1 1 (Saugus Youth Hockey meeting called to 2 order at 7:42 p.m. on January 6, 2009) 3 MR. BRAZIS: If I could, I'd like to 4 call the meeting to order. First order of 5 business, I'd like to introduce our 6 stenographer, who's donating her time here 7 to Saugus Youth Hockey as a public service, 8 Colleen Applegate. We appreciate your 9 services, and thank you very much on behalf 10 of the Executive Board. 11 If I may, I'd like to take a roll call 12 at this time, and if you could just say 13 either "Present" or if we don't hear 14 anything, we'll take it that you're not 15 here. Mr. Secretary, if you'd like to start 16 around the room, please, and we'll take a 17 roll call. 18 MR. GROARK: Stacy Tait. 19 MISS TAIT: Present. 20 MR. GROARK: Kevin Nigro. 21 (Pause.) 22 MR. GROARK: Tony Bono. 23 MR. BONO: Present. 24 MR. GROARK: Rich Zabroski. 2 1 MR. ZABROSKI: Present. 2 MR. GROARK: Dana DeMatteo. 3 MR. DeMATTEO: Present. 4 MR. GROARK: Ken Patterson. 5 MR. PATTERSON: Present. 6 MR. GROARK: Fred Moore. 7 MR. MOORE: Present. 8 MR. GROARK: Ellen Coccoluto. 9 (Pause.) 10 MR. GROARK: Joe Shrimpf. 11 MR. SHRIMPF: Present. 12 MR. GROARK: Dwayne Oxley. 13 MR. OXLEY: Present. 14 MR. GROARK: Pat Groark, I'm him. Pat 15 Norton. 16 MR. NORTON: Present. 17 MR. GROARK: Scott Brazis. 18 MR. BRAZIS: Present. Thank you, 19 Mr. Secretary. I think the first order of 20 business that I should bring up is we had, 21 Saugus Youth Hockey had an emergency meeting 22 on December 18th, and I think -- and with 23 the minutes in front of you, it pretty much 24 explains what went on that evening on 3 1 December 18th, so if there is any questions 2 I would first like to ask if we can accept 3 those minutes from that evening? 4 MR. NORTON: I motion accept the 5 minutes. 6 MR. PATTERSON: Second. 7 MR. BRAZIS: All in favor? 8 (Group agreement.) 9 MR. BRAZIS: Any opposed? 10 MR. MOORE: I just haven't finished 11 reading them, sorry. 12 MR. BRAZIS: We won't hold that 13 against you. 14 MR. MOORE: Aye. How's that, I 15 approve them? 16 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. So those 17 minutes will be accepted. The other order 18 of business is was there any minutes from 19 the December 2nd meeting that was held here? 20 If there is not any minutes -- I don't know, 21 Mr. Treasurer, if you have any? 22 MR. OXLEY: I don't have any. Unless 23 they're with the previous secretary. 24 MR. PATTERSON: They were not 4 1 forwarded on to me, but I'm sure he has 2 them. 3 MR. OXLEY: I can check and follow-up 4 at the next meeting. 5 MR. NORTON: With the given change 6 with the board and all of the events that 7 happened, do we just move that we will not 8 be getting the minutes for that meeting? 9 MR. PATTERSON: Start the minutes this 10 point forward? 11 MR. NORTON: I motion that we agree 12 not to get the minutes for the December 2nd 13 board meeting. 14 MR. BRAZIS: Do I hear anybody second 15 that motion? 16 MR. BONO: Second. 17 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Bono. All in favor? 18 (Group agreement.) 19 MR. BRAZIS: Opposed? 20 (Pause.) 21 MR. BRAZIS: Very good, thank you. 22 One other thing I'd just like to bring up 23 here today is we are certainly going to go 24 around the board here with all of our board 5 1 members and the E Board and I thank you for 2 everybody out back there that are concerned 3 parents of Saugus Youth Hockey, thank you 4 for coming, and if you have something to 5 say, we certainly want your input also. I 6 would just ask that once when we're through 7 with the E Board and all of our Board of 8 Directors, if you have something to say, 9 please come up to the podium and state your 10 name so that Miss Applegate can get your 11 name, and ask your question, make your 12 comment, whatever you'd like to do, and we 13 would hope at that time that we can answer 14 any and all thoughts or questions that you 15 may have. So without further ado, I'll pass 16 on to the vice president for his report. 17 MR. NORTON: I don't have any vice 18 president news at this point, but as I am 19 the chair of the Player's Selection 20 Committee, I just wanted to go over a couple 21 of things. We will have at least a little 22 bit of a meeting right after this just to 23 catch up and then we can schedule for a 24 larger meeting or a longer meeting in the 6 1 very near future. One of the things is as 2 the player selection committee was 3 originally constituted it was members who -- 4 all of the members were not on the E Board. 5 Today, a lot of the members, Scott, Pat, 6 myself, are on the E Board and are on the 7 Player's Selection Committee. It was sort 8 of set up before as sort of a checks and 9 balance so we would make the proposal to the 10 E Board. We would propose that we keep the 11 player selection committee in tact despite 12 the potential conflict. Do you view that as 13 an issue, Joe? 14 MR. SHRIMPF: No. 15 MR. NORTON: And, you know, we're 16 going to have a big enough committee and if 17 there's anybody who objects to that or who 18 would like to join the Player's Selection 19 Committee, they can raise their hand and 20 we'll select other members of the committee 21 tonight. Is there anybody in the audience 22 who would like to join the Player's 23 Selection Committee? So we have James 24 Raigo, we'll get you involved and -- 7 1 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you, James. 2 MR. NORTON: -- Steven Worthley. 3 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you, Steven. 4 MR. NORTON: So we'll have a brief 5 meeting after this just to set the next 6 meeting and where we are. 7 Just so everybody knows, we are having 8 the first goalie clinic that's going to be 9 run by Coach Gary Munsen of Austin Prep. 10 Three of his goalies will be there as well 11 to provide instructions for the Bantam 12 goalie -- the two Bantam goalies and the 13 three PeeWee goalies, so we'll have five 14 goalies attending this one. That's next 15 Monday at the 4:50 hour. If you are on the 16 Player's Selection Committee, we ask that 17 you attend because we believe this is going 18 to be one of the best ways to evaluate where 19 the games kind of get caught, and you don't 20 always get to know what the kids can do. 21 Here they're all going be on a level playing 22 field, we're going to get to see what their 23 skills look like. A month from -- the 24 second Monday of February there will be a 8 1 goalie clinic for the other five goalies, 2 which comprise of the Mite instructional, 3 the Mite's goalies and the Squirt goalies, 4 so those five goalies will go and that's 5 going to be run by the goalie coach at 6 Saugus High School and some of his goal 7 tenders. So we want to thank them for 8 volunteering their time. They had no 9 problem doing it and we think that's going 10 to do a good thing for the goalies. It will 11 get a lot of attention. That's all I have. 12 MR. GROARK: With the meeting minutes 13 from the 18th all set, I don't have anything 14 as far as the secretary goes. Going to the 15 Mites, first, I want to say congratulations 16 to the Mite C's for winning their Bruin's 17 Holiday Tournament. I think they're at the 18 Boston Garden tonight getting awarded for 19 that. Also, I want to congratulate the Mite 20 B's for being runners up in that tournament. 21 And also I want to congratulate the Mite A's 22 for winning the Winthrop Tournament. And 23 for cross-eyes, I spoke to one of the 24 coaches, Mike, they're currently playing 9 1 half ice games and full ice games, and from 2 the feedback I've received it sounds like 3 all is going pretty well with them, and 4 that's all I have as far as the Mites go. 5 MR. BRAZIS: Anything further, 6 Mr. Secretary? 7 MR. GROARK: That's it. 8 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Treasurer. 9 MR. OXLEY: I don't have any formal 10 statements. Unfortunately a lot has gone on 11 over the past month, but I can let everyone 12 know where we're at. Financially, that's 13 probably the biggest agenda item for this 14 board, this current board moving forward. 15 We had been in decent shape, but we're at a 16 turning point where it becomes a little more 17 critical. Numbers-wise we have $23,000 in 18 the bank right now. We are owed tuition 19 payments of roughly $27,000, so tuition that 20 was supposed to have been paid in full by, I 21 believe, November 1st, maybe October 1st -- 22 I forget the date now, to be honest. 23 November? We are still $27,000 outstanding. 24 The reality of our situation is we still owe 10 1 the Valley League $24,000. That number may 2 change a little bit given, you know, they 3 bill you upfront. We've had teams come and 4 go out of the league, so that number may 5 fluctuate. The Valley does a good job of 6 auditing their numbers after the season, but 7 until that point, as of right now, we still 8 owe them that money. We owe the Manoff 9 Group or North Suburban Hockey League, LLC, 10 I believe they're called now, for our 11 practice ice. We are paid through November. 12 I basically wait 'til month's end before 13 paying, so we owe December's practice ice 14 right now, which is roughly $9,000, and 15 going forward, we'll owe between eight and 16 nine thousand dollars every month for 17 January, February, March, and probably half 18 of that in April. So if you do the quick 19 math, you know, we owe 24,000 to the Valley; 20 we owe, currently, you know, 9,000 to the 21 Manoff Group for our practice ice 22 immediately, and then we'll owe roughly 23 another, say, $24,000 to $30,000 for 24 practice ice for the remainder of the year. 11 1 So at best, we're coming up a little short 2 on money. Now, that doesn't factor in any 3 fundraising moneys. Right now it's all the 4 moneys that we've collected are accounted 5 for, but any future fundraising events, you 6 know, will help us. 7 So that being said, you know, one of 8 the first jobs we're going to be doing is, 9 you know, we went through the holidays, we 10 went through a big transition here, but 11 we'll have another push now on collecting 12 our outstanding payments. It is what it is. 13 We all know it's a tough economy, but, you 14 know, we're providing a service, we want to 15 teach the kids, we love -- that's why we're 16 here, we love the kids, we want to teach 17 them the game of hockey, but it's an 18 expensive sport and we owe people right now 19 money and we need to get the money paid from 20 our parents. So that's the reality on our 21 financial situation. I put together, I 22 think, at the November meeting or December 23 meeting -- I think it was the December 24 meeting I had put together just a tally list 12 1 of the checking account and I'll do the same 2 thing -- I'll actually try and produce an 3 actual financial statement for the next 4 meeting. If you guys want to stand on that 5 at all before I jump to -- 6 MR. NORTON: You provided some update 7 information? 8 MR. OXLEY: Yeah. Actually, I have -- 9 I don't know if it's gone out to the 10 directors. 11 MR. NORTON: Not yet. 12 MR. OXLEY: I have all the updated 13 balances, so I'll send those to the various 14 coaching directors and we'll go through that 15 same exercise that we did before. The 16 Midgets are squared away. Rich Andrews I 17 see in the back of the room. You know, Rich 18 -- we are going to continue on or at least 19 Rich wants to continue on with the Midget 20 full season team, but Dana, we'll talk. I 21 have everything squared away as far as the 22 previous -- the first part, you know. We 23 have two Midget half seasons teams that are 24 done really and now this one team is going 13 1 to continue on for a remaining 18-game 2 season, so -- 3 MR. DeMATTEO: Okay. 4 MR. OXLEY: -- yeah, I'll send those 5 spreadsheets out to all the coaching 6 directors. The biggest dollar amounts are 7 in the Squirt and PeeWee levels. I think 8 out of the 28,000, twenty-three of it is 9 from those two groups. The Mite group is in 10 great shape. It's only maybe $1,000 11 outstanding out of all our Mites, and 12 there's some outstanding dollars for the 13 Bantams and Midgets. Actually, the 27,000 I 14 said was outstanding didn't include the 15 Midget money. I wasn't factoring that in 16 just yet, so that's additional money that's 17 coming to us. 18 MR. NORTON: I guess as it relates to 19 the PeeWees and the Squirts, we're going to 20 work with you, Rich, to help with that. 21 There's a lot we want to get done as fast as 22 possible, so Scott is going to be working 23 with the PeeWee A's, I'll do the Squirts and 24 Pat is going to do the PeeWee B's with you. 14 1 MR. ZABROSKI: All right. 2 MR. NORTON: Try to be a little more 3 persistent to try to collect it. 4 MR. BRAZIS: If I could just interrupt 5 for one minute? 6 MR. GROARK: Sure. 7 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Secretary, could you 8 get on the record that Ellen Coccoluto is 9 now present, please? 10 MR. GROARK: Ellen Coccoluto, are you 11 here? 12 MR. COCCOLUTO: I'm here. 13 MR. BRAZIS: I apologize for the 14 interruption. Please, continue. 15 MR. NORTON: Can I ask one question? 16 When we get to the collections, are we -- do 17 we want to agree here upon what date we're 18 putting and then what the consequences are? 19 We all know that any moneys that are 20 received, whether it be for this year or for 21 the registration next year, are going to be 22 first applied to the oldest balances, but 23 are we going to get back to the dates 24 certain and then the kids are going to be 15 1 pulled off the ice from their teams? Can we 2 agree upon something at this point or are we 3 going to take that stand now? Not pointing 4 at you, at anybody. 5 MR. BRAZIS: Please, board, any 6 thoughts, ideas? 7 MR. GROARK: Could I just ask a 8 question to Dana and Rich? 9 MR. ZABROSKI: Yeah. 10 MR. GROARK: When you sent out 11 those -- when you got the previous list, 12 we'll start with Dana, how did that go 13 contacting -- 14 MR. DeMATTEO: It actually went pretty 15 well and I got a lot of responses. The only 16 thing I need to confirm is that they 17 actually paid; so hopefully, Dwayne, you 18 have that, you have the checks or whatever, 19 then you'll update it again, then I'll have 20 a smaller list and I can just go back again. 21 MR. OXLEY: Right. Anything -- any 22 checks that were submitted through, like, 23 the 2nd of January; I went to the post 24 office over the weekend, there was only one 16 1 check there. That's been recorded. All the 2 previous checks, and I know -- unfortunately 3 checks come in from many different sources, 4 you know, from other coaches, there's a lot 5 of handling of moneys. Fundraising moneys, 6 you know, didn't get -- we did a whole 7 calendar fundraising event, we did an Avon 8 fundraising event. Unfortunately, when I 9 deposited those checks, some of the dates on 10 those were back to October, but, you know, 11 they didn't get submitted until December. 12 It's just unfortunate for some people that 13 they don't see checks clearing on a timely 14 basis, but it's a function of just -- if you 15 don't submit it to the P.O. Box, if you're 16 relying on either coaches or people to hand 17 money secondhand, it delays a little bit, so 18 -- but everything -- I mean, I don't have 19 anything in my possession that hasn't been 20 recorded. 21 MR. DeMATTEO: I know when we got the 22 list the last time it was probably a couple 23 days old maybe, some people -- 24 MR. OXLEY: Something that may have 17 1 been submitted this week. 2 MR. DeMATTEO: I knew it made the 3 list, and hopefully it's on the list now 4 whether it's taken off. 5 MR. OXLEY: Yeah, anything that came 6 in since Saturday would not be on there. 7 MR. NORTON: Did you speak to John 8 about being able to hook up a credit card 9 machine? Did you have an opportunity to 10 speak to him? 11 MR. OXLEY: I did not. We do want to 12 make the credit card machine available. We 13 need to coordinate that with the rink 14 personnel to make sure that we can have 15 access. It needs to be able to plug into a 16 phone line, which unfortunately those 17 offices are locked now. They used to be 18 more accessible to us, but with the change 19 in ownership, we just need to get that 20 okayed, so we'll put dates on the website 21 when the credit card machine will be 22 available. 23 MR. NORTON: I think it makes sense 24 for us to sort of establish a date that the 18 1 payments have to be due by. This is the 2 6th. Is three weeks enough time for us to 3 get a revised letter out and then start 4 working the parents, and in that period of 5 time we'll be able to send out an email as 6 to when the credit card machine will be 7 available, so we can say by the 27th? 8 MR. OXLEY: I think we have to because 9 I think by the end of -- when January is 10 over, then I'm going to owe January's ice 11 time for practice, so that's another eight 12 or nine thousand that's going to have to be 13 paid and they want their money right away. 14 MR. NORTON: There was a letter that 15 went out, I think it was December 4th; 16 right? 17 MR. GROARK: Yes, for the most part 18 depending on when the directors sent it out. 19 Rich, were you able to contact -- 20 MR. ZABROSKI: I called all the 21 parents and emailed them all. I know I was 22 successful with the Squirt B's and the 23 PeeWee A's. I heard back from maybe two or 24 three parents on the Squirt A and PeeWee B, 19 1 and I believe they're the majority of the 2 outstanding balances, and two or three 3 people said they gave -- they paid. A 4 couple of them asked how much they owed, 5 they were going to pay, and I didn't hear 6 from anybody else. 7 MR. NORTON: Did we have a canning 8 letter that was send out? 9 MR. GROARK: Yes. 10 MR. NORTON: We should probably just 11 update that can letter, we should try to get 12 that out to all the parents and we can sit 13 down and figure out how we're going to break 14 that up to get that out by the end of this 15 week. And then we'll give them to the 27th 16 as sort of the drop-dead date, and at that 17 point, the children will no longer be 18 allowed to skate. 19 MR. BRAZIS: Directors, I can't tell 20 you how important this money issue is to 21 Saugus Youth Hockey. It is that grim. I 22 certainly didn't envision myself having to, 23 being up here in the first place and now 24 that I am, never having to address you to 20 1 tell you that this may come down to actually 2 pulling people off the ice. That's how grim 3 it is. The reason I say that to you is 4 because we owe that to the people that have 5 paid. We owe it to the people in this 6 organization that have paid and paid in 7 full. You know, it's going to call for some 8 drastic measures and I just want you all to 9 be prepared. When you see the numbers, 10 you'll see what I'm talking about, and it's 11 something that needs to be done. I'm not 12 going to say now what needs to be done 13 because hopefully in three weeks we're going 14 to have a ton of money come in here and 15 everybody is going to be happy. This is not 16 a great subject to be bringing up and it's 17 not a good subject to be talking about, and 18 it's something hopefully that we can work on 19 a payment plan that we will not be in this 20 position next year. We are going to take 21 different measures. I can't tell you how 22 important it is to get out to your programs 23 and tell them that we have to get this money 24 in. I know how bad times are out there, but 21 1 Saugus Youth Hockey owes it to the people 2 that have paid and paid in full. I don't 3 know if everybody else feels that way, but 4 some of the people that I talked to do feel 5 that way. And because you paid in full and 6 you may have somebody that paid only half, 7 and that boy is still taking shifts out on 8 to the ice, that's not fair. 9 MR. NORTON: Any shortfall is just 10 divided by everybody next year, you know 11 what I mean? We don't have the flexibility 12 we used to have to play with, you know, 13 payments, given the North Suburban and other 14 things, so if we have a shortfall at the end 15 of the year, it just gets added into the 16 tuition that everybody has to bear for next 17 year, and that really isn't fair to people 18 who paid what was owed this year. 19 MR. OXLEY: One of the things -- I 20 mean, I see new faces, which is great. One 21 of the things that changed this year was, 22 you know, like Pat just mentioned, in prior 23 years, you know, we had the North Suburban 24 League and John Hatch running the rink. 22 1 Now, John Hatch has been a good friend of 2 Saugus Youth Hockey and basically I used to 3 be able to just put off paying him until the 4 moneys came in, so we have always had these 5 collection issues. They've actually gotten 6 a little better, but our circumstances have 7 changed. What we're dealing with now is we 8 don't play in the North Suburban League, we 9 play in the Valley League, and we've always 10 played in the Valley League. The Valley 11 League wants their money up front. They 12 bill you three invoices. You have to be 13 paid in full by November. We actually owe 14 them money right now and they're working 15 with us because we've had a good 16 relationship with them over the years, but 17 at any point they could just say, "Look, we 18 don't float you anymore. We're suspending 19 your games," and we wouldn't be playing 20 games. The practice situation, like I said, 21 John Hatch ran the Kasabuski Arena. We 22 floated our practice ice where I ended up 23 paying for, you know, October ice in March. 24 Well, the new owner isn't accepting that. 23 1 He wants us to pay in advance. I told him I 2 won't do that. I'm not going to pay until 3 the month has been completed, so he is 4 allowing that to happen right now, so -- 5 which means, you know, I owe him right now 6 and he's looking for it, December's ice 7 time. We just finished the month of 8 December, so within a week when the month 9 closes, that's usually when I'm paying him. 10 So there's no longer the flexibility that 11 Pat was just talking about of kind of 12 floating until the money came in. The money 13 has to come in now. 14 MR. NORTON: I think that goes to sort 15 of the next point is we need to be getting 16 the money in. It's very difficult once the 17 kids are on the teams to be having to pull 18 them off the ice. No one wants to do it, 19 but there is no other alternative, so one of 20 the things we want to do is we want to make 21 sure that all of the moneys are collected 22 before they go on the ice, and then if 23 they're not paid, they don't go on the ice. 24 If we have to rejigger the teams, we will. 24 1 So what we want to do is we want to create a 2 payment plan such that everybody is paid in 3 full before they play. We're not allowed to 4 float anything. It's not anything that we 5 enjoy doing, but there needs to be a payment 6 plan put in place. The idea that we had 7 come up with is that there's going to be 8 amount due, 500 will be due at the 9 registration, and then once the final 10 expenses and everything else is figured out 11 by the end of the fiscal year, the next 12 payments will be due equally on June 1st and 13 on August 1st. We want to get that on the 14 board as soon as possible so everybody is 15 aware that the full payments are going to be 16 due. We don't know what the tuition is 17 going to be because we still have to figure 18 out what the ice is going to be. We don't 19 know if there's going to be any shortfall 20 this year that we're going to have to cover 21 and build into it. So at the end of the 22 year when we know what everything is, we'll 23 be able to finalize those last two payments, 24 but we need to get everything paid in full 25 1 before -- it's easier to keep them off the 2 ice before the season starts than trying to 3 pull them once they're on the ice. It also 4 affects the teams that they're on if you're 5 pulling kids off the ice mid way through the 6 year, so it's not fair to anybody. Again, 7 it's not anything -- we've known for years 8 there's been a float, things allowed to go. 9 It's not anything we enjoy doing, but 10 there's no way you can run the league 11 properly if you're not collecting the funds 12 before the season starts. We shouldn't be 13 raising money to cover shortfalls. The 14 fundraising should be just to pay for new 15 shirts, to pay for projects or to defer the 16 next year's tuition. There's a lot of ways 17 to handle it, but that's what we're 18 proposing is to have a payment plan of 500 19 due upon registration, half of what's left 20 due on June 1st, the remaining half due on 21 August 1st. And we'd like to, if anybody 22 doesn't object, we'd like to get that out on 23 the board? So as soon as possible people 24 are going to see. 26 1 MR. MOORE: I'm good. 2 MR. NORTON: Anybody? 3 MR. OXLEY: The only other thing is 4 that unfortunately tuition will be going up 5 next year. Right now the practice ice we 6 went from $135 an hour to $185 this year, 7 and the proposal that's on the table from 8 the current owner of the rink is to go to 9 240 an hour next year, so we need to 10 negotiate that, but that is what he's 11 looking to get for an hour of practice ice 12 next year. Again, it's somewhat of a harsh 13 reality, but it is what it is. Anything 14 else? 15 MR. BRAZIS: Are you responsible to 16 get that on to the website, the new payment 17 schedule and what we talked about with three 18 weeks? 19 MR. OXLEY: Yeah, I'll work on that. 20 MR. BRAZIS: You'll work on that and 21 get that on there immediately, please? 22 MR. OXLEY: Yup. 23 MR. BRAZIS: We want to have 24 everything out there, open book, everybody 27 1 knows. 2 MR. PATTERSON: Just replace what's up 3 there now. 4 MR. OXLEY: I'll talk a little bit 5 about the coaching, my coaching director 6 role. You know, I think the one positive 7 thing that's been consistent and we got away 8 from it a little bit in December has been 9 the skill program. We had a skills -- two 10 skills sessions tonight. I thought they 11 went well. It's something that we've kept 12 in-house to keep it cheap, but I think it's 13 working well. I think we just need to get 14 the kids there. They've been coming pretty 15 consistently. Hopefully parents understand 16 that it's really probably the most important 17 thing you can do for your kid as far as 18 hockey development right now is to develop 19 their skills. So, you know, that we started 20 again and that will be consistent now every 21 other week for the remainder of the season. 22 As far as coaching, I will say I need 23 to regroup with all the coaches. You know, 24 obviously some of the happenings over the 28 1 past couple of months and a lot of what led 2 to some of the resignations were directly or 3 indirectly related to coaching issues, so I 4 just need to, you know, get everybody. At 5 some point in the near future I'll call 6 another coaches meeting, make sure 7 everybody's on the same page with what we're 8 supposed to be here for. Coaching is one 9 big piece of it, but there's a lot of things 10 that we need to do and be responsible for as 11 coaches. You know, we need to be 12 responsible to the children, to the parents, 13 you know, and it goes sometimes beyond pure 14 hockey teachings. So we'll get coaches up 15 to speed. You know, there are coaching 16 patching issues that we need to make sure 17 everyone is patched the right level. We 18 need to make sure that coaches are adhering 19 to player movement policies as far as 20 calling up players, there are procedures 21 that need to be followed, you know, things 22 along those lines that we just need to 23 regroup and make sure everyone is on the 24 same page. 29 1 MR. BRAZIS: And that we're doing the 2 right thing. 3 MR. OXLEY: The right thing. 4 MR. BRAZIS: Anything else? 5 MR. OXLEY: That's it. 6 MR. BRAZIS: Okay. Anything else from 7 the E Board? 8 MR. NORTON: All set. 9 MR. BRAZIS: I'd also like to mention 10 that the Squirt B's won their division in 11 the Miracle on Ice Tournament over in 12 Winthrop. Just a suggestion, Mr. Secretary, 13 maybe a letter from the E Board 14 congratulating those teams on that. It was 15 a good weekend for Saugus Youth Hockey. 16 After the grim news we just heard, it's nice 17 to have some good news. 18 MR. PATTERSON: If you want to post 19 the letter, too, send it to me so I can put 20 it on the website. That's a nice little 21 thing. 22 MR. BRAZIS: Excellent. Great idea. 23 I just wanted to mention that. Next, we'll 24 go around the room. Registrar, Stacy Tait. 30 1 MS. TAIT: I don't have anything. 2 MR. BRAZIS: I know you have to get 3 going. Our ice coordinator, Mr. Bono. 4 MR. BONO: Work on the remainder of 5 the January practice schedule once the 6 Valley updates their game schedule, so 7 hopefully that comes out this week, Valley's 8 schedule, game schedule. 9 MR. NORTON: Remember we talked about 10 potentially Austin Prep taking a couple of 11 hours of extra ice that we had? Times are 12 tough everywhere, I did not get that 13 approved, so Austin Prep cannot take those 14 extra hours. 15 MR. BONO: I received an email from 16 John Hatch. I sent an email out, I don't 17 know if everyone saw it, but originally, 18 tomorrow at 6:00 PeeWee A and B was 19 scheduled for practice. That was an error. 20 That's the skating club's hour, so practice 21 is cancelled. And I did check -- today, the 22 Valley schedule for the Midget full team 23 came out and they have a game Monday, 24 January 12th, which I have them scheduled 31 1 for 8:20 that night. When I made the 2 schedule it was before their game schedule 3 came out, so I'm going to take them off and 4 propose putting PeeWee A and PeeWee B for 5 practice next Monday at 8:12 -- I mean, 6 8:20. The only conflict is there is that 7 goalie clinic at 4:50 for the PeeWees. I 8 don't know how big of a deal that is. If 9 you want to practice without your goalies, 10 make it optional for them, I don't know. I 11 really can't put anyone else at 8:20. I 12 think it's too late for the other kids. 13 That's what I'm going to propose to do. 14 MR. NORTON: Can the goalies do both 15 if they want to? 16 MR. BONO: Yeah, I'd make it optional 17 for the coaches. 18 MR. NORTON: Is that okay with you, 19 Rich? 20 MR. ZABROSKI: It's fine with me. I'm 21 sure the parents aren't crazy about it. 22 MR. BONO: I talked to Frank Serino 23 earlier and he didn't have a problem with 24 it. I kind of wanted to feel it out from 32 1 the coaches and see do they think it's too 2 late for them. 3 MR. ZABROSKI: I mean, I know we've 4 had some 8:20 practices and we'll probably 5 get most of the kids, half the kids. 6 MR. BONO: I can look and try to put 7 the Bantams there. I have to look at the 8 schedule. I don't think they're scheduled 9 already. 10 MR. SERINO: We've only had it one 11 time and the time we've had it was the 12 zambonie mix up, but I think a lot of 13 parents -- 14 UNKNOWN NAME: I'm a PeeWee parent and 15 I think it's too late, because by the time 16 they get home and shower, it's 10:00, 17 they're going to bed. 18 MR. BONO: I'll look at the schedule 19 and I'll try to put the Bantams there. If 20 not, we have an open hour. 21 MR. GROARK: Keep in mind, I think the 22 Midgets are going to be -- 23 MR. BONO: See, that's the problem, I 24 have the Midgets scheduled right now. 33 1 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Andrews? 2 MR. ANDREWS: I was asking to see if I 3 could switch with John. He had the 5 to 4 6:00 Midget and Bantams Friday at 6, right, 5 and then I had the ice at 8:20 on Monday. I 6 got the game Monday, so I was going to see 7 if John wanted to give me the full sheet on 8 Friday and take the full sheet on Monday. 9 'Cause I was going to talk to Frank, but I 10 figured the PeeWees would complain about the 11 8:20, but I figured John would just take the 12 8:20. He wouldn't complain too much 'cause 13 it's Bantams and I would just take his sheet 14 on Friday. 15 MR. BONO: That's fine. I can 16 actually send an email out. Can I have your 17 email address? 18 MR. Andrews: Sure. Do you want it 19 right now? Richieicu@aol.com. 20 MR. BONO: That's all I have. 21 MR. BRAZIS: Questions, comments? 22 Mr. Zabroski. 23 MR. ZABROSKI: With the PeeWee A's and 24 PeeWee B's, the PeeWee A's had a game 34 1 scheduled on Friday night. There was a JV 2 game. Our goalie is playing JV hockey. 3 With the lack of practice time in between, 4 we had almost two weeks off to look at the 5 goalies, I spoke with Frank after it 6 happened and he was upset that, you know, 7 the goalies weren't given a shot, and we 8 discussed in the future we're going to work 9 together and hopefully, knowing if there's a 10 conflict coming up, that I can borrow one of 11 his goalies during practice and get him 12 comfortable and used to working with our 13 team. So hopefully in the future, we won't 14 have to cancel any more games if there is 15 any more conflicts with the JV team. 16 Other than that, collection money, I 17 sent all the emails out, like I said, to the 18 parents. A couple of them got back. We 19 just have to get to a point where it's 20 always drawing the lines in the sand, and 21 all the parents know. November they were 22 notified, three or four gave their money. 23 December they got notified, three or four 24 more gave their money, but there's always 35 1 people waiting 'cause they figure their kids 2 are going to be able to play, and 3 registration comes along and we catch up 4 with them. So there has to be some point 5 where we all make a stand together. I mean, 6 I don't want to pull a kid off the ice, but 7 if we have to to make 20 other people pay, 8 we're going to have to. 9 MR. BRAZIS: I will be with you in 10 your crusade to get the money. I was given 11 the PeeWee A team, so between the both of 12 us, hopefully, we can square this situation 13 away. 14 MR. ZABROSKI: All right. 15 MR. BRAZIS: And just to make a 16 comment about, you had a conversation with 17 Frank, communication means a lot to 18 everybody, so we're all on the same team in 19 here, so let's talk, okay. Communication 20 gets a lot of things done. When you don't 21 talk -- 22 MR. MOORE: What would you think about 23 bringing both of them, bring them both up, 24 let them split the games? 36 1 MR. ZABROSKI: Well, it was something 2 that Frank and myself decided, you know. We 3 talked about -- 4 MR. MOORE: I just thought of it. 5 MR. ZABROSKI: I didn't want to put 6 him on the spot also to pick between one of 7 his two goalies. I've had two goalies 8 before and it's -- you know, you're going to 9 upset somebody. One of the goalies is his 10 own son also, so if he does the right thing 11 or the wrong thing, he may have the other 12 goalie upset with him or his own son upset 13 with him. 14 MR. MOORE: Well, the reason I say 15 that is they've been splitting all year. 16 What's the difference? 17 MR. ZABROSKI: Right. It was 18 something that we discussed that also in the 19 future. So I mean, like I said, it happened 20 over a weekend, it was one practice, so it 21 was kind of a bing-bang situation on my 22 behalf, and, you know, that's why I told 23 Frank that in the future I'll work together 24 with him to make sure that the opportunities 37 1 are there. 2 MR. BRAZIS: Communication is a good 3 thing. Anything else? 4 MR. ZABROSKI: I haven't heard 5 anything about the Squirt level, but that's 6 about all I have. 7 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. DeMatteo. 8 MR. DeMATTEO: Just on the patching. 9 I didn't get an update. I spoke to 10 everybody or got emails, so I don't know if 11 they actually went through with it, and I 12 don't know if they notified you, so I can't 13 tell you if they're patched or not. 14 Everyone was gonna, I just haven't 15 followed-up now. 16 MR. OXLEY: We won't know until -- I 17 honestly, I finished mine, my 18 recertification online on December 31st at 19 like 9:00 at night, so December 31st is the 20 deadline, so it won't be posted on their 21 website probably for a few weeks. 22 MR. DeMATTEO: When you take it, you 23 know automatically if you got it; right? 24 MR. OXLEY: Yeah. 38 1 MR. DeMATTEO: So I can go back to 2 everybody now and I'll try and get an 3 update. 4 MR. OXLEY: If they were doing it 5 online, it's either done or it isn't. You 6 print a certificate out, it says you 7 completed it. 8 MR. DeMATTEO: Let's say that some 9 people aren't. We're into January, so are 10 we running the risk of forfeiting games now? 11 MR. OXLEY: They won't forfeit games. 12 They typically will just go in spirts. Come 13 end of the season, if you're in any -- if 14 you're certainly playing in any kind of 15 State tournament or anything like that, you 16 can't be on the bench. Regular league 17 games, Valley League, occasionally referees 18 will ask you to show your card and your 19 updated sticker, and if you don't have it, 20 you just can't stay on the bench. You're 21 not going to forfeit a game, but you can't 22 be on the bench, and we need to talk as a 23 board -- we probably won't do it tonight -- 24 but we need to make a policy on that; 39 1 whether we want coaches to be out on the ice 2 if they haven't been patched. You're 3 supposed to be patched a certain level to be 4 out there. 5 MR. DeMATTEO: The other thing is I've 6 gone to a handful of Bantam games and where 7 they got dropped down to the level they're 8 in, they're all very happy. They're winning 9 games, they're happy. So that's a really 10 good thing. I just wanted to add that in. 11 Other than that, I'm hoping, you're 12 going to hang around and I haven't met Rich, 13 but I'm going to meet Rich shortly and we 14 were just going to talk Midgets right after, 15 if we could, for a few minutes. 16 MR. OXLEY: Yup. 17 MR. BRAZIS: Questions, comments? 18 MR. NORTON: Now, can we talk about 19 the Midgets going forward? How do we stand 20 on the collection of the Midgets that are 21 playing to go forward? 22 MR. DeMATTEO: We're going to meet 23 tonight right after and we're just going to 24 confirm the numbers, and then I'm going to 40 1 call the parents. And now that they have 2 games, I can actually show up, you know, one 3 of the first few games and try to meet the 4 parents, and then -- at least that's how it 5 worked with the Bantams. I didn't really 6 know too many parents, but just going to the 7 games after a while they know who you are 8 and it's gotten better. 9 MR. NORTON: It looks like -- I might 10 be reading this incorrectly, but it still 11 looks like they, of approximately 4,900 12 bucks that was due, still about 3,000 of the 13 past season is still owed. 14 MR. OXLEY: Right. The first half 15 season, which is a 12-game schedule, it 16 ended right before Thanksgiving, that's that 17 list that you have there. We'll talk about 18 it afterwards. What Rich will tell us is 19 that -- I think there's at least one new 20 kid. There may be a lot of the same kids 21 and that's what we need to see. If they're 22 the same kids, we need to collect that money 23 right now before they play. 24 MR. NORTON: Are we going to try and 41 1 collect it all before they pay or are we 2 going to go out a little bit? 3 MR. OXLEY: Well, that's really just 4 one payment. I mean, the first 12 games was 5 a payment of $450. 6 MR. NORTON: So we gotta collect that 7 one and we gotta try to -- before we get 8 that team up and running, do we collect that 9 money up front or how are we going to handle 10 that? 11 MR. OXLEY: We need to talk about that 12 'cause the balance will be about -- the 13 numbers I worked out would be about 750. 14 Initially it was going to be a $1,200 cost 15 for the 30-game season and it really plays 16 out the same way. I mean, I factored, you 17 know -- I counted 18 more games at the 18 Valley rates and I gave them one practice a 19 week for the next 12 or 13 weeks and it 20 comes out to roughly the same money. So if 21 they paid their 450, they're going to owe 22 another 750, you know. So 1,200 in total is 23 going to be the amount for anyone who's 24 played for that full season. 42 1 MR. NORTON: I'd just like to get all 2 of that before. I don't want to get back to 3 having to collect again. It would be 4 preferable to get what was owed from the 5 prior and to get everything up front before 6 this is up and running. 7 MR. OXLEY: I think we need to 8 certainly collect the prior. To be honest, 9 the Midgets are a little bit of a different 10 beast. I mean, I think we need -- if it's 11 750 we need to collect, you know -- I think 12 I'd like to see two payments for the 750. I 13 think it's reasonable to give them two 14 payments, because it's -- again, with the 15 Midget level you don't even know if there's 16 going to be a team. Rich didn't know. I 17 knew my team was stopping 'cause most of my 18 kids played high school hockey, but the 19 Valley even recognizes that. They wait and 20 see who's left after high school tryouts and 21 then they have like a three-game perry 22 schedule and now the league is starting up 23 again. So it's only fair, I think, because 24 no one even really knew until probably this 43 1 week. I mean, Rich knew that he was going 2 to have a team and enough players. 3 MR. GROARK: May I ask have you had 4 any issues in the past collecting from the 5 Midget level, in years past? 6 MR. OXLEY: Well, we haven't always 7 had -- this is actually the first time we've 8 had a Midget team in I don't know how long. 9 I can tell you that the Bantam level, you 10 know, whatever the level is that is the 11 highest level, it's a problem when kids are 12 leaving the program, so if you're a 13 second-year Bantam or a second-year Midget, 14 you know, if we don't get that money now and 15 they stop playing, if they finish the 16 season, I can tell you I walk around town 17 and I always bump into people that look me 18 in the eye and smile and say "Hi," and I 19 know in the back of my mind that they owe me 20 money, you know, they left this program 21 owing money. 22 MR. NORTON: How many kids are looking 23 to play on this Midget team? 24 MR. OXLEY: I think there's ten 44 1 skaters, Rich? 2 MR. ZABROSKI: Yeah. Well, I think 3 it's 12. 4 MR. NORTON: In the worst-case 5 scenario, if we had to pull somebody because 6 they weren't paying, my theory is we have to 7 pull one or two, does it ruin the rest of 8 the team? 9 MR. ANDREWS: It's tough because you 10 can't play with less than ten players. 11 MR. NORTON: That's my concern. If we 12 get the ten players and someone is not 13 paying, we have to pull them, now you don't 14 have a team and it ruins the -- 15 MR. ANDREWS: This is like the last 16 block right now. I've been at kid's houses 17 trying to get them to play, to not quit 18 playing hockey. So it's been a fight since 19 we started. We usually don't have a 20 four-year Midget team, but I had six kids 21 that really wanted to play, so the other six 22 kids I had to talk into staying. So now the 23 money thing, I didn't even bring up to them 24 yet 'cause their first game is Thursday and 45 1 I'm trying to just get them going, excited 2 about playing, and then Friday telling them 3 they gotta pay the money. 4 MR. NORTON: What is the response 5 going to be if we were to get all past due 6 and then full of everything that's due up 7 front of all past due and half of what's 8 due, and then 30 days the rest is due? 9 MR. ANDREWS: Yeah, I think that's -- 10 like Dwayne said, we can do payments because 11 it was like 450 at the beginning for the 12 half year. And then like you said, after 13 Thanksgiving, after high school, find out 14 who you have left. Like next year we were 15 going to do things a little bit different 16 with the Midgets, maybe not even have a 17 four-year team until after Thanksgiving, 18 kind of start it from that point. 19 MR. NORTON: My concern is you give 20 them the 30 days, and now they have the 21 leverage because they -- 22 MR. ANDREWS: What I'm looking at is 23 these kids were in the program for ten 24 years, so you want to give them a little bit 46 1 of slack, try to keep them in the program. 2 'Cause that's what happened with the Midgets 3 in Valley and everything else, nobody gives 4 a crap about the Midgets, 'cause they're out 5 the door. So Valley doesn't really move you 6 around as much because they don't care, 7 you're gone, you're not their bread and 8 butter, you know what I mean? So we 9 shouldn't do the same thing with the Midgets 10 and just say, Well, you know, we're not 11 going to cut them any slack 'cause we may 12 lose money on them. These kids have been in 13 here for ten years. 14 MR. NORTON: So we can agree to all 15 past due plus 50 percent up front, and then 16 30 days for the remaining 50 percent? 17 MR. ANDREWS: I think so. Something 18 like that, yeah. 19 MR. NORTON: Is that okay? 20 MR. OXLEY: Yeah. 21 MR. BRAZIS: That's great. 22 MR. ANDREWS: I think we gotta talk 23 about this and figure out 'cause we do have 24 a couple of kids who are just starting at 47 1 this point, so you gotta kind of figure out 2 something a little different maybe for a 3 couple of different kids. 4 MR. BRAZIS: So Rich, Dana and Dwayne 5 should have a little chat after the meeting 6 so we'll all be on the same page. Fair 7 enough, Rich? 8 MR. ZABROSKI: Yeah. 9 MR. DeMATTEO: One more thing. I just 10 want to remind you one player is not playing 11 on the Bantams, he dropped out and we were 12 talking about getting him a partial refund. 13 I just want to remind you. 14 MR. OXLEY: Name? 15 MR. DeMATTEO: Kevin Majorie. 16 MR. OXLEY: Oh, okay. 17 MR. DeMATTEO: I did send an email and 18 I said you were working on that, you know, 19 they would get something, so they were like 20 "Great. Thank you." I just want to make 21 sure we follow up. 22 MR. OXLEY: Yup, it will be a post- 23 Christmas present. 24 MR. DeMATTEO: That's it. 48 1 MR. BRAZIS: Anything else, sir? 2 MR. DeMATTEO: No. 3 MR. BRAZIS: Questions, comments? 4 (Pause.) 5 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Patterson. 6 MR. PATTERSON: Not a whole lot new to 7 report. Learn to Skate's coming along. We 8 have a lot more help this year than we have 9 in past years, so it's making it a lot 10 easier for guys to do what they need to do, 11 go to games. Myself included. Pat's been a 12 great help since the beginning and now Mike 13 Moriello has been a fantastic help on the 14 ice and pretty much takes over when need be. 15 We had Santa Claus come late because of the 16 snowstorm and the kids loved it. We gave 17 out -- I bought a bunch of candy and we gave 18 out candy to all the kids and they had a 19 great time, and it's just coasting right 20 along. We actually have -- I got a few more 21 emails right after the holiday that some 22 people -- that Hockey Town is done with 23 their clinic and now they're all calling us 24 to see if they can jump on the Learn to 49 1 Skate, so we're going to prorate the time 2 for them and get them into the program and 3 they'll be showing up this week. 4 MR. BRAZIS: There was a woman there 5 Sunday night with her son. 6 MR. PATTERSON: I had told her she 7 could just show up and put him on the ice. 8 I said if he likes it, we'll go from there. 9 So that was one of them. Things are going 10 really well. I think the night change 11 changed things a little bit, but for the 12 most part, I think we're doing pretty well 13 considering. 14 MR. NORTON: For the better or the 15 worse? 16 MR. PATTERSON: For the better. 17 MR. NORTON: No, the night change. 18 MR. PATTERSON: The Saturday to Sunday 19 thing changed things for the worse just 20 because people were already ready. But 21 people didn't care, a lot of people came 22 anyway and it's been going well. I think 23 it's been going a lot better than expected. 24 MR. OXLEY: We should fight for that 50 1 Saturday hour. 2 MR. PATTERSON: Right. We should 3 fight for that Saturday again 'cause a lot 4 of people said, "Well, Sundays, they're 5 okay. It's the night before they go back to 6 school and it's been hard, you know, getting 7 the kids there on a Sunday night as opposed 8 to a Saturday night." 9 We lost the out of towners is what we 10 did. We had a lot of people coming from 11 other towns to the program. 12 MR. OXLEY: That change was 13 unfortunate, you know, we were trying to 14 work with the rink, with the new owner, 15 there was just a lot going on. We were 16 trying to compromise, and it ended up being 17 the better I think of two possibilities that 18 were given to us. 19 MR. PATTERSON: I agree. I think 20 Sunday night worked out fine. And honestly, 21 the decline wasn't just that. It was a lot 22 of things. People were cutting back and 23 that was the easiest thing to cut back even 24 though it's the cheapest program around for 51 1 the number of weeks you get. 2 MR. OXLEY: I noticed signs at every 3 rink and we are by far the cheapest, so 4 we'll relook at that. 5 MR. PATTERSON: We absolutely are. 6 And no one's complained about the price 7 increase, and actually the increase is what 8 got the number closer to what it would have 9 been if we had more players. And actually, 10 this is probably one of the bigger years 11 where we see kids that can actually jump 12 into the program next year, so that's 13 another positive note. A lot of these kids 14 are ready to make the jump and start playing 15 hockey next year. 16 MR. NORTON: Seems like more people 17 stayed. 18 MR. PATTERSON: Yes. 19 MR. NORTON: The last few years you'd 20 have 1,000 people on the ice and then it 21 would whittle down, whittle down. It seems 22 to be more the people came and stayed. 23 MR. PATTERSON: When people pay 100 24 bucks for 20 weeks, they know they can get 52 1 away with not showing up a couple weeks 2 here, you know, a week here, a week there. 3 The last -- the year before last was 4 probably one of the best years we ever had. 5 We had 100 people sign up and only two 6 people didn't come back. So that was a 7 really big year and I think we did $7,000 on 8 Learn to Skate. It was crazy. So to be 9 able to do something like that and have it 10 bring into the program and have it give back 11 to the program with the kids that we need to 12 recruit, because obviously we're losing kids 13 in the program. It's been very positive 14 from that standpoint. And I'll leave web 15 stuff up to the fundraising when we get to 16 the fundraising part of things. 17 MR. BRAZIS: Questions, comments? 18 (Pause.) 19 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Moore. 20 MR. MOORE: I've got nothing. 21 MR. BRAZIS: Everything is good in the 22 equipment business? 23 MR. MOORE: It's great. 24 MR. BRAZIS: Fantastic. 53 1 Ms. Coccoluto. 2 MS. COCCOLUTO: I wasn't at the last 3 meeting, so I'm kind of out in the dark. 4 I'm not sure how we ended up doing on the 5 sponsors. I don't know where we stand with 6 what we made on the calendars. I don't know 7 if anybody has actually pursued Universal 8 for a check from them for the apparel. I 9 need to -- well, somebody has to touch base 10 with Lucia. Did we get a check from 11 pictures, Captive Images from the pictures? 12 And I don't know how we made out with the 13 Avon. Dwayne touched base with me and 14 wanted to know whatever happened with 15 canning. 16 MR. PATTERSON: I know with the Avon 17 -- between the Avon and the calendars was 18 roughly in the neighborhood of $3,000. 19 MR. OXLEY: I don't have the exact 20 numbers, I'll bring them next meeting. The 21 calendars was the majority of it. The Avon 22 was only a few hundred dollars. The 23 calendars was, say, 2,700 or something like 24 that. I think we did get a check from 54 1 Captive Images. I'm not sure about 2 Universal, I'll have to check. 3 MS. COCCOLUTO: We have to make sure 4 that it's right 'cause last year we had to 5 go back and chase Captive Images 'cause they 6 shorted us quite a bit. 7 MR. OXLEY: I'll check. I'm not even 8 positive that we did get it. 9 MS. COCCOLUTO: And Universal, 10 sometimes you have to give them a gentle 11 reminder. 12 MR. OXLEY: I'll check. 13 MS. COCCOLUTO: Even if it's only a 14 couple hundred dollars, I just don't want to 15 see it go by the waste side. As far as 16 canning goes, that was just -- I don't know 17 whether it was delayed or cancelled. I 18 don't know, because it was if you sold ten 19 calendars you didn't have to can, and then 20 the date for the calendars was actually 21 bumped. Next thing you know it's November 22 and it's getting dark early and it's cold, 23 so I don't know whether we want to try to do 24 it at the end of the season, whether we want 55 1 to let it go this year, whether we want to 2 try to do another Coco Keys to make up for 3 the money that we didn't do with the 4 canning. 5 MR. OXLEY: Yeah, I mean, either 6 way -- 7 MS. COCCOLUTO: Coco Keys now with the 8 way the economy is going, they actually sent 9 me another email. Now it's a guaranteed -- 10 well, if you charge 20 for the ticket, 11 irregardless of how many you sell, it's a 12 guaranteed of $8 profit a ticket. We only 13 got $5 a ticket last time 'cause we only 14 sold 150 tickets. I don't know whether it's 15 -- I mean, even if we sell 50 tickets, it's 16 another $400. 17 MR. OXLEY: Right. 18 MS. COCCOLUTO: I don't know whether 19 we should go that route, whether we should 20 try to pick up with the canning in the 21 spring. 22 MR. OXLEY: The canning, I've never 23 been a -- I told these guys the other day 24 I've never been a huge fan of canning, but 56 1 it is guaranteed money. I mean, we get at 2 least $3,000 every time we do it. 3 MR. PATTERSON: One thing that we 4 still have not done and I see it every other 5 program does it, Mike offered to do it at 6 his place, is the jar. I see the soccer 7 ones all over the place. The jars are 8 usually filled with change and whatever 9 people do and put it in there. That's a 10 guaranteed money and we're not expecting 11 much, and if we get something out of it, 12 it's just a bonus on top of the other stuff. 13 MR. MORIELLO: The soccer team left 14 one at my business for a while and did very 15 well with it. No kids have to stand 16 anywhere. It just sits there. 17 MR. PATTERSON: And you just empty it 18 monthly or weekly or whatever. 19 MR. MORIELLO: It's easy. Even if you 20 don't make that much, it's still easy work. 21 MR. NORTON: Would that raise more 22 money than, say, in March having a canning? 23 We had fancied about maybe doing some 24 canning in March. Maybe it wouldn't be as 57 1 cold, you're more likely to get a better day 2 for the kids. Is that going to raise more 3 money? 4 MR. PATTERSON: You can do it in 5 conjunction. Who says you have to do one or 6 the other? 7 MR. WORTHLEY: The difference with the 8 canning and the reason why it wasn't done 9 this past year is not the same amount -- 10 it's in the prior meeting minutes, but the 11 rational was that there was phone calls made 12 and not a lot of the same places that canned 13 a year ago are allowing you to can now, so 14 there's a limit on the amount of places you 15 can call, so it is a very long tedious task 16 in terms of who will be making those phone 17 calls and how many places you can actually 18 hit up. So just wanted to give you a little 19 bit more, you know, smooth the transition. 20 MR. NORTON: How many places do you 21 need? I'm new to this. 22 MS. COCCOLUTO: You need 15 to 18 23 places. 24 MR. WORTHLEY: You know, Dunkin' 58 1 Donuts was a big place, they wouldn't do it 2 anymore. 3 MR. BRAZIS: What's your time frame on 4 the canning? 5 MS. COCCOLUTO: We do it -- we usually 6 do it starting at like 8, and some places 7 aren't even open that early. We usually end 8 it about 5. The last group of kids who go 9 out at 4 come in at 5. 10 MR. BRAZIS: So it's a whole day? 11 MS. COCCOLUTO: It's one day. Other 12 organizations, they put the kids out there 13 for two hours. Baseball does two hours. We 14 only do the one hour. They do it Friday, 15 Saturday, Sunday. We only do it usually on 16 a Saturday. 17 MR. WORTHLEY: You also need like a 18 triage unit at the rink. Folks that I had 19 done it last year along with Ellen and John 20 Whitlock, and, you know, you have to be 21 there the entire day and make sure you're 22 very organized as to which moneys are coming 23 out, which moneys are coming in. The 24 schedule needs to be made for which teams go 59 1 out when, as well as, you know, bump that up 2 against the game schedules that they have 3 for that particular day as well. Just, you 4 know, a little bit more background on what 5 the thought process was. At the end of the 6 day it was the calendars that, if we can 7 make up the 3,000 in calendars that we could 8 -- guarantee the 3,000 you'd get for the 9 canning and as minimal administrative effort 10 that had to go in it, that was the rational 11 behind it. 12 MR. NORTON: What's the leg work on 13 dropping the buckets? Same idea, calling 14 people, seeing who's going to accept us to 15 put a container? 16 MR. PATTERSON: We have some places 17 like Mike's business that have already told 18 us we could do it, and there are other 19 places that -- there'll be a lot more places 20 open for that than they would for the 21 canning 'cause it's just a matter of calling 22 places like Santoro's and saying, "Do you 23 mind if we put our thing there?" They'll 24 more than likely say, "That's no problem. 60 1 There's nothing really to do." And you just 2 put it in there and someone collects it 3 either weekly, monthly or whatever it may 4 be. And we get a nice one. We make sure it 5 says something nice, so it's not just 6 something with a sticker on it that doesn't, 7 you know, look like it's really going to 8 Saugus Youth Hockey. 9 MR. MORIELLO: They had a nice 10 container. It wasn't like a cut milk jug or 11 anything. It had a Saugus Soccer, a nice 12 logo on it so you felt like you're putting 13 your money in a real thing, and they left 14 their number with us and said, "If you get a 15 good amount of money, give us a call." We 16 called them, they came and took it, they 17 left the container there. 18 MR. RAIGO: Just kind of throwing it 19 out there, what about scanning a picture of 20 the different teams and putting the team 21 picture on each one of the jugs that go 22 around town? 23 MR. BRAZIS: Sure. 24 MR. RAIGO: It's a little more 61 1 concrete than just Saugus Youth Hockey. You 2 see the kids, you recognize the coaches, you 3 recognize the kid. I don't know if that's, 4 you know -- 5 MR. PATTERSON: It's all doable. 6 MR. NORTON: Do you have a number 7 where you can get these containers or -- 8 MS. ALLEN: You also have to have a 9 container that you can't see the money in, 10 what's in there. If people see dollars and 11 five dollars or whatever -- 12 MR. NORTON: They think it's good 13 enough. 14 MS. COCCOLUTO: We had white buckets 15 last year, and we could actually tape the 16 covers shut and then put the picture or 17 whatever we need. 18 MR. NORTON: Now, is this for the -- 19 MS. COCCOLUTO: That was for the 20 canning, but I don't see why we wouldn't be 21 able to just pretty much -- 22 MR. PATTERSON: Probably want to get 23 something just a little bit nicer. 24 MS. ALLEN: I'll look into that. 62 1 MR. SALVETTI: We could put something 2 on the website letting people know that it's 3 been agreed to have the buckets on the 4 counter, please go to these businesses. 5 MR. WORTHLEY: Mark has a great idea. 6 When talking to those specific places that 7 it's a good marketing opportunity for them 8 because they go on our website and they get 9 hit with many tens of thousands of traffic. 10 MR. PATTERSON: Right. We don't want 11 to confuse that with the people who pay 12 fully for advertising on that page either, 13 but just say there'll be mention of you on 14 the page as opposed to a link and the whole 15 thing. 'Cause there are people that pay for 16 advertisement to be on the page as well, so 17 it can still be a mention of it, just not 18 the full-blown link. 19 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Shrimpf. 20 MR. SHRIMPF: Are we going to 21 investigate looking into Texas Holdem this 22 year? It was a big money maker when we did 23 it, and I think if we do it at the right 24 time and really put a push because we can 63 1 make some nice money. 2 MR. PATTERSON: We have -- we got -- 3 we have almost everything in place to do it. 4 There was a question about the room. 5 Bostonville has agreed to let us -- well, 6 we're going to share -- Mark Mitchell 7 graciously offered his license, he has the 8 license to run tournaments, and he has a 9 room there and they basically give the room 10 to him so he's give it to us 'cause they 11 want the business to come in there. But 12 there is a question on how big, if the room 13 is big enough to host a larger poker 14 tournament if we get 50 even 60 people, if 15 it would be not too tight in there. So 16 we're going to look into that, but we are -- 17 the Texas Holdem tournament has been -- we 18 have been looking into all avenues as far 19 who we're going to have run it. The first 20 year we paid a company to run it and we 21 actually still made a lot of money. We had 22 a lot of people come. The next year we did 23 it at the wrong time, we did it at the same 24 time as the Patriots playoff game, and that, 64 1 I think, hurt us in a big way. Even though 2 we had a screen there, it still was a small 3 show, but we still did very well. 4 MR. NORTON: Did somebody run that one 5 for you? 6 MR. PATTERSON: We had somebody run 7 that one, and then -- was there three or 8 two? They ran it, but we had people 9 dealing, helping with the dealing, and the 10 only problem with that is that in order to 11 get a really good Texas Holdem tournament we 12 have to attract a certain element of people 13 that are going to come in and just be there 14 for the cards, and they don't care that 15 you're a volunteer, and they did give some 16 of the dealers a hard time if mistakes were 17 made and things of that nature 'cause 18 they're just there for the poker. I'm going 19 to look into both options to see and really 20 it's going to boil down to wherever we can 21 make the most money. 22 MR. OXLEY: We made $7,000 the first 23 year. 24 MR. PATTERSON: The first year we made 65 1 7,000, yeah, exactly. 2 MR. NORTON: How many people came? 3 MR. PATTERSON: That was after paying 4 -- that was 60 or 70 people at that one. We 5 paid Capone's, which is a full blown -- they 6 did everything. Paid them, we had to pay 7 the Ballard. I mean, we had to make a lot 8 of payments and we still made 7,000. The 9 reason why it works so well is the things 10 that we added to it, the different elements. 11 We want to have rebuys. We want to allow 12 people to basically, if they lose, buy 13 another set of chips, and we allow people to 14 do that ahead of time. So they went to the 15 table and they had the extra chips there 16 when they got knocked out, they could throw 17 the chips out or they could call for rebuy. 18 We had people walk around the room and sell 19 rebuys. We also started secondary tables. 20 As soon as people started getting knocked 21 off, we had secondary tables where another 22 tournament would start up, and they would 23 pay and they would get into the tournament 24 and that brought in extra cash. So it's 66 1 really just a matter of planning it, as Joe 2 mentioned, getting the timing right and 3 making sure that everybody kind of gets out 4 there and sells it. We had a really good 5 promotion those two times. We put out 6 fliers, we sent them out to all over the 7 place as best we can. 8 This year I was hoping to talk to a 9 bunch of people, and I started the process 10 and it kind of died down, but I went to a 11 bunch of people -- most of you will know I 12 went to you and said, "How many people do 13 you think you could bring to a poker 14 tournament?" I would like to get as many 15 people here and within the program to commit 16 to bringing, or at least saying, "Hey, I've 17 already got some people." And saying, "Look 18 you really to have to show up." Just try to 19 get a number 'cause that will give us a 20 better idea of what we hit with those 21 numbers plus hitting the newspapers of all 22 the hundreds and thousands of people that go 23 out and play poker all the time to come to 24 our tournament. We just have to make it 67 1 enticing. We have to price it right, we 2 have to build it up right, and we have to 3 make sure we do all the running of it right. 4 MR. SHRIMPF: I think the site is 5 important. I think you have to have a site 6 that's large enough. I think we can expand 7 on what we did last time. I mean, I don't 8 know if somebody knows somebody up at the 9 Elks and they would let us use the function 10 hall or the VFW where you could fit -- 11 MR. PATTERSON: Saugus has a big 12 problem still because they haven't made the 13 transition over with the poker. I don't 14 know how Bostonville -- I think that's 15 considered -- that's Lynnfield, right, so 16 that's how they do it. Saugus has a big 17 problem with poker tournaments. That's one 18 of the biggest problems we had in the past. 19 MR. MOORE: Didn't we say we were 20 going to find out about that last month when 21 we talked about it? 22 MR. PATTERSON: Whoever was close to 23 the department said that they would make the 24 call, but we still have to consider that. I 68 1 think if Bostonville says, "Oh, no, we got 2 plenty of room. This is what we can do. We 3 can fit enough tables in there to get 60, 4 70, 80 people." They're going to give us 5 the room for free, that's the best option 6 for us. 7 MR. SHRIMPF: I think you could 8 potentially do over 100 people. 9 MR. PATTERSON: Right. It's possible, 10 but I wouldn't count on it just because 11 everybody says they'll come and that's why 12 we need to get come commitments first. Even 13 if we got 40 people we would do well. 14 Anything above that will be hitting that 15 number close to what Dwayne was mentioning, 16 that $7,000 number depending upon who we 17 hire. Because everything else is coming to 18 us as donation. 19 MR. NORTON: When are you thinking of 20 having it? 21 MR. PATTERSON: I was thinking -- I 22 was trying to get it as closer to February 23 as possible, 'cause if we can do one really 24 good one, we might be able to squeeze 69 1 another one into it towards the end of the 2 year and get some good revenue flowing into 3 the program. 4 MR. NORTON: Sounds like 40 is a 5 no-brainer, so how do we get attraction on 6 this? Forty is going to cover our expenses, 7 so we know we're going to get 40. 8 MR. PATTERSON: Forty will more than 9 cover the expense the way that we're talking 10 about running it. It's just a matter of 11 one, finding out which operation we should 12 have run it; and two, just making sure that 13 Bostonville can accommodate it, 'cause we 14 can't just go on the number 40. We have to 15 go on -- 16 MR. NORTON: That's what I'm saying. 17 What's our best-case scenario? We should 18 get a place that will hold that. 19 MR. PATTERSON: We have to look at our 20 best case scenario, right, so my next step 21 after we talked about it and everybody 22 agreed was to call Bostonville and just make 23 sure that they could accommodate 100. And 24 just say 100 will be the number, the magic 70 1 number that we're looking for. And then as 2 soon as that happens, we have the room, we 3 have the license, we already have all these 4 things in place, we start to market it and 5 sell it. 6 MR. NORTON: Those first guys did a 7 good job for us running it? 8 MR. PATTERSON: They did a great job, 9 and I know of one other company that Mark 10 uses that everybody -- 11 MR. MOORE: What's his name? 12 MR. WORTHLEY: Dede. 13 MR. PATTERSON: Yeah, I mean everybody 14 that's been to the tournament said he does a 15 great job. 16 MR. MOORE: They bring their own guys, 17 too. So those guys, when they come, they 18 usually have 20, 30 guys. 19 MR. SHRIMPF: 20, 30. 20 MR. NORTON: That's what I'm saying. 21 MR. PATTERSON: These guys are doing a 22 great job for Mark already, and they'd be 23 willing to come down there and do the same 24 thing, we'd do the same thing. 71 1 MR. GROARK: Do you think the end of 2 January is too close? 3 MR. DeMATTEO: The night before the 4 Superbowl? 5 MR. GROARK: I was thinking the week 6 in between the layoff -- the NFL playoffs 7 and the Superbowl. 8 MR. SHRIMPF: Once the Superbowl is 9 over, I think it's fine. 10 MR. GROARK: Have it after? 11 MR. PATTERSON: I'd say wait 'til the 12 Superbowl is over. 13 MR. NORTON: Let's see if we can get 14 it done as early as possible in February. 15 MR. PATTERSON: That would be the key. 16 The Superbowl is over. The first week or so 17 of February to be able to focus on that. 18 And then if that goes really well and we 19 realize now we've done one with the new 20 market and the way things are, we see who 21 shows up, we might be able to get another 22 one in March or April. 23 MR. NORTON: Can you let us know what 24 progress you've made by next Tuesday? 72 1 MR. PATTERSON: Absolutely. 2 MR. NORTON: It's already -- we don't 3 want to wait 'til the next board meeting 4 'cause that's the beginning of February. We 5 need to see if it's feasible by next 6 Tuesday, and if it is, then we can take the 7 steps to get it in place by early February. 8 MR. BRAZIS: Ellen, Ken, anything 9 further? 10 MS. COCCOLUTO: No. 11 MR. GROARK: I need to add a couple 12 things with fundraiser. I spoke to Lucia 13 and she asked if we could possibly draft a 14 letter just thanking the people for the 15 calendar raffle and the Avon fundraiser; if 16 we're interested in putting that on the 17 website so people can see that. 18 MR. BRAZIS: Please do. 19 MR. GROARK: The other item is the 20 sponsors on the back of the shirts. We 21 talked a little bit about this. The 22 sponsors went on the shirts a little bit 23 late into the season. 24 MR. NORTON: Still not on the Squirt 73 1 B's. Nasty Nonni's not on the Squirt B's. 2 MR. GROARK: What I'd like to do is 3 make a motion that we allow the sponsors to 4 remain on the back of the shirts through the 5 '09, '10 season without any costs. 6 MR. BONO: Second. 7 MR. BRAZIS: All in favor? 8 (Group agreement.) 9 MR. BRAZIS: Opposed? 10 MR. SHRIMPF: Can we give them a 11 reduced cost? Tell them right now next year 12 -- what was it 500 bucks -- "We appreciate 13 what you did and because of the lateness and 14 everything, next year it's only going to be 15 $250. We would like to keep you on for that 16 one year." 17 MR. NORTON: We were thinking -- we 18 talked about that, but as a show of good 19 faith; then we'd look to them and raise the 20 price the following year. It's at 500 now. 21 We're thinking of going to 650 or 700 the 22 following year. I mean, it's going to be 23 probably end of January before Nasty Nonni's 24 is even on. So we had talked about that, 74 1 bookkeeping and then going back to minus 2 that, kind of a show a good faith. And then 3 when we go back to them again, they should 4 be happy with us and we'll throw a higher 5 price at that point in time is what we were 6 thinking. 7 MR. SHRIMPF: Okay. 8 MR. GROARK: We're going to send a 9 letter out to them, you know, basically 10 letting them know what we're going to do. 11 We're going to keep them on the shirts 12 through next year, and then we'll revisit 13 the payment for the advertisement. 14 MR. BRAZIS: Mr. Secretary, you'll 15 draw up a letter thanking them for 16 participating and letting them know that 17 their plaques will remain on the jerseys for 18 18 months? 19 MR. GROARK: Correct. 20 MR. MOORE: I was just wondering if 21 they were going to get some plaques put in 22 their -- 23 MR. GROARK: Along with that, they are 24 going to get plaques. 75 1 MR. BRAZIS: With the team's picture 2 on it. 3 MR. PATTERSON: Does every shirt have 4 advertising on it? Every shirt is covered? 5 No, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm 6 talking about if there's one that's going on 7 there. Are all the shirts sold, so there's 8 no other room for -- 9 MR. GROARK: You mean all teams? 10 MR. PATTERSON: All teams. 11 MR. GROARK: I don't think so. 12 MR. PATTERSON: There are some that we 13 could try to sell? 14 MR. BONO: We could still try to go 15 out next year. 16 MR. PATTERSON: That's important to 17 know because it would be good to be able to 18 say, "Hey" -- we might be able to get 19 someone now. I mean, I may be able to talk 20 to someone and say, "Hey, for this price," 21 whatever we decide it to be, "you could be 22 on the end of this season and next season," 23 just to kind of get it covered so that we 24 make some money, recoup some money this year 76 1 and get it on there and go from there. 2 MR. SHRIMPF: We could use the money 3 this year. 4 MR. PATTERSON: Come up with a number 5 for that and we do that. 6 MR. SHRIMPF: How many teams is it? 7 MR. NORTON: I thought it was five 8 sponsors. Tony, do you know if there's five 9 or six? 10 MR. BONO: I thought there was seven. 11 MR. GROARK: I can find out from 12 Lucia. 13 MR. PATTERSON: That might be just an 14 option, if we have a couple extra shirts, we 15 can throw it out there. 16 MR. NORTON: It's on the website who 17 the sponsors are, so we can look at that. 18 MR. PATTERSON: I don't think the same 19 sponsors -- the same sponsors that sponsor 20 on the website are the ones that are 21 sponsored on the shirts, Rich? 22 MR. DeMATTEO: Those are the ones. 23 That's how they got on there. 24 MR. PATTERSON: Well, no, some people 77 1 pay just to get on the website. 2 MR. GROARK: Does anyone know if we 3 have additional tags for the shirts come 4 next year? If a team has instead of 12 5 bags, say they have 15 next year, do we have 6 extra tags? 7 MR. BONO: No, she just ordered from 8 the roster. 9 MR. GROARK: So then we would have to 10 order additional tags. 11 MR. MOORE: They should have the thing 12 all done for Lucia, so it's easy enough to 13 print out. It's not like there's not a 14 setup fee anymore, you know what I mean? 15 MR. PATTERSON: One thing on -- since 16 we're talking about all this stuff with 17 Lucia, a lot of people have been talking 18 about it and I agree, just with everything 19 that was going on through the holidays, 20 through the loss of Jeff's mother, I think 21 Lucia did an extraordinary amount of work 22 and never stopped, never slowed, was on top 23 of this stuff like crazy. She had the 24 shirts all sewed, she did the -- just 78 1 everything that she did, I honestly think 2 that Saugus Youth Hockey should seriously 3 consider some kind of a thank you to Lucia 4 for the work and effort that she put in to 5 everything that she does. She still 6 continues -- she offered to do something for 7 the poker tournament. She offered to -- I 8 mean, she still has four children at home to 9 deal with and a lot of stuff that was going 10 on through the holidays, and it seems like 11 she's at everything and offers to do 12 everything. So I think there should be some 13 kind of thanks from Saugus Youth Hockey for 14 Lucia. 15 MR. BRAZIS: Good point. Anything 16 else for fundraiser? 17 MR. GROARK: Yes. One more item is 18 the Saugus Store. I know Fatima is here, 19 would you like to come up and just talk 20 about it a little bit? 21 MS. ALLEN: No, but I'll get up. 22 MR. BRAZIS: Could you just please 23 state your name so we can get it on the 24 record? 79 1 MS. ALLEN: Fatima Allen. Steve and 2 I, we went to the store and we got a couple 3 things to do some fundraising. One of them 4 was the cups, so we sold quite a few of 5 them. Since the board had a transition, I 6 made a decision myself. Julie at the snack 7 bar bought some, and you get a free cup of 8 coffee if you buy a cup, so she charges a 9 buck fifty, so instead of profiting the 13, 10 we profit the 12 bucks. Good for her. 11 Blankets, we got 12, blankets, we got six 12 red, six black. They came out really nice. 13 They're all gone. They sold. We made $5 on 14 each blanket. We were selling one for 13, 15 two for 25, and I think we paid eight, a 16 little over $8. But the first time, the 17 most money goes out because of the setup 18 fees, so I do have money here to give. My 19 sons' hockey payment for next year. 20 So I do have a couple good ideas, I 21 think, going forward. If we're going to 22 keep this going, I think we should get beach 23 towels and chairs. I know for the baseball, 24 you know, those chairs for the fields? 80 1 MR. OXLEY: Yeah. 2 MS. ALLEN: Nobody else has them, and 3 if we have the merchandise, I see people 4 with the blankets. If they had the chairs, 5 they'd take it. And so I think if we do 6 something like that, get your minimums in, 7 and, you know, setup maybe something on the 8 website. If anybody is interested, you 9 know, click on here, click onto my email or 10 revert it to me and then I can take. 11 MR. PATTERSON: Yeah, we can do a page 12 full of pictures and have it go directly to 13 your website. Whatever we want to do with 14 this. 15 MS. ALLEN: I definitely think we 16 should do the towels and the chairs, but we 17 have to have the stock. If you have the 18 stock, people see it, buy it, go. We could 19 have a fundraiser. Maybe I can talk to 20 somebody at the Square 1 Mall, set up a 21 table there. You know, Saugus Youth Hockey 22 stuff there, shoot out like a massive email. 23 Just things like that. If you give somebody 24 too many things at once, they're not going 81 1 to buy it. And Freddy Moore, this comes to 2 you, you're in charge of the room, do we 3 have any space? 4 MR. MOORE: Sure. 5 MS. ALLEN: Because this goes in my 6 car, to my dining room, back in my car. So 7 it's nice to say, "Okay, on Monday nights 8 between 7 and 8, if anybody wants, the 9 Saugus Store will be open." 10 MR. PATTERSON: One thing to keep in 11 mind is the Learn to Skate crowd always 12 misses out on the apparel. 13 MS. ALLEN: And they love it, they 14 love this stuff, the younger kids. That's 15 where you can -- you know, you can really 16 get their attention. So Sunday night I can 17 be there, maybe somebody else to help me, I 18 could get a couple people to help, but the 19 cash and carry, you're going to sell more. 20 And you need things that people are going to 21 buy, not something like "Oh, God, not 22 another T-shirt or whatever." Would you buy 23 a chair, you know, a Saugus -- 24 MR. MOORE: I would. I'd buy two. 82 1 MS. ALLEN: These are things that you 2 want to do and you want keep that money 3 going. 4 MR. BRAZIS: So the Saugus Store is 5 alive and doing well and we're going to 6 continue? 7 MS. ALLEN: Yes. 8 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. 9 UNKNOWN NAME: Question, does it say 10 Saugus Hockey or Saugus Youth Hockey? 11 MS. ALLEN: It says Saugus Hockey to 12 keep it -- the high school kids can buy it. 13 It's not just limited to the youth hockey. 14 UNKNOWN NAME: That's what I was going 15 to suggest, so you're doing what I was going 16 to ask. Let's just keep it at Saugus 17 Hockey, there's a bigger audience that might 18 want it. 19 MS. ALLEN: Right. 20 MR. MORIELLO: Definitely some money 21 to be made with the instructional and Learn 22 to Skate with the little kids. I have two 23 real little guys myself, and it's like 24 impossible to find little sweatshirts and 83 1 little jackets and stuff, and I know from -- 2 I coach instructional team. Those parents 3 and those kids are so excited to be there at 4 the rink, and they're so into it. Some of 5 them are new to the sport, and some of the 6 are -- some of the parents, like me, I 7 played Saugus Youth Hockey, I'm excited to 8 have my son play Saugus Youth Hockey. If he 9 could run around with a little Saugus Youth 10 Hockey hat and jacket, I'd buy everything 11 they had. You can't even find anything. 12 MS. ALLEN: We can do that. I can 13 bring samples. 14 MR. MORIELLO: I bought the smallest 15 sweatshirt they had, and I knew it was going 16 to be too big. I didn't even care, I still 17 bought it. It's so big for him. I don't 18 care, I just wanted it. There's nothing for 19 them. You gotta get some more stuff for the 20 little guys. They're excited. 21 MS. ALLEN: We also have the hockey 22 pants, you know, the jacket pants. That's a 23 big seller for the kids. Again, put Saugus 24 Hockey, generic. Little kids tell me what 84 1 they're into. Some of the hats. You gotta 2 fish the market. The little ones, they want 3 everything. 4 MR. NORTON: Who's working with you in 5 determining the merchandise, that did a good 6 job picking out the merchandise? 7 MS. ALLEN: I'm sorry, what? 8 MR. NORTON: Who's working with you 9 helping you select the merchandise? 10 MS. ALLEN: Steve and myself. 11 MR. NORTON: Steve, would you mind 12 continuing that? 13 MS. ALLEN: I think it was his idea. 14 I think he should. 15 MR. WORTHLEY: I'd like to if it's 16 okay with everybody. 17 MR. BRAZIS: I think it's wonderful. 18 We have something here that people are 19 volunteering their time and we're making 20 some money. 21 MR. WORTHLEY: I'll do it under one 22 condition. That one, we buy the product, we 23 put it away as a slush fund for the benefit 24 of the program, any way that the board deems 85 1 necessary. 2 MR. NORTON: Now, of the money that we 3 raised, can we reinvest that? Is that 4 enough money to reinvest into for the next 5 round or how are we going to -- 6 MS. ALLEN: Well, it depends what we 7 can get. My sister and I, we own the 8 company, so there's a possibility where I 9 could have 30, but I really don't want, you 10 know, to get into that. It's Saugus Youth 11 Hockey, if you order 30 chairs or whatever 12 it is, you know, I'm not going to put my 13 money up front. It's just too many things 14 "Oh, yeah, we're going to use you," and then 15 all of a sudden "we changed our mind," but 16 you're stuck with all this inventory. But 17 like I said, you don't buy everything at 18 once. We'll get a price, what you're going 19 to sell it for. You don't do everything at 20 once. 21 MR. OXLEY: Right. Let's just 22 continue like we did with the first round. 23 I mean, let you and Steve determine the 24 product, figure out the cost, let the cost 86 1 be known here, and we'll cut the check. 2 MR. WORTHLEY: Who should I be working 3 with to let know -- should it be Dwayne? 4 What I'd like to do is provide a 5 communication tool to say "Here is the 6 money." You know, we originally started off 7 with -- I believe you have the invoice 8 there -- $600. The total amount of money 9 that we have so far, take that and buy 10 additional product, but we'll provide a 11 detailed expense list of the profit, you 12 know, merchandise list, where we stand and 13 ask, you know, as the turnover happens, get 14 permission from the board to whether or not 15 like -- we'll make a recommendation "This is 16 how much product we think we need to buy. 17 This is how much we have in the bank. This 18 is how much we have, what can we do?" 19 MR. NORTON: When do you need to start 20 ordering by? Can you get everything for 21 approval next meeting? 22 MS. ALLEN: Oh, yeah. 23 MR. WORTHLEY: It's pretty easy. We 24 just gotta identify what it is we want to 87 1 have, order enough product. I mean, money 2 is tight, we have a little bit extra than 3 what we originally started with, and then, 4 you know, it's -- the whole goal was that it 5 would start small and take off, so with 6 minimal investment dollars to Saugus Youth 7 Hockey. We found the minimum investment 8 dollars to be roughly $600. If you would 9 like to invest more, we'd be happy to buy 10 more product. 11 MR. PATTERSON: Fatima, there's still 12 the opportunity if we put it on the website 13 to have people just order. 14 MS. ALLEN: Right. What we did with 15 the blankets, we had, like, 12, people like 16 it, you know, they're nice, "I want that 17 blanket." 18 MR. MOORE: I mean, I've seen that on 19 websites, where you can go and order 20 anything. 21 MR. WORTHLEY: That was also part of 22 the store was to get with the web director 23 and figure out a way to -- maybe we can have 24 a pdf on the purchase order, somehow it 88 1 downloading into someone's fax machine, you 2 know, we were gonna go -- that was the next 3 logical step with the store, but we wanted 4 to test it out with what we had. We didn't 5 want to waste the money of Saugus Youth 6 Hockey. Let's be cautious. I'd rather be 7 overly cautious. 8 MR. MOORE: How big a deal is it -- 9 I'm sorry, I'm jumping around -- to set up 10 like a credit card? Didn't we talk about 11 that before, credit cards for like tuition 12 payments online or am I out of my mind? 13 MR. OXLEY: Two separate issues. 14 MR. PATTERSON: The reason why I 15 brought up the order online, though, is you 16 don't have to have any type of purchase 17 order or anything like that. Initially, you 18 can just say "To order these, click here," 19 and they can go through a process where they 20 process something with Fatima right there 21 and it doesn't even have to be from our 22 stock, but still be able to order stuff so 23 that we can kind of do both. Still have to 24 stock in for the people that may be coming 89 1 in, but some people may just want to order 2 it online, and that will allow you to walk 3 before you run but still have enough to, you 4 know -- if they're placing orders, that's as 5 easy as getting the bat on it and placing 6 the order. 7 MR. WORTHLEY: Certainly sounds like 8 it's feasible with Fatima and I having the 9 relationship and seeing success, and I want 10 to -- it was all Fatima that sold that 11 product. I had nothing to do with it. 12 MR. BRAZIS: Steve, the first part of 13 your question, please, work on that with 14 Dwayne. 15 MR. WORTHLEY: Okay. 16 MR. NORTON: How much of a check do 17 you have to turn in tonight? 18 MS. ALLEN: I have $458, and I just 19 gotta collect $30 from one person and I'll 20 get that. 21 MR. NORTON: We gave a check for 600; 22 correct? 23 MS. ALLEN: Right, but we still have 24 cups that have not been sold 'cause we had 90 1 to order 36 cups. 2 MR. MOORE: How much did it cost for 3 the blankets? That should be on the 4 invoice. 5 MR. BRAZIS: The blankets was 270, so 6 that -- 7 MS. ALLEN: We made $5 a blanket. 8 MR. MOORE: So you said you had how 9 many cups, 30? 10 MS. ALLEN: I think 36. 11 MR. NORTON: Would it make sense to 12 allocate this money to restocking the store? 13 MS. ALLEN: I'd rather have the check 14 here. There's checks in here that people 15 make checks out to. I'd rather turn it in 16 than keep it. I really don't want to keep 17 the money. 18 MR. OXLEY: Thank you. 19 MR. NORTON: You know better than we 20 do. 21 MS. ALLEN: And I would like to -- 22 this is a wish list. If we're going to do 23 this, I just thought -- have access to a 24 key? 91 1 MR. MOORE: Yeah, I'll get you a key. 2 MS. ALLEN: Don't worry, nobody else 3 would have it. It's just in the car, out of 4 the car, and then it's like some's in my 5 car, some in my truck. 6 MR. NORTON: How much do you guys need 7 to keep it rolling right now, if we were 8 going to approve something now so you guys 9 can continue? 10 MS. ALLEN: What I would like to do is 11 maybe just put up on the website is write 12 "Chairs, Saugus Youth Hockey," shoot out a 13 massive email. 14 MR. BRAZIS: Excuse me, we just have 15 one conversation going on here. 16 MS. ALLEN: Like, say we're going to 17 order some chairs, and if we know we're 18 going to order, it's going to be $20, we're 19 going to sell them for 30, can we send out a 20 massive email "Saugus Youth Hockey is going 21 to be placing chair orders," we'll do a 22 picture or whatever, "if you'd like to 23 order, be at the rink or email us." That 24 way we know, okay, we got orders for 40, 92 1 let's order 10 more extra for stock. Then 2 people are like "Oh, they don't buy that 3 much. Next time around I better get it." 4 Like towels, let's do the towels. Kids 5 would love the beach towels. 6 MR. MOORE: I don't know if we have 7 this or if we've done it, but what they do 8 with the Little League is they got an entire 9 email list, you can just pop out an email to 10 the entire program meaning every single kid, 11 parents, and sometimes it's two parents, 12 whatever, it goes to everybody. That way 13 they'd just get that notice that way, too, 14 because I know a lot of people don't -- I 15 tell people about the website, they say, "I 16 don't use that," but people do get their 17 email. 18 MS. ALLEN: Do we have a massive? 19 MR. OXLEY: There is one that's been 20 started, but it's not up to date. Actually, 21 on the list that I gave you guys there was 22 one that's started. Every team should just 23 submit. 24 MR. PATTERSON: We have a lot of 93 1 emails from the past when I used to send the 2 schedule out, you know. If we had a 3 last-minute change, I would send that out to 4 everybody and I had a pretty good list, but 5 I'm sure there's some additions that need to 6 be made to that one. 7 MR. DeMATTEO: Yeah, the directors all 8 have emails. 9 MR. BRAZIS: If I may, from all the 10 directors, we would like to have from you in 11 the two-week period here, we would like 12 everybody's email from all your teams, and 13 then we'll have the whole program. We'll 14 have the whole program done. 15 MR. BONO: Going forward, too, on next 16 year's, the tryouts and sign-ups, that 17 should be on the form, email address. 18 MR. NORTON: That's what I was going 19 to suggest. 20 MR. BRAZIS: For right now let's do 21 this so that we can get it, that's the 22 director's job, so we're asking the 23 directors to all please get emails for all 24 the parents of who you oversee. 94 1 MS. ALLEN: Okay. All right. 2 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. Fundraising, 3 any more? 4 MR. GROARK: I just want to add one 5 thing. Maybe we could possibly put those 6 mugs, try to sell them at the rink, put a 7 table out. I know Lucia has stickers for 8 the helmets that she's looking to try and 9 sell, too, and a lot of the teams don't know 10 about them yet. I'm sure a lot of the kids 11 would like the Saugus stickers on their 12 helmets or the car. 13 MR. PATTERSON: You could sell those 14 at Learn to Skate, too. 15 MR. GROARK: That's the question. 16 MR. OXLEY: We're going to have to get 17 it approved because -- 18 MR. BRAZIS: Is there any way that we 19 could get that approved for January 24th, 20 because I was going to bring that up at the 21 meeting, that is Saugus Youth Hockey Night 22 at the rink. 23 MS. ALLEN: What night? 24 MR. BRAZIS: January 24th. 95 1 MR. PATTERSON: He's been questioning 2 whether or not to shoot that whole thing 3 down. 4 MR. OXLEY: We need to have some 5 conversations with him, I think. 6 MR. BRAZIS: I was jumping ahead. 7 Further fundraising? 8 (Pause.) 9 MR. BRAZIS: Ethics. 10 MR. SHRIMPF: At our December 18th 11 meeting we addressed one of the problems we 12 had. We were going to further investigate 13 and address the problems leading up to the 14 PeeWee A player. I'm getting questions from 15 some of the young kids on the team, "Where 16 is Matt? Why isn't he playing with us?" and 17 "What happened?" What are we doing? How 18 are we doing that? 19 MR. BRAZIS: I've appointed former 20 president of Saugus Youth Hockey, John 21 Whitlock as the chairperson and there is -- 22 including himself, there is a five member 23 board, and John told me today that 24 interviews are going to start Friday, and 96 1 whatever he doesn't get done, he will 2 complete on Sunday, so we hope to have that. 3 December 18th was -- I'm not making excuses, 4 but as we know, it was a week before 5 Christmas, and then during the two holiday 6 weeks there, we're getting right on it now. 7 That is going to be addressed and there's a 8 full board, and there's no cross- 9 contamination, for lack of a better word. 10 John I think is -- because of his integrity, 11 that's why I've picked him to be the 12 chairperson, and he's picked four other 13 people that have no connections at all with 14 that whole situation and they can be totally 15 unbiased. 16 MR. SHRIMPF: Okay. 17 MR. BRAZIS: So we are moving forward. 18 MR. SHRIMPF: That's all I have. 19 MR. OXLEY: When Stacy got up to leave 20 it kind of reminded me. I mean, I've been 21 the bearer of a lot of grim -- using your 22 word -- news tonight with financial 23 situations, and just, I think, some work 24 that needs to be done with the coaches. But 97 1 Stacy left to go pick up her son who's 2 playing for the high school team, and it 3 just reminded me that, you know, the reason 4 we're here, especially with a lot of the new 5 parents, and I was glad to hear, you know, 6 that we got the Instructional kids who are 7 excited and love to play hockey, and that's 8 the way it should be. I've been here a long 9 time, coaching for over 15 years in the 10 program, and on the board for several years. 11 I've been fortunate enough to see kids now 12 -- I had the same team from Mite 13 Instructional, just like you guys are 14 introducing now, up to the Midgets, and I 15 can't tell you, you know, I am like the 16 proudest father because I have four, five 17 players, four freshmen, one sophomore, who 18 I've coached all the way through who are 19 starters for the Saugus High Varsity this 20 year. I have three boys, including my son, 21 who are on the varsity team at Austin Prep 22 as freshmen and sophomores. I have a 23 sophomore on Malden Catholic's Varsity, two 24 players, one a freshman team and one a JV 98 1 player at Malden Catholic. So for me, you 2 know, the reward is now. You put in a lot 3 of years, you want to teach these kids the 4 right way to play hockey, you want them to 5 have fun. Hopefully, you know, the 6 Instructionals that are starting now will 7 stay on that same path and be high school 8 hockey players. You can't get caught up 9 with, you know -- beyond that, our job is to 10 hopefully prepare these kids, if they want 11 to be high school hockey players, that's our 12 job. And I just wanted to say from a 13 positive standpoint I couldn't be more proud 14 of those kids coming through this system and 15 now playing on all these varsity programs, 16 so that's really why we're here. Teach 17 them, have fun, and hopefully develop them 18 and keep enough interest in the game that 19 they want to pursue the next level. 20 MR. MOORE: Absolutely. 21 MR. BRAZIS: Here, here. Very good. 22 I do have one more item before I open it up 23 to the public. We heard about, Dwayne 24 mentioned how the new rink owners want to 99 1 increase next year to 240. I have discussed 2 it with the E Board -- I don't want to wait 3 around -- I'm looking for volunteers for an 4 Ice-Search Committee. The time is now. 5 It's not have me wait until -- or us wait 6 until next month to see who wants to get on 7 it. Let's get out there right now, let's 8 see what's out there available, let's see 9 the hours that are available and if people 10 can accommodate Saugus Youth Hockey. I'm 11 not going to say we're going -- we're not 12 going to be bullied. We're looking for the 13 better of the program and the youth of this 14 town, and we're going -- it's up to us to 15 find the best deal out there for our kids. 16 Do I want to leave Kasabuski Arena? No, I 17 do not. I don't want to leave there at all, 18 but if we're going to be pushed in a manner 19 that maybe people want to push us out of 20 there, then we have to be prepared to find a 21 place to go and make sure that we have the 22 ice time available for these kids next year. 23 So at this time I'd like to -- please, 24 anybody in this room -- I'll ask again next 100 1 month, but I'd like to get it started it 2 now. Is anybody interested in an Ice-Search 3 Committee? 4 MR. DeMATTEO: I'd volunteer. 5 MR. SERINO: I can take care of a lot 6 of it with one phone call tomorrow morning. 7 I work for FMC and we control most of the 8 rinks in the area, and I've done it for us 9 before this year started, but the biggest 10 problem is getting closeby. Now closeby to 11 me is Lynn, which isn't very far, Revere and 12 Everett. And I'm pretty sure -- Joe, I 13 think you and Pat, I gave them to you last 14 year -- we're a non-profit organization and 15 FMC right now would be 200 or 210 tops for 16 60-minute hours. They would like to do 17 50-minute hours, that's how most of the 18 programs work, and it was $175 for 50 19 minutes. But, you know, closeby for us, you 20 don't want to travel all over the place. I 21 think Everett is a straight shot, Revere is 22 a straight shot and Lynn is easy. I can 23 make a phone call tomorrow just to get -- 24 take one phone call when I get into work to 101 1 get it sent over on who they want to deal 2 with. 3 MR. BRAZIS: I appreciate you being 4 part of that committee, and you, 5 Mr. DeMatteo, and anybody else. I just want 6 it to be on the record here that I am not 7 looking to leave Kasabuski Arena, but if 8 there's a better deal out there to keep the 9 costs down to these children and these 10 families in Saugus Youth Hockey and it 11 happens to be one of these neighboring 12 rinks, then that might be the direction we 13 have to go in. We have to be prepared. And 14 the longer we wait, the worse off we're 15 going to be. We act on it now, the better 16 off we'll be. 17 MR. SHRIMPF: Is there an objection by 18 parents if one week your team practices in 19 Revere, the next week it's Everett, the next 20 week it could be Revere, and the next week 21 it could be Lynn? Does it have to be one 22 particular place or can you bounce? 23 MR. MOORE: I was going to ask the 24 same thing. 102 1 MR. OXLEY: We probably wouldn't get 2 all the hours in one rink. We have, you 3 know -- we've been averaging 12, 13 hours a 4 week. Right now we're at about 11. That's 5 a lot of hours and we're in prime time. 6 Ideally, we could stay in Kasabuski. I 7 agree with Scotty. The problem is the new 8 -- I shouldn't say owner -- the new manager 9 of that rink doesn't view that as a Saugus 10 rink, he thinks it's his rink, and that's 11 not the case. The rink is still -- he is 12 subleasing it from the Town of Saugus. 13 MR. BRAZIS: Who is subleasing it from 14 DCR. 15 MR. MOORE: Basically, we just need -- 16 we need to explore what's going on so that 17 we have leverage when we do try to 18 negotiate. 19 MR. BRAZIS: That needs to be done 20 now. 21 MR. NORTON: Frank, can we also get 22 not just the rinks that we can get ice, what 23 are the surrounding rinks charging so we 24 have all the information? Even if the ice 103 1 isn't available there or maybe it's a little 2 bit of a stretch to where we might want to 3 drive, the more information we have as to 4 what the surrounding areas are paying for 5 ice is going to give us more information 6 when we go to there or if we have to go to 7 the next level above that. 8 MR. SERINO: I know Wilmington is the 9 highest. They're about $325 an hour. 10 Hockey Town is up around 330 -- 225 or 230. 11 MR. OXLEY: 230, I think they were. 12 MR. SERINO: Something like that. My 13 think would be now might be a pretty good 14 time to get into Revere where the new 15 manager is Saugus, I would think he's going 16 to move his Wings program to take a lot of 17 ice in Saugus out of Revere. 18 MR. BRAZIS: This might be the place, 19 Frank, when they throw a 33 percent increase 20 at us after one year of operating, because 21 to sell chunks of ice time, it's easy. You 22 get a program like us that wants 11 hours of 23 ice time, and maybe reducing it as the 24 season goes on, it's a different story. I 104 1 call you up and say "I want 200 hours," 2 that's an easy phone call. All you have to 3 do is make ice. 4 MR. SERINO: I've talked with -- I've 5 talked with Scott McCoy, who's the vice 6 president of the whole company, and he would 7 love to have Saugus Youth Hockey at his 8 rinks, you know what I mean? And he came 9 right out and told me. He says they're a 10 non-profit organization, 50-minute hours. 11 FMC actually, they like to do 50-minute 12 hours. They're not opposed to 60 minutes. 13 50-minute hours were $175 for the 50 14 minutes. And I'm not sure, Pat, but I think 15 it was 200 or 210 for 60-minute hours. I 16 don't believe it was higher than 210. 17 MR. GROARK: I'm pretty sure it was 18 170 and 210. And on the proposal it 19 definitely stated you'd pretty much be 20 getting 50-minute hours for 170. 21 MR. SERINO: Is there a way where if 22 you went from Instructionals to, say, Mite 23 B's that you could make it 50-minute hours; 24 and if you get from Mite A's on, maybe take 105 1 some of that time and make it -- take ten 2 minutes from little guys. 3 MR. OXLEY: I don't think you need to, 4 Frank. Other than really -- up to the 5 Bantam level, you know, because some of 6 those kids then are getting ready for high 7 school level, but 50-minute hours are fine. 8 You readjust. You can get a good practice 9 in in 50 minutes. 10 MR. SERINO: I believe that, too, 11 honestly. 12 MR. MOORE: What would you rather 13 have? 14 MR. OXLEY: Me, personally? 15 MR. MOORE: Yeah. 16 MR. OXLEY: I'd rather have 60 17 minutes, but for a Squirt team, 50 minutes 18 should be fine, Fred. 19 MR. NORTON: Frank, would Revere be 20 able to accommodate the whole program? 21 MR. SERINO: I don't believe it's a 22 tough commute for us, and I don't think 23 Lynn's a tough commute for us either. I'll 24 make a call tomorrow to work on this. The 106 1 earlier we would make a commitment to them, 2 the better we are. Even if we got it at two 3 arenas instead of three or four. I'll make 4 a call first thing in morning. 5 MR. BRAZIS: So we have Mr. DeMatteo 6 and Mr. Serino. Is there anybody else who 7 would like to be involved? 8 MR. RUSZKOWSKI: Mr. President, I'd 9 like to help Frank and Dana out with that, 10 if I could. 11 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. 12 MR. SHRIMPF: We have to do our due 13 diligence. We cannot lead this guy Patrick 14 on again this year. He was the ice 15 coordinator for FMC. We spoke to him last 16 year, he said if we had an emergency and we 17 needed, he could fill us in here and there, 18 but we just can't -- we have to have a 19 drop-dead date. 20 MR. NORTON: We'll get that same 21 drop-dead date to Manoff, and if he doesn't 22 get us to where we want to be, then we're 23 gone. 24 MR. BRAZIS: Once again, we are not 107 1 trying to leave Kasabuski Arena. I want to 2 make that quite clear, but we -- that's why 3 we're doing it now. 4 MR. MOORE: We gotta look at every 5 single option. 6 MR. BRAZIS: Every single option. The 7 drive time, the ice time, how long, 50 8 minutes, hours, and the bottom line, price. 9 We're in financial woes right now, and if we 10 could ever keep our prices the same for next 11 year, that's something we have to consider 12 also. 13 MR. MOORE: I've got another question. 14 Are we like -- someone said we were giving 15 ice back or we wanted to give ice back. I 16 really didn't know anything about it. 17 MR. NORTON: We had some brief 18 conversations and we were maybe discussing 19 with the board about getting rid of a couple 20 of hours if Austin Prep may have been 21 interested. Austin Prep is not interested, 22 so I think at this point, that's off the 23 table. 24 MR. OXLEY: It was a financial issue. 108 1 MR. MOORE: Obviously, so I'm just 2 wondering if that's one of his reasons of 3 getting all uptight. Coming to some type of 4 conclusion and screaming out loud. 5 MR. OXLEY: The order of events, he -- 6 we had talked about reducing hours strictly 7 from a financial standpoint, because we can 8 get by with a few less hours the reality is. 9 We really don't need all the hours that we 10 have. Everyone's been getting on the ice 11 twice a week. In prior years during high 12 school season, it was one practice one week, 13 maybe two the next. So when you're 14 struggling financially, you look to cut 15 back, so that was just an internal 16 discussion. I happen to run into Mr. Manoff 17 at the rink. 18 MR. MOORE: I ran into him, too, and 19 had the same conversation. 20 MR. OXLEY: And he told me -- at that 21 point he said, he told me about the $240 an 22 hour, and he said he may need to adjust our 23 hours in addition to that. I came back and 24 said, "We should just" -- "I don't want to 109 1 adjust our hours." When he told me that, I 2 didn't want him to use that against us. I 3 didn't want us to drop an hour or two now 4 and him say it's gone forever. He's not 5 reacting -- 6 MR. MOORE: That's kind of the way 7 myself, I felt that maybe that might have 8 been the issue. Like all of a sudden we're 9 taking money out of his pocket, so he's 10 saying "You know what, forget you guys," you 11 know what I mean? So right as of now we're 12 taking all the hours that we have? 13 MR. OXLEY: Right. 14 MR. GROARK: My understanding was the 15 same of yours, that they got wind of this. 16 I don't know if, Tony, you can add anything 17 to that? Did John Hatch know about that? 18 MR. OXLEY: Well, we talked. 19 MR. BONO: When I picked up -- I don't 20 know if it was the December or the January 21 schedule, we were talking about that a 22 little bit, and all he said to me is, you 23 know, he just shook his head and said, "He 24 says things and retracts statements all the 110 1 time." 2 MR. OXLEY: The problem was when we 3 started talking about dropping hours, his 4 whole -- the new manager's whole perception 5 is that he doesn't care, he's still going to 6 bill us for it. In his mind these hours are 7 our hours, and if we wanted to cancel 8 something right now in February, he's saying 9 he's going to bill us for it. 10 MR. WORTHLEY: The situation could 11 have gotten back to him because I mean, I 12 specifically had asked Tony to take away two 13 hours, so I had specifically asked that. I 14 don't remember if I -- I can go back and 15 check my emails -- if I asked Dwayne and 16 Tony to work together with Manoff or if I 17 had gone and cc'd Hatch in the process as 18 well. So that's where -- if you want to 19 know where it came from, that was my 20 decision, you know, in consulting with the 21 financial matters of the rink to pull away 22 two hours knowing the fact that Manoff would 23 be upset, but frankly, there was never -- 24 Manoff had discussed with me in the summer 111 1 that we would sign a contract, which he 2 never came to sign, so there was no 3 contract. Therefore, there was no agreement 4 on what our hours were, so Mr. Manoff, in my 5 view, I was still waiting for a contract to 6 sign and hence still thought we were in the 7 negotiation process. 8 MR. SERINO: Now, when I worked at the 9 Burlington rink and I work closely with 10 Youth Hockey and Ed Frances -- I don't know 11 if you guys know him, but he's done a lot. 12 He buys the blocks of ice and he actually 13 sells, sells his ice to the Valley League. 14 They were looking for ice or we had the East 15 Coast Senators book two, you know, four 16 hours of ice every Sunday, they had two 17 games going on there and FMC had no problem 18 with it. They rented the ice to you, what 19 you did with it after that, that's your 20 business, so if we paid -- 21 MR. OXLEY: Right. We had 22 investigated that with Austin Prep 'cause we 23 thought they were looking for some extra ice 24 and we were going to sell some of our hours 112 1 to them. 2 MR. SERINO: So he should have no -- 3 MR. NORTON: We were talking about 4 getting rid of them, but not paying, not 5 subletting, so he was pissed off because we 6 weren't going to pay him at all, not sublet 7 the ice to us. 8 MR. SERINO: Well, I know how it 9 works. If we -- I say we -- Burlington 10 Youth, say they get 170 for the 50 minutes, 11 if they sell that 70 minutes for 210, it's 12 no one else's business. FMC gets their 170, 13 they don't care what you do with it. I'm 14 not trying to promote FMC here, don't get me 15 wrong 'cause I'm not making any money here. 16 I'm just saying he should have no business 17 -- if you pay for your ice, whatever you do 18 with it. If you let it sit there for an 19 hour without being used, it's not his 20 problem. If you can get 50 bucks an hour 21 more for your ice, not his problem, you 22 already paid for it. And I've seen it done 23 all through the year in Burlington 'cause 24 they do it all the time. 113 1 MR. WORTHLEY: That theory was almost 2 going to get put in action if the Kasabuski 3 partners were going to take over the rink. 4 When we knew that there was going to be no 5 more North Suburban at the 11th hour. With 6 my discussions with John and Paul Gilmartin 7 up in their office, we had discussed about 8 taking, buying extra hours 'cause we weren't 9 sure how they were going to be towards the 10 Valley League in using Saugus primarily as 11 our home rink, the Valley League games, and 12 then we turn around and buy them and 13 sublease it over to the Kasabuski -- no, it 14 was not when the Kasabuski. It was when 15 they went off the radar and we weren't sure 16 who was going to be there, so we wanted to 17 make sure the kids were in the Valley League 18 program and it was a full schedule, because 19 we got late into the game, to take that and 20 sublease it to the Valley League and put a 21 little cash in Saugus Youth Hockey's pocket. 22 That may help out with some of the deficits. 23 MR. BRAZIS: Dana, would you mind 24 being the chairperson for that committee? 114 1 MR. DeMatteo: Not a problem. 2 MR. BRAZIS: So it will be Mr. 3 DeMatteo, Mr. Serino, and Mr. Ruszkowski. 4 Thank you for that. The one last thing -- I 5 do have one last thing before I turn to 6 over, but if you would, from here on in 7 could you exclude anybody, Board of 8 Directors, the public -- Steve is a hockey 9 parent now, he's also a member -- as of 10 tonight, he volunteered for the Player's 11 Selection Committee -- but please direct 12 your phone calls to the directors that you 13 see here or the E Board. Please leave Steve 14 out of any more of your phone calls or 15 emails. No disrespect for Steve, but I 16 think it's better for the program that we 17 just exclude him at this time. So please, 18 if you have any questions, take it to your 19 directors or anybody on the board or the E 20 Board. And with that said, if there's 21 anybody out in the public, if you would, 22 please, the podium is up here. If you would 23 like to come up and say something, just 24 state your name and we'll get it on the 115 1 record and say what you'd like to say. 2 MR. WORTHLEY: Can I go first? My 3 name is Steve Worthley. Everyone here in 4 the room pretty much knows me. I'm the 5 former president of Saugus Youth Hockey. I 6 want to apologize for not getting the 7 opportunity to speak with you until this 8 evening. It's my understanding there were a 9 couple of emergency meetings which resulted 10 into this forum, and I could not attend 11 personally due to some health issues. What 12 I wanted to get up and say is that I am 13 extremely proud of Saugus Youth Hockey and 14 everything that every single one of you have 15 done to get to this point today. To see the 16 action of all of you parents, players, 17 coaches, board members, grandfathers has 18 been tremendous. It leaves a very, very 19 warm feeling in my heart personally, and 20 what I want to do is I want to thank folks 21 for jumping in, taking the reigns and 22 bringing it over the goal line. There's a 23 lot of momentum that I've seen in the past 24 month from, you know, sitting in that seat 116 1 to where Scott sits now, and I just want to 2 thank everybody for the opportunity to work 3 with, work for and especially work to 4 benefit the kids of this fine, fine youth 5 group. Thank you very much. 6 (Applause.) 7 MR. SERINO: My name is Frank Serino, 8 PeeWee B coach and this is my first year 9 involved other than being a spectator, so 10 I'm sure I've done a lot of things wrong as 11 a coach, and if I caused any grief in that 12 way, I apologize, it wasn't intentional. 13 And just to go over what -- me and Rich did 14 speak last night about the conflict about 15 what happened with the PeeWee A and PeeWee B 16 goalies and I'm only up here to tell you 17 how, what I would do is if there is a 18 problem again and we need the PeeWee B 19 goalies, Mr. and Mr. Lombardy -- Bobby is my 20 other goalie, Dante, my son, is our other 21 one. If it's a game that happens to be we 22 have one and he has one, I'll sit with the 23 Lombardys with their son and with my son, 24 decide which one of us wants to go to that 117 1 game, the other one will play the B game. 2 Both will be accommodated, both teams will 3 be with a goalie. If it's a game that isn't 4 conflicted, I would send both of them. They 5 split games for me, let them split games 6 with the A's and we go from there. That's 7 my suggestion on how to do it. Me and Rich 8 did have a chance to talk, we straightened 9 things out that way, you know, some things, 10 and that's just my view on it. We seem to 11 agree on that, so not to keep bringing up, 12 you know, past things, I just wanted to let 13 you know how I think it will be handled in 14 the future. 15 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. 16 MR. SERINO: Can I just ask one 17 question while I'm here? On our money 18 situation, say someone came to tryouts, paid 19 their first payment, but hasn't made a 20 payment since, now if you ask them to leave 21 the program, do we recoup any money for them 22 or do we just say "All right. You can't 23 play anymore"? Do you see what I'm saying, 24 when they got to play from September to now 118 1 for $400? 2 MR. OXLEY: We haven't in the past. 3 John Whitlock and I, when John was 4 president, investigated the whole small 5 claims court process. John knows it very 6 well. Danvers Youth Hockey has actually 7 done that. It's something we talked about 8 and if need be, we will pursue, but to date, 9 no, there's never been. 10 MR. MOORE: Didn't we talk about maybe 11 putting something on the application when 12 the people sign up, signing something just 13 say you're responsible. 14 MR. BRAZIS: I don't know if that 15 would ever hold up in court. One thing I 16 can add to that, Frank, if I owed money and 17 I said, "I'm off the ice. I'll go play in 18 Lynn next year," I can't do that. 19 MR. SERINO: I'm just curious on how 20 we would handle it. 21 MR. BRAZIS: You've done something, 22 "Okay, I'm done now. It's embarrassing. 23 I'll go and play in Lynn next year," it 24 can't be done. 119 1 MR. OXLEY: USA Hockey does not allow 2 you -- if you leave this program owing 3 money, you cannot play anywhere else. 4 MR. BRAZIS: So that's like thinking 5 that we're the ones that are getting raked 6 here. Well, no, because eventually you 7 can't go play anywhere else until you pay 8 your debt at Saugus Youth Hockey. 9 MR. SERINO: Thank you, and 10 congratulations to the three new board 11 members here. I'm sure you'll do a great 12 job. 13 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you very much. 14 Anybody else? Is there anybody else who 15 would like to come up and speak? 16 MS. ALLEN: Yes, I would. I know I'm 17 beating a dead horse, but I've been hearing 18 this about the money over and over and over 19 again, and why the hell should I pay every 20 time and nobody else does? If you guys make 21 a decision, whatever it is, don't say it -- 22 because the next time, why should I pay you? 23 I mean, really, because if you don't pay, I 24 don't want to embarrass my son, I can't do 120 1 that to the kids. Unfortunately, everybody 2 is in a tough spot. It is what it is, but 3 if you make the decision, whatever you 4 decide to do, make sure you follow-up. I 5 mean, just don't say it. I've been hearing 6 this for three years. I didn't even want to 7 pay, to be honest with you. Why should I 8 pay when somebody else is on the ice? If 9 you want the payments to continue next year, 10 and you don't want to go through this again, 11 and you know I have the chance that my kid 12 is not going to play because I didn't pay, 13 I'm not going to embarrass my son. But you 14 have to -- whatever you decide to do, you 15 have to enforce it. And what's good for one 16 should be good for all. If somebody's on 17 the ice not paying, then why the hell should 18 I? That's it. 19 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you. If I may, 20 before anybody else in the public would like 21 to speak I'd just like to introduce our 22 league rep, Kevin Nigro. I know he had a 23 prior engagement tonight, so could we also 24 recognize that he did make it to the 121 1 meeting, Mr. Secretary? 2 MR. GROARK: Quick roll call. Kevin 3 Nigro. 4 MR. NIGRO: Present. Did you get my 5 report? 6 MR. NORTON: I couldn't print it out, 7 but I shared the email and I'll send the 8 attachment. 9 MR. NIGRO: Your email got kicked back 10 to me. I just want to make sure I get your 11 right email and I'll resend it. 12 MR. BRAZIS: We also have an 13 Ice-Search Committee, I didn't know if you'd 14 like to be part of that. 15 MR. NIGRO: No, thank you, I 16 appreciate it, but I'm a little stretched 17 out for the next couple months and I 18 couldn't be that effective I don't think, 19 but certainly, if you want to copy me on 20 emails and if there's people's names I 21 recognize I might be able to reach out, I 22 certainly will help. 23 MR. BRAZIS: Thank you, as always. 24 MR. NIGRO: If I could not go and 122 1 rehash reports or whatnot. Was there any 2 decision made or discussion on the Squirt 1 3 team moving or staying as is? 4 MR. OXLEY: Moving. 5 MR. MOORE: No, I put a call in to -- 6 was it John -- not John. Was it John 7 Gilmartin? Was it John? 8 MR. OXLEY: Probably John. 9 MR. NIGRO: Yeah. He wanted input. 10 He's perfectly happy to leave you where you 11 are, but he asked me to bring it up. 12 MR. MOORE: It's funny 'cause did you 13 read the email? It's kind of a crazy email. 14 It's like we play a team that's a good team 15 and we can play them 3-2 or a 4-2 game, and 16 then we play a terrible team and lose 9-1. 17 It really doesn't matter to me either way. 18 I mean, could we go down, yeah. Could we 19 stay where we are, yeah. 20 MR. OXLEY: Did the Valley -- were 21 they initiating the move? 22 MR. NIGRO: Valley initiated. 23 MR. MOORE: I just got the email this 24 afternoon and I called John before I went 123 1 into practice, left a message, and I've been 2 waiting to see if he's going to call me back 3 'cause they were supposed to make the move 4 today or tomorrow, I guess. 5 MR. NIGRO: He'll wait 'til tomorrow 6 if he hears from us tonight or tomorrow, so 7 it's totally up to you. He has the ability 8 to move you or leave you right where you 9 are. 10 MR. BRAZIS: Would you like to think 11 about it? 12 MR. MOORE: I don't know why I have to 13 say anything here. 14 MR. NIGRO: As part of my league rep 15 duties -- 16 MR. MOORE: I can talk to you about 17 it, if you want, afterwards? 18 MR. NIGRO: Yeah. 19 MR. MOORE: I don't want to go over it 20 in front of the whole -- I mean, when my 21 team shows up, we can play, but they only 22 show up half the time. Ask anyone in this 23 room that comes to the games. 24 MR. PATTERSON: Agreed. 124 1 MR. MOORE: It's not showing up 2 physically, it's showing up whether I want 3 to make effort today. When we show up, 4 we're probably not going to beat many teams 5 in the division, but I think we're going to 6 get better by playing the better teams. 7 MR. BRAZIS: So you and Kevin can 8 discuss this afterwards? 9 MR. MOORE: Exactly. 10 MR. BRAZIS: Thanks. Is there anybody 11 else out there that would like to come up 12 and have any thoughts, make any comments? 13 MR. RUSZKOWSKI: Ron Ruszkowski, 14 former vice president. I just want to talk 15 about that incident we had with the player 16 last month at the PeeWee A level. Just to 17 let you know with the new board, new 18 committee, the new board that you guys 19 formed a committee for that and it's coming 20 up this week, I believe. I hope you guys 21 are going to do the right thing about this 22 in regards of that player and that 23 individual coach. All I know is the past 24 month, my nephew, who's now 13 years old 125 1 enjoys playing Saugus Youth Hockey from Mite 2 level to now and he is torn, torn. His 3 mother is torn. I'm torn. As you can see, 4 I'm shaking right now. As Saugus Youth 5 Hockey, I just hope that you guys do the 6 right thing for this 12-year-old, now 7 13-year-old player that wants to play for 8 Saugus Youth Hockey this year, and loves 9 playing with his friends on the PeeWee A 10 team. I just can't say anything more enough 11 about this kid. Is he a 12-year-old, now 12 13, yes, and sometimes does he have a mouth, 13 I don't know, probably does. I mean, every 14 12-year-old does, I guess, but I don't feel 15 that he should be singled out for one player 16 on that team. He enjoys that team 17 immensely. He enjoys playing with those 18 kids on that team, and I hope right now this 19 kid ain't going to be scarred for a while 20 with this. I'm just letting you know that 21 my thoughts, I enjoy Saugus Youth Hockey. 22 My son's in it now, seven-year-old starting 23 in the program. I want him to continue 24 growing in this program. I want to be 126 1 involved in this program for years to come, 2 but I just hope that it's a 12-year-old 3 we're talking about and no one else. So I 4 just want to say my thoughts on that, and I 5 know you guys did the best you can. Thank 6 you. 7 MR. OXLEY: Thank you. 8 MR. MOORE: Thanks, Ron. 9 MR. BRAZIS: Is there anybody else 10 that would like to speak? 11 MR. MOORE: I'd just like to talk on 12 that. I'd like to reiterate -- I know I'm 13 probably beating a dead horse, but we need 14 to get this done now, and I know we are. 15 MR. NORTON: We were waiting for the 16 volunteers to get back to us and everything. 17 MR. MOORE: I understand that. When 18 we had that meeting a month ago, and I 19 understand the holiday, this needs to be 20 done. Again, I'm beating a dead horse. I'm 21 sorry. I just want to express myself on 22 that. 23 MR. BRAZIS: That's okay. It is being 24 addressed. If there's nobody else out in 127 1 the crowd, if I may speak for the Executive 2 Board here. I know we're going to do the 3 right thing here as a group, and I know 4 we're going to move forward in the right 5 way. I want to thank the board that was 6 sitting here. I'd like to thank Steve 7 Worthley, Ron Ruszkowski, David Aiken and 8 Dwayne stayed, for their hard work and 9 devotion to this program. That needs to be 10 said. This is a volunteer thing. We all 11 put an awful lot of time in here. We've 12 been here for two hours here tonight, and 13 I'm sure you all would rather be home with 14 your families, but this is a volunteer 15 organization and it's a volunteer 16 organization that we're going to make sure 17 that things are done the right way, looked 18 at the right way, disciplined the right way, 19 and that Saugus Youth Hockey is going to 20 remain a gem in Massachusetts hockey. We're 21 all in this together. I look at myself as 22 just sitting up here, not as any president 23 or anybody else. I'm a parent. I'm just 24 like everybody else in here. I want to see 128 1 what's best for this program and for the 2 kids. That's all I care about. Not even my 3 own son and how he may progress. I care 4 about every kid in this program, and I know 5 this E Board feels the same way, and I 6 believe the Board of Directors feel the same 7 way also. I just want to let you parents 8 know that we are going to try to do the 9 right thing for everybody. We've heard Mrs. 10 Allen's comments tonight, and we've heard an 11 awful lot about finances tonight. We are 12 going to address those. I hope it doesn't 13 have to get bad, but if there's a bad 14 decision that has to be made, sometimes you 15 have to make those tough decisions. If 16 somebody would like to make a motion. 17 MR. WORTHLEY: It will be made as a 18 group, the decision will be made on behalf 19 of the organization? 20 MR. BRAZIS: Always, for the better of 21 the organization. Not for the betterment of 22 me or you as an individual. It will be made 23 for the better of this organization always, 24 always. And there will be no hard feelings 129 1 certainly for me. I feel that I have a lot 2 of new friends in this program. I don't 3 have any enemies here, and if a decision has 4 to be made, believe me, I will carry no 5 animosity whatsoever. It's a decision that 6 would have to be made, and I think as adults 7 you would expect that decision to be made. 8 And with that said -- 9 MR. NORTON: I just want to ask that 10 everybody signs this sheet. 11 MR. SHRIMPF: Motion in return. 12 MR. WORTHLEY: Second. 13 MR. ZABROSKI: Second. 14 (Meeting concluded at 9:48 p.m.) 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24