It is with a saddened heart that we write to
inform you the Gorham Football Boosters Board of Directors has voted to not
proceed with a formal playing season involving games and practices for the 2020
season. Please know that this decision was not made lightly and read
this communication in full as we want you to understand entirely the reasons
around this difficult decision. GFB’s have been following several
resources that influence what we can and cannot do within community sports such
as youth football. These resources include but are not limited to:
Dept of Education, Maine Principals Association, SMYFL, Gorham Community Rec
and Maine CDC guidelines for community sports.
As
of Monday night's meeting, SMYFL has decided to proceed with planning for the
season, however, there are still a significant amount of unknowns across all
organizations. Despite the decision that was made, the general tone of
the meeting was very concerning if we were to move forward with the full
season. Organizational decisions that are yet to be made that will
influence SMYFL's overall ability to hold the season are still to be seen.
We
understand that this is not likely the news that you wanted to hear and can
assure you it is not the news we wanted to share. We deeply
apologize for any inconvenience and/or dissatisfaction this brings to our
players, parents and extended football families. Refunds will be
issued for anyone who has already registered to play and can be expected to be
completed within 7-10 business days. Please note that we are unable to
offer refunds for any card processing fees as these are paid to the platform
used by our program for online registration processes.
The
board agrees that keeping our kids active and engaged in football this
season is still important and therefore we are actively looking into options to
offer strength, conditioning and other skills and drills type events in place
of the formal football season. We will send out more information on
this topic as we have it.
Key
factors in decision to cancel standard playing season:
- The health and safety of our players, families and
community need to remain our top priority.
- With the latest direction and decisions that are beginning to
be communicated out from resources above, it is extremely unlikely that we
will be able to play a regular season in which we will still need to
incorporate COVID safety precautions, if even we are to gain the ability
to utilize the town field.
- Registration has been relatively low even with the option to
register for $1 in efforts to understand what total registration numbers
are likely to be. Under SMYFL, we are required to have a
certain minimum number of players for each team within our program.
- A hybrid model for a playing season has certainly been
considered, however, this would take a lot of re-inventing of the wheel
and on top of having to incorporate COVID guidelines and precautions with
our current state, this is not feasible.
- During “normal” times, at an absolute minimum the board needs 10 actively engaged members to run an
effective organization. Over the last few years, we’ve had as
little as 4 and as many as 7 with several mid-term position turnovers
over the past year’s timeframe. We have been operating with 5
members since mid-winter and have continued to face many challenges as a
result (the board functions year-round to maintain the program).
- Due to lack of volunteer’s and individual bandwidth, the
board does not have nearly the capacity to effectively hold and
manage any sort of season under these current circumstances, most
especially impacted by layering in the need to incorporate COVID safety
guidelines.
It
is important to note that with the board being essentially only half staffed,
it is an incredibly large task to put on even a standard season. The
organization is in desperate need of attention with regards to establishing an
operational system and structure in which board members can easily and
successfully step into and hold a position and then have a positive and
beneficial transition to a successor as roles change organically.
The
board has decided to take this necessary decision not to play and use it as an
opportunity to put much needed time and effort into creating systems and
structures that are current, efficient and sustainable for years and board
members to come. Establishing these things are instrumental to the
overall success and longevity of youth football in Gorham. You can't have
strong and manageable building without a solid foundation. Our foundation
has fallen apart and we need to take step back to get it back together
otherwise the organization will not be able to grow and flourish for years to
come. We've made the decision to use this year as an opportunity to take
the necessary pause and rebuild our organization.
Over
the upcoming year, the board will focus on 3 key organizational goals:
- Update existing policies, procedures and bylaws to reflect
the current environment and needs.
- Establish effective, sustainable and transparent operational
systems and structures.
- This will ensure board transitions are smooth and board
members can remain focused on further growing the program as opposed to
needing to re-start and figure it out year after year.
- Recruit and have a FULL panel of board members by early 2021
to better support upcoming seasons.
Again, we'd
love to see all our boys and girls back in the game but every good leader knows
no business or organization can have long term success if only managing the
short term. If we want the program to thrive vs just exist, pausing and
refocusing the limited resources we have is necessary and critical. Know
that GFB will still be very busy working through the key focus areas for the
2020 season listed above. We are all very much looking forward to
many updates and improvements to our current program that we intend to
implemented for the 2021 season.
If
you have any questions, suggestions or interest in joining our team of Gorham
Football Boosters Board of Directors, please reach out to us using our group
email address @[email protected]. Please
also visit our website @ gorhamyouthfootball.com for
more information on open board positions and volunteer
applications.
Take
care and stay safe, we miss you all very much!
Sincerely,
Gorham
Football Boosters
Jen
Corkum, President
Ken
Fredette, Concessions Director
Jenny
Skolfield, Treasurer
Matt
Cote, Technology Director
Carolyn
Towle, Equipment Director