thomaspietras: The more I read my last post to you concerning the SCYSA, the more that I thought I owed it to you to be as clear as possible. Thus, rather than simply politely responding to an earlier
post of yours; I should have responded precisely what I actually thought. Your post was in response to my statement from memory that the SCYSA had reported it lost 3000 members in the last two years and my question as to what the SCYSA was doing to develop and promote youth soccer in South Carolina.
>>[thomaspietras] The 3000 number you cite seems high to me. I'm not saying you are wrong, just seems high to me. My recollection is that we had about 19,500 registerd players in 2003 and were down to 18,000 to 18,500 in 2005.
My feeling was that the decrease was something to pay attention to, but not something to get overly excited about.<<I guess I wonder what you were getting excited about. If you're going to develop and promote soccer, then it would seem that the best overall metric would be your registered player count. Whether it's down 1500 or 3000, the real problem is that it's not going up, right?
>>While I was on the board, did we do things to try to increase the number of young people playing and enjoying soccer? Sure. Did we do things to try to develop and promote youth soccer in SC? Sure.<<>>In a lot of different ways, we tried to make soccer avialable to more kids and tried to make the experience better (the better the experience, the better the retention). A sample (just what comes to mind, without referring back to notes, minutes, etc.), in no particular order:
1. Working with interested clubs to try to increase the number of clubs offering Top Soccer (for handicapped kids).<<This is no doubt extremely praiseworthy. I think that CESA had 15-20 players in TopSoccer. The question isn't whether this is a worthy effort (because it is), the question is to what degree this impacts the topline number. I wouldn't expect very much.
>>2. Working to create more well-run leagues so that smaller and/or rural clubs would have access to good leagues.<<It would be interesting to understand policy decisions concerning trying to penetrate rural areas versus urban areas. Was there a decision that top line growth would be impacted more by penetrating rural areas? If so, how did that affect top line growth?
>>3. Efforts over the past five years to improve classic-level play by putting the premier/challenge/classic levels in place (more structured than earlier, I believe).<<This certainly benefits select players. But if I were trying to increase top line growth I'd probably focus first on recreation. In any case, did you see a dramatic effect in top line growth from this?
>>4. Efforts to improve communication--new website and moving away from the paper newsletter to an e-newsletter (this has not been implemented yet, I don't think).<<This sounds wonderful and it would seem like the e-newsletter alone would save a lot of money -- but how does this impact top line growth? In other words, how many new players are expected to register due to these initiatives?
>>5. Continued involvement in exchange programs, like the one with German girls teams. If I remember correctly, boys and girls teams will be exchanged in 2006.<<I'd be amazed if this had much of an impact on your top line growth, did it?
>>6. Adoption of small-sided games to improve training and ensure that kids have more touches.<<I personally like the small-sided games; but does this increase or decrease the number of registered players?
>>7. Not sure where this issue stands, but there was discussion of setting standards for coach certifications--either recommending or mandating licensing at certain levels.<<How will this impact top line growth with respect to new and returning registered players?
>>8. Worked with The Plex to ensure that quality, safe in-door soccer is available in the Midlands.<<I'm not sure what this means -- what specifically did the SCYSA and Plex do together? What is the expected incremental increase in the midlands of registered players from this initiative?
>>9. A lot of effort to make more referee clinics available and generally to ensure that there were more, better qualified referees available for our youth games (ok, ok, keep the wise-cracks to yourselfs--referees are easy targets--until you get a patch and step into the center of a U18boys match, you have no right to make comments).<<Is there an expected increase in registered players from this (I guess through increased retention numbers?)
>>10. The registrars/administators bending over backwards to get player cards to kids,so they can play.<<This would seem to fall under the "administer" part of the mission. Is there a theory on increased number of registered players from this activity?
>>11. I know that there are some BIG things being discussed that I am not at liberty to reveal.<<What type of thing is kept secret from the SCYSA membership?
>>I'm afraid I am inadequate to the task. I know I am leaving a lot of things out. Please don't read the above and think "Is that all they are doing?"<<It's not that. What I wonder isn't is that all the SCYSA is doing, what I wonder is what the top line registered player growth goals are, how much each of these initiatives contribute to that growth, and then what the expenses are on a per-activity basis so that a cost per incremental added player can be computed.
>>I am sure that there are additional things that could be done. I'm also sure some of the folks who will read this post have ideas and will be asking, "Why doesn't SCYSA do xxxx" [fill in the blank]. See my earlier posts about volunteers. If more folks would step-up to help, contribute time and money, more things could be done.<<Before I would ever contribute time and money, I'd want to understand whether the SCYSA is serious about their mission. At this point, all indications to me are that the SCYSA is not serious.
>>I hope this answers the question.<<I appreciate the attempt, and I understand your answer, but it doesn't get me any closer to understanding whether the SCYSA even has top line registered player growth goals and whether there is any understanding of the top activities contributing to those growth goals and what that contribution and related cost is.
Let me give a concrete example. If I wanted to increase the top line registered player numbers, I would first look at recreation since it's the base of the foundation with what should be the most number of players. Then I'd try to understand which person at the SCYSA was responsible for recreation and try to figure out what his top line goal was; if that top line goal didn't reconcile to the overall SCYSA goals, then I'd have to reconcile the two goals. To be honest, I don't know who the SCYSA recreation director is and I don't understand her/his role. But that's where I'd start.
Is the SCYSA doing anything remotely similar to setting goals for the top line growth and then allocating spending for funding that can be directly tied to aggregate segments of that top line growth?
