Presidents Report from the 2014 SEEBA Annual General Meeting

Nov. 19, 2014

2014 President's Report

I would first like to thank everyone for showing interest in our baseball program by attending our annual general meeting. It is through a lot of volunteer hours by this board that our program runs seamlessly and efficiently for the benefit of our players and coaches. Our commitment remains to provide the highest level of baseball experience for kids in the city of Edmonton. Tonight we will review the SEEBA program for 2014. At this time I would like to recognize all of our 2014 board members:

Gil Briscoe - Past President

Gerry Dawidowski- Vice President

Murray Engleking - Secretary

Carmen Yarema - Treasurer

Rod Scammel - Coaching Director

Greg Y arema - Equipment Director

Janet Semeniuk - Tournament Director

Sandy Langley - Registrar

Laurie Robbins - Registrar

Larry Jenkinson - Director at Large

Darin Hucul - Director at Large

I would like to acknowledge Loralee Robertson our retiring Casino Chairperson for her time and effort organizing the last two SEEBA casinos and her involvement on behalf of our organization with AGLC.

The 2014 season began with our winter workout camp running from mid-January to the end of April. We continue to get very good attendance, with 80+ attendees, ranging in ages from pee wee to midget. From these winter camps, we are able to develop and evaluate players for approx. 3 months which allows our coaches insight for team selection by mid-April. SEEBA offers tryout dates for those who choose not to attend camp.

For the 2014 season, SEEBA fielded 3 performance level teams in the Alberta Baseball

program. We had 2 teams at Midget Performance and 1 team at Bantam Performance. This was the first season in approx. 10 years that we did not field a pee wee performance team. Pee wee players were directed to either SJP or EABA depending on the area of Edmonton they lived in.

Our Midget Team 1 had a roster of 20 players and represented our club well at tournaments in Lethbridge, Kalispell, Helena, and Kelowna. This year we extended travel for Team 1 after the Kelowna tournament to play a number of exhibition games in Vancouver and Kamloops. Our Midget Team 2 had a roster of 18 players and participated in tournaments in Kalispell (2), Kamloops, and Medicine Hat. Our Bantam team had a roster of 13 players and participated in tournaments in St. Albert, Sherwood Park, and Kamloops.

Our program at the Midget level has been developed to give players opportunities to play throughout the province and into the US. Our Midget program fees cover the cost of player transportation and accommodations to all tournaments scheduled. Our Bantam fees cover the bus transportation and accommodations for the out of town Kamloops trip with Midget Team 2.

Our casino rotation comes up in the spring of 2016 so we will once again be looking for volunteers to help run the 2 day commitment. The last casino generated approximately $77,000 so it is a very important function for our club. We received the 2014 Community Investment Operating Grant from the City of Edmonton of $14,501.00 and our 2015 application has been completed and submitted.

A big volunteer project each year is the Peter Devries Tournament that we host in June for the two Midget Teams. We again had great weather, and were fortunate to have a sponsor, Clean Harbors, supply the food for the concessions. Even though our teams didn't win, it was deemed another successful tournament by all. Thanks again to the organizers and all of the volunteers.

Our mandate is to continue to attract players and coaches to help us represent Edmonton at the AAA baseball level in the province of Alberta. We continue to have many graduates go on to play college baseball in both Canada and the USA each year. We also encourage and support our graduates to come back and help coach in the program to continue the tradition of SEEBA baseball.

Looking forward to 2015, we will continue to offer a city wide AAA program for Bantam and Midget age players. We want to work together with all other Edmonton baseball programs to ensure a competitive program exists and is available to all players in our area. We are aware of other Edmonton clubs wanting to field AAA teams in the Edmonton area and want to make sure we as a zone are not spreading ourselves and players too thin and watering down the caliber of the teams in the league.

We will try to firm up coaches over the next couple of months so that they will be in place when our winter camp starts in mid-January.

In summary, we look forward to fielding three performance level teams for the upcoming season, one at Bantam, and two at Midget. Finally I would like to thank all of our coaches, players and parents for a great 2014 season.

Respectfully,

Duane Robertson

President

South Edmonton Elite Baseball Association (SEEBA)