The upcoming Borderland Soccer Association’s season could be cancelled if the club doesn’t find several volunteers to fill positions on its executive committee soon.
The association currently is without a president after Shane Beckett resigned earlier this month.
To make matters worse, the women’s division vice-president and secretary positions, which also were recently vacated, had to be filled on an interim basis by existing executive members when no one volunteered to undertake the duties.
Current and outgoing executive members had hoped to fill the vacant positions at the association’s general annual meeting late last month but poor attendance quickly derailed that plan.
Only five of the league’s seven executive members were on hand while none of the players showed up.
“The position of president is still open, which puts the upcoming season in jeopardy because if we don’t have a functioning executive up and running, we won’t be able to make all the necessary preparations for the upcoming season,” Beckett warned.
“We need people to step forward, show a little pride in the league, and take it from there,” he stressed.
The executive is responsible for a wide variety of administrative tasks associated with running the league.
These include preparing registration packages for all 10 league teams, submitting the completed registration forms to the Ontario Soccer Association, booking fields, preparing the schedule, finding officials and then organizing an officials’ clinic, and purchasing the necessary insurance.
“It’s a pretty big job with seven people on the executive,” Beckett remarked. “It gets done fairly efficiently.
“But with two or three people on the executive, I think the job would be a little too daunting,” he added.
“I can’t see a season taking place if we don’t have people on the executive who are willing to organize and plan the season.”
The association has scheduled an emergency meeting for Tuesday, March 6 at 6 p.m. in Room 138 at Fort High, at which time they hope several people will come forward to fill the vacant executive positions.
“We’re hoping to get a much bigger turnout for that meeting and maybe we can get the other positions filled so people currently on the executive won’t have to hold two or three positions on the executive,” Beckett said.
“We’re also hoping the presidency can be filled at that time.”
If no new volunteers come forward at the March 6 meeting, Beckett said the association will have no other choice but to consider axing the season.
“I would say if we didn’t have an executive in place come the first of April, I don’t know if there would be enough time to get things done to start games by the end of May,” he warned.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
