Information for Managing your team

Training

Depending upon the age/experience of your team and how many children you have, your coach might like some assistance at training. So check with him/her and let your parents know.

It’s your job to remind parents when training begins – I have found that the most effective way of doing this is via text, rather than e-mail. But choose whatever method works best for your team (noting that some parents don’t have e-mail and/or a mobile phone). Also, if you are going to distribute your team contact list to all your parents, check first that they are OK with that.

HINT: The HEJA mobile app is a great team management app that is really easy to use and enables parents and players to RSVP for training and games. It can also facilitate communication within the group whilst maintaining privacy.

Uniforms – for children and parent officials

The uniforms are kept by the parents and returned at the end of the season. Any uniform queries should be directed to Jayah Halnan.

Hats: you will distribute the hats on game day and collect them at the end of each game and keep them in a team bag – the one supplied or your own. We have found that inevitably if kids are allowed to take the hats home, someone forgets to bring it on game day, and then they can’t play because – ‘no hat, no play’. If you trust all your kids to bring their hats every game day, then hand them out. TIP: Use a permanent marker to write the name of each child on their hat as they get to keep them at the end of the season.  Children who played last season may still have their old hat, in which case they don’t need a new hat – but if they need or want a new hat, that’s OK. There will also be hats for the coach, manager and umpire of each team. If you didn’t receive enough hats, come to the Club Room and ask for another hat.

Shirts will also be distributed for each Coach, Manager and Umpire to wear on game day. This way you are easily identified. It’s not compulsory to wear them but we would prefer if you did. Again, if the shirt is the wrong size, you will be able to swap it.

MOST IMPORTANT: please always wear closed-in shoes on game day. This applies to all coaches, umpires, managers and any other parent who will be on the diamond. No thongs or sandals or other open-toed shoes or bare feet are permitted on the diamond. If a parent has the wrong shoes and is on the diamond they will be asked to leave the diamond and this could cause you a problem if they were your 1^st base coach and no-one else has the right shoes. (You’d be surprised how many parents wear sandals/thongs to tee-ball.)  We would prefer the coach and manager to also wear closed-in shoes at training too – to set a good example for the kids (and to stop Trevor from getting a bit grumpy.)

Fixtures

You should forward this information onto your parents – but you may still want to remind them each week where the game is. Also, you need to remind them to come 30 minutes before game time ie 8.00am for U 7's and U9s and 9.45am for U11s and U13s.

After the first 4-5 games of the season, all teams’ results are reviewed and teams may be re-graded if Wembley believe this is appropriate eg a team getting soundly beaten each week could expect to be moved to a lower grade (IF there is a lower grade) while a team winning easily most weeks might go up a grade. This means the fixtures will change which is why you only get the first 4-5 weeks.

Game day

For each game, your main task BEFORE the game is to allocate the following tasks to your team parents:

1. 1^st base coach (when you are batting, this person helps the kids with running)
2. 3^rd base coach (when you are batting, as above)
3. Scorer
4. Someone to bring oranges (if you want)

You may find it helpful to do up a roster a few weeks in advance so parents know when they are required and can let you know if they won’t be able to do their task. Every team has 1-2 parents who seem to be too busy to do anything – don’t get too stressed about it, it’s their loss!

DURING the game, your main task will be when the kids are batting – you need to make sure they are in the correct batting order when they come up to bat. Trust me, this is sometimes a much harder task than it appears. Whilst the batting line up remains the same throughout the game the next batter up in each innings may change.

Your coach will give you his/her batting line up – make sure you stick to it. TIP – write a number on the kids hands that corresponds to their batting no. in permanent marker – especially for the little ones.

End of Season Medals

During the season medals will be supplied by the Stirling Apache Tee-ball Club. More information will be distributed closer to the en of the season, Managers may want to liaise with parents to determine if the team would like the medals engraved.

As always, please e-mail us if you have any queries.

Email: satc@mail.tidyhq.com

Lastly, the most important thing is that your kids have fun – whatever their age group. Tee-ball is a fantastic team sport and the kids love it, especially when they can see their parents getting involved.