Southern California Soccer Referee's Association
Ventura Chapter

 

Minutes of Referee Meeting March-20, 2001

Attendees

Lisa Sue Ayoung Muttah        Joe Campisi                Dianna Tubbs           David_Hann
Mike Skinner                         Jeff Plunkett                Philippe Renault       Seth_Buckner
Lou Mages                            Eduardo Rodriguez     Raul Merino             James_Cameron
Ron Millender                        Joe Puliti                     Dick Falk                 Larry_Turner
John Badaracco                     Maggie Saling

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7:15pm by President Eduardo Rodriquez.  Eduardo welcomed the members to the new location.  There are no minutes from last month's AGM meeting, Feb 20, 2001 to be read.  There was no treasurer's report.

Association Image

The Ventura County Referee Association referees needs to improve its image.  Eduardo attended the AGM of CYSA–S in Bakersfield, CA the weekend of 3, 4 March 2001.  He solicited comments from the ECRSL and the CSL.  There were no problems with ECRSL this year. The association only covered a few fields.  The concerns are as follows: consistency of calling fouls in a game, consistency between referees, referees don’t run and keep up with play, and referee “no shows”.  Eduardo asked how do we address this problem?  A member asked if the CSL concerns were to a particular game or individual named referee.  Eduardo responded that individual referees would not be singled out and addressed in a meeting, but would be addressed by the standards committee.  We need to improve our image. We need to cover for each other on the field. We need to help each other.  We need to give positive feedback to each other. Problems at State Cup included not having the full set of referee uniforms.  Games didn’t start on time

How to Improve

1.      Recruit more referees.  Take flyer to local community college and flyer to local teams.  SYRA recommends getting referees from recreational leagues as a Grade 9, 10 referee.  The have an 8-hour class vs a 16 hour class.  A youth referee must be 14 or older to be paid.  A recreational player can easily become a referee. 

2.      Mentor Youth Referees and new referees. State has a MENTOR program. We need to follow up and get state guidelines on the program.  We need a non-Board member to take on the Mentor program.  We need a team of MENTORs and shift the team around to Mentor different referees.  Joe Puliti commented that we especially need to MENTOR the youth referees.  We need to build their confidence. A lot of our youth referees are not entirely familiar with the AR mechanics.  Need to place emphasis on mechanics.   Question asked: Are we limiting MENTORING to youth referees?  No.  We need members to set up and volunteer to be Mentors and someone to run the program.

3.      Referee ethics.  We need to improve how we behave as referees to other referees. We need to mentor each other during the game.  Need to get out of the 2nd half bad habit of trailing back.

4.      Goal for this year is that every referee gets assessed.  For a Grade 8 to a Grade 7 assessment, it costs $25 for an assessment of a center referee.  The AR is also assessed while a center referee is assessed.  For $5 the AR will get a written result of the AR assessment.  For a Grade 7 to Grade 6 it costs $40 for a center referee and $20 for an AR.  To obtain the Grade 6 you need 2 center assessments and one AR assessment.  Assessors are paid on the field

Registration

It was suggested that maybe we should raise the Association dues to $ 60.  The dues would be used to pay for the annual assessment of a referee in the center.  A comment was made that High School referees pay $60 for only 3 months and perhaps $60 for a year is a good deal.  We could also use the extra money to support Youth referees.

YOUTH REFEREE

Do we as an association want to help youth referees with a uniform? One idea was to front money for a referee uniform and have the youth referee pay it back over time.  Some members objected to getting into the business of fronting money.  Our commitment to the association is in terms of time not money. Joe Puliti commented that a starter uniform is about $37.  Question was raised; Why does a 15 or 16 want to referee?  They are only interested in the money.  They don’t know what they are getting into.  Agreed but a MENTOR program will help that situation.  Someone suggested that we give the Youth a starter uniform (cost of $37) so they can start refereeing right away and then request that they pay association dues of $27 dollars instead of giving them the first year free.  Net cost to association would only be $10.

Woman referee

Question was asked how do we tap into more women referees?  We could go to the indoor soccer arena and recruit.  The association is a majority of men. A woman referee commented that she was imitated on the sideline in the beginning.  She was a recruit and there was little mentoring by fellow referees.  Some referees were very helpful and encouraging and others just ignored her. 

Retaining Referees is still an issue

CSL has good guidelines on how to deal with problems with coaches and refereeing.  CSL will not accept comments from a coach until Wednesday after a weekend game.  ECRSL gives out forms for coaches to assess referees on the sidelines.  When we are negotiating with ECRSL, can we get them to accept CSL guidelines?  We need to use the Referee Supplemental report to accurately report the details of incidents on the field by coaches, players and spectators.  The Supplemental report can be downloaded from the USSF web site.  Comment from member we need to get training on how to fill one out correctly.  Agreed, good suggestion for a meeting Training session.  League will support referee if reports are written.  We should also send a copy of any report to the association.

SRA/SYRA guest speakers

The guest speaker was unable to make the meeting tonight due to a scheduling conflict after we moved the meeting.  Plan to get Bob Hope, registrar for referees here next month to speak.

CSL; ECRSL; TCSL

The Association is in negotiation with CSL for next year. The Association is in negotiation with ECRSL for next year under the guideline the Association will cover only as many fields as it could cover based on last year's schedule

State Cup/ Tournaments

1.      Santa Barbara May 12, 13 2001:  This is rainout date for the tournament that was scheduled in Jan.

2.      South Cal United Tournament 24,25 March: The Association has four fields assigned at Conejo Creek.  Members were asked to sign up with their availability.  It was noted that at last week’s games a State referee official was asking for referee Ids.  Members need to carry ID cards with them.

3.      Tri County League:  Their season is still in progress

4.      League Cup: There are still 7 or 8 games left.

Scheduling

CSL desires that there be a referee schedule one month ahead.  They don’t want schedule to be done the day ahead of the weekend game.  They realize that there will always be exceptions to the assignment schedule.

New Business

Question was asked if CSL would be the Association's primary commitment and the ECRSL and TCSL our secondary commitment.  The answer given was CSL would be our primary commitment.

Next meeting scheduled for April 17, 2001 at the same location in Oxnard.

Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 9:01pm.