President's News Page

 

Important Messages

GCU is a volunteer organization who's main focus is to provide an opertunity for ALL kids to play competitive soccer locally. We due this by trying to keep the costs at a reasonable rate to attract as many players as possible. As more players sign up, some modifications may need to be made regarding rostering and coaching assignments. As such, there may be situations where the "wants" of the player and/or parents may not be able to be honored. We will do our best to honor the wishes of the players but this WILL NOT be done at the expense of other players.

Coaches for GCU are a volunteer position. They give of their time and effort for the betterment of the club and the kids. They do this not for monetary compensation but the smile of that child that has learned a new skill or the child that has learned a life lesson such as sportsmanship. There may be circumstance when a coach may ask for help from his team or parents to cover unexpected expenses incurred for the benefit of the team. Although the Board believes that this is within the authority of the coach to ask for assistance, we would also like to remind everyone that any assistance by the team or parents in these circumstances is strictly voluntary.

Reminder to all teams that beginning last season we had adopted the "weather theme" for all team names. Some teams still need to submit a team name.

 

   On 07/15/2010, Goose Creek United held a board meeting to resolve several issues of major importance due to the time frames involved. The first issue discussed was the registration. The registration deadline of August 15, 2010 was found to be unreasonable. As the 2010 Fall Season can begin with games the following week, there simply is not time to have all the logistical concerns addressed within that time frame. As such, although we will honor the deadline as far as late fees are concerned, we would ask each parent and player to register now so we can begin the final formation of the teams and your placement on each as well as ordering uniforms. There is expected to be a three week turnaround time for the uniforms so they must all be ordered very soon.  No player will be allowed to play in any game until they have a uniform so it will be imperative that parents register as soon as possible.

   The second issue discussed was the uniforms. This has been a difficult process and some decisions had to be made and time was of the essence. Several months back, it was voted that GCU would change uniform color to Kelley Green. The reasoning behind that included several issues. First, the current uniform, which was provided by Score Uniforms, was $65 and included 2 jerseys, 1 shorts and 2 pairs of socks. Although the quality of the uniform was good, Score broke the contract negotiated by discontinuing the style and material agreed upon after 4 seasons (2 calendar years) rather than the 10 seasons (5 calendar years) that the uniform would be available to us. As such, a uniform change was inevitable. Second, the color change was going to be possible as GCU had found a uniform sponsor that was going to provide $3500 to outfit the entire club with new uniforms at no additional cost to the players. It was based on this promised sponsorship that the color change was going to be financially feasible as the additional funds would allow us to change our entire color scheme, to include coach’s jerseys, fan support T-shirts, car magnets and other merchandise. A contract was signed with DTI Soccer for a uniform kit that includes 2 jerseys, 1 shorts and 1 pair of socks for a price of $40. On July 9, 2010, the uniform sponsorship fell through. This severally limited our options. As we are fast approaching the deadline to order ANY uniform to have ready for the upcoming Fall season, some decisions had to be made that may not please all the parents and players. We looked at our existing inventory of Royal Blue accessories. We currently have approximately $1600 worth of Blue inventory for sale. If we changed the colors to Kelley green, this inventory would become relatively worthless and would not generate any revenue to be returned to the kids in the form of additional training equipment or other expenses incurred by the Club on the kid’s behalf and these costs would ultimately have to be passed along to the players. We would also then have to re-purchase these items in the new color, which would even further cut into our limited funds. As such, it was unanimously voted for GCU to retain our Royal Blue colors to help keep our costs low. The second issue regarding uniforms discussed was the cost of the uniform. There was much debate regarding who will incur the cost of the uniform but it was ultimately voted that this additional uniform cost shall be at the player’s cost. We looked at the budget breakdown for each player and determined that although the registration fees were increased this season, the bulk of those increases are the result of increasing fees, such as security bonds placed on teams, league fees and referee fees, which are beyond our control. An additional $40 per player was added to the registration fees for skills training for each player this season. This was done so that we would have a budgeted amount of money to spend on this skills training as well as to encourage all of our players to participate in this additional training. In the past, with the pay as you attend program, we found it nearly impossible to recruit the appropriate coaches to run the training sessions as they would never know how much they would get paid each week. There were even some weeks when the coaches lost money, having brought in additional staff only to find a handful of kids participating in the skills sessions. Although the skills training is still a work in progress as the total budget will not be known until the registration deadline has passed, we now have a better idea of a proposed budget to help entice outside coaches to instruct these sessions. It was found that even with the additional registration fees and the new uniform cost, we are still well below all the other clubs in the area and that the aggregate increase is only an additional $25 from where we were last season. The Board does realize that during these difficult financial times, this additional cost will be a hardship for some and we believe that we have a solution to this issue. All uniforms will initially be paid for by the player. If the player or a parent volunteers their time to assist with one of the many fundraisers planned for the near future, the club will then reimburse that player the cost of the uniform at a rate of one reimbursement per fundraiser worked. This will assist some families with limited funding while at the same time not penalize other families with limited time. It should also increase participation in the fundraisers so that a limited few are not committing all of their time to the club.

   It is also with great regret that Coach Cisco has resigned his position as Director of Coaching with the club. It has been a decision he has struggled with but wanted to assure everyone that it was due to personnel reasons and not anything to do with the direction the Club is headed. As President, I would personally like to thank Coach Cisco for all the knowledge, time and effort he has graciously donated to the Club over the many years with us and he will be missed. We are now in process of actively recruiting for the Director of Coaching position and hope to appoint a new DOC soon.