squash Ontario is generating the draws

A proposal was presented to the Board of Directors with respect to the future growth and sustainability of Squash Ontario. Research is now being conducted and the Board will review at its next meeting.

Tom Craig provided updates on various Squash Canada initiatives which have been pending for some time. Tom has offered his expertise to help develop fair, coherent and transparent terms of reference for the Patron’s Endowment Fund. Squash Canada plans to have all the information posted on its website by early January 2010.

Squash Canada has circulated a call for candidates to sit on its Competitions Committee. Candidates should have strong competitive technical background especially in the areas of tournament operations at the local, provincial, national and international levels.

Several names were considered and after much discussion, the name of Patrick Ryding will be put forward. The Board will contact Patrick and ask him to allow it to place his name in nomination.

Tom will contact the president of Squash Canada with respect to the status of the LTAD as the lack of a plan proved very costly to Squash Ontario in its base grant submission.

The Board was unanimous in its decision to enforce its published policy on league participation being a benefit of membership. In any case where a non member club is participating in a regional league, Squash Ontario will not sanction that league nor will it provide the allotment of free Dunlop balls.

In addition, the Board was also unanimous in its decision to write to any regional executive committee in violation of the policy as well as to every member club in the region advising as to why the league has not been sanctioned and why the member clubs will not be receiving free Dunlop balls.

The Board also reviewed the policy of membership refunds and was unanimous in its agreement that its current policy of no membership refunds for clubs or individuals would continue. In the event that a sanctioned silver, gold or Ontario Championship is cancelled, Squash Ontario will communicate directly with those people to advise that their entry fee will be refunded in full but at the same time, explain the many benefits of membership accruing to them.

The Board also reviewed the current categories of membership included in the by-laws and it decided that Mark Sachvie and Sherry Funston would conduct a thorough review of those categories and any entitlements. They will provide recommendations to the Board as to what actions should be taken in terms of elimination.

The Board reviewed the current Nominating Committee governance and agreed that in order to remove any perception of conflict of interest the past president does not necessarily have to be a member of the committee. In addition the chair of the Nominating Committee will be elected by the committee from amongst their numbers.

Mark Sachvie and Sherry Funston were tasked with the responsibility of conducting a thorough review of the various committees – their structure, governance and effectiveness and report back to the Board at its next meeting.

In a unanimous decision, the Board set the date for the 2010 Annual General Meeting for Saturday, September 11th.

It also agreed that it should be held in conjunction with the charity golf tournament as the combination was enormously successful in 2009.

In addition, it will ask 4 or 5 club owners and managers for their input in providing an interesting and relevant format for the meeting portion.

Mark Sachvie and Geoff Johnson will begin immediately to secure a venue for the golf.

Jennifer Bennett advised the Board that due to the very significant cut to our base grant this year, we are projecting a deficit (loss) of approximately $17,000.00. She pointed out that the lack of a Squash Canada Long Term Athlete Development plan hurt us as LTAD was woven through almost ½ of the questions. As a result, Squash Ontario did not score well and this translated into a decrease in our grant.

Jennifer advised that we needed to find new revenue streams but at the same time, we should be marketing our website and e-magazine advertising opportunities as well as our tax receipting programs (Lee Hanebury Junior Squash and the Ontario Squash Hall of Fame).

Club membership retention is key as is all efforts to increase individual memberships.

Chris Sadler advised that he was continuing his research and would be presenting a business development strategy to the Board for consideration very soon.

Andrew Mount reported progress on the school squash program. He and Geoffrey will be contacting our racquet partners to ask if they would consider donating racquets to the program so that we could give equipment to schools as opposed to loaning it.

Work is ongoing with OFSSA to get squash recognized; we need more regional representation at the High Schools Teams Championship but we are very close to meeting the regional representation factor.

Mark Sachvie advised that Squash Canada has asked Squash Ontario and Squash Quebec to reconsider the Par 15 scoring (win by 2) format which they are both using for the younger juniors (under 11, 13, 15). This format was adopted by the Squash Ontario Junior Committee to help transition juniors into the Par 11 win by 2 scoring.

Mark pointed out that we have only 2 more golds and one more Ontario Championship this season and it would be very difficult to change the scoring mid-season. Tom Craig will discuss with Squash Canada president, Bob Wyma.

Tournament participation in many events is on the increase this year and Mark congratulated the Masters Closed which drew rave reviews.

The selection criteria used by the Masters to select the women for Team Ontario needs to be changed. It posed problems this year and Mark’s intention is to do a re-write and circulate it to the Masters Committee.

Brenda advised that she and Stacy Bell were encountering challenges in speaking with each other. As the governance and boundaries of the regions are important initiatives arising out of the strategic planning. Brenda will take a much more proactive approach to bringing these initiatives to the forefront.

The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. and Tom welcomed everyone. He introduced Rachel Corbett of the Centre for Sport and Law who gave a 1 ½ hour presentation on the roles and responsibilities of a not for profit Board of Directors as well as the roles and responsibilities of individual members of the Board.

Rachel will provide Sherry with the power point presentation and Sherry will circulate to all Board members.

Those present then reviewed the current Board portfolios as well as Squash Ontario’s initiatives for this season. All agreed that the commitment the Board had made at the 2008 Strategic Planning forum to address the regional issues was paramount and as a result, it created the portfolio of Regional Development which will be held by Brenda Forbes. Brenda was a participant in the Strategic Planning Forum and is herself a regional league organizer. Brenda will assume responsibility for working directly with the Regional Leaders committee.

Utilizing the technical expertise and Squash Canada experience of Andrew Mount led the Board to make a change to one of the current portfolios and it created a Technical/Player Development portfolio. This portfolio will include the officiating and coaching programs but will also focus on one of Squash Ontario’s other major initiatives – school squash (including university squash). Andrew will also work with Brenda to identify ways in which squash can be stimulated at the regional level.

Chris Sadler will take over the portfolio of Business Development and will focus on identifying partners for the Membership programs – clubs and individuals.

Mark Sachvie will carry the portfolio of Competitions which will include responsibility for all sanctioned Gold, Silver and Ontario Championships. The committees of Masters, Doubles, High Performance and Junior Advisory will report to this portfolio. Rankings, junior, senior, doubles and masters will also fall under Mark’s portfolio.

Jennifer Bennett will continue in her role as Vice President Finance and Operations and Tom Craig, was elected by acclamation as the President for the 2009-2011 period.

New roles and responsibilities will be written for the various portfolios and included in the Policy and Procedures Manual.

Motion: That the 2009-2010 Quest 4 Gold Selection criteria as developed by the committee appointed by the Board of Directors be approved.

It was agreed that at the Board’s next face to face meeting, it would review all of the committees, their structure, mandate and roles and responsibilities.

Squash Ontario has received a grant for its “Squish to Squash” initiative which was conceived and developed by Laura Mauer. The entire project must be completed by March 31, 2010 and given the very late notification of our success by the Ministry, the Board had reservations as to whether we could complete the project within the timeframe. No extension has been offered by the Ministry to any of the Provincial Sport Organizations.

The Board agreed that given the very positive response to the grant itself, that it should be developed into a 3 year Trillium program with a submission date of January 1, 2010.