It’s Almost Here – The National System Coming to Alberta and its Clubs in 2021

Summary for SAPC

• As with other clubs in Alberta and across Canada, our membership year will have to be changed to run from January 1 to December 31, starting January 1, 2022. This also means the 2021 membership year will have to go from May 1 to Dec 31, 2021.
• How we renew memberships will change for the 2022 year. The "how" will not change for our regular 2021 membership renewal.

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This email was sent by Pickleball Alberta (PA) to Alberta clubs.

As discussed at the (PA) AGM and in monthly updates throughout the year, Pickleball Canada’s (PCO) integrated National System is coming to our province and our clubs.  It handles membership management at the individual, club, province, and national levels.  In time the system will be developed to support competitive play, rankings, and other sports management functions.  This project was initiated in 2018; two representatives contributed as part of the specifications design team (Ray Keroack of St Albert Pickleball Club and Helen Thompson of Edmonton Pickleball Club).

The primary goal of the initial roll out of the National System is to reduce volunteer time spent on handling our growing membership and to improve the integrity of membership data.  Currently, clubs and provinces use a variety of systems which require manual intervention to transfer required data from club to province, and province to national.

Considerable work has been completed on the National System thanks to many volunteers.  It is being implemented in a staged process across the country, province by province.  A demonstration of the system capabilities has been made to provincial representatives and a demo “beta” site is available to review.  Refinements are still being made to the system and it is anticipated the system will continually be enhanced as we gain experience with it and club requirements evolve.

Pickleball Alberta (PA) is currently reviewing the system functionality in depth and considering scenarios for transitioning from PAWA (Wild Apricot) to the National System.  From what we’ve seen, we believe the system will meet the membership management needs for most clubs and will significantly reduce volunteer time for membership management, so we are looking at how to transition to the National System in 2021.

Development and implementation of the National System is being led by Kirk Jensen as VP Competitions and Sport Development for PCO.  The PA evaluation and implementation team is Beverley Walker, Past President; Brenda Feser, Membership Director; Blair Morton, Technology Director and Ray Keroack Treasurer St. Albert Pickleball Club.

Overview of the National System

• Meet Trackie– Trackie, is the company that is programming and will host the National System.  Trackie is a Canadian company based in New Brunswick.  They have developed and maintained systems for other provincial and national sports organizations such as Track and Field Canada and Taekwondo Canada.
• Customized Club Home Page – The National System will host the Pickleball Canada website.  Each provincial association and club will have a ‘home page’ that is hosted in the National System.  This page can be readily customized to provide club information and used as a simple website.  Alternatively, a club can provide a link to an external website in order to provide members seamless access to club information.
• Unique and Shared Emails – The National System is based on members entering and maintaining their own personal information.  While unique emails are recommended it is possible for a family to use one email address for more than one member.
• Integrated Membership Fees – When a member joins or renews their membership with a club, their PA and PCO memberships are included.  The National System “splits” the membership fees so that the club, PA and PCO each receive their respective annual membership fees as long as the club has set up a bank account for the club.  Note that clubs can set the club fee to $0 and use the system to track their membership information and to collect PA and PCO fees.
• Multi Club Memberships – The National System allows members to join more than one club and collect PA and PCO fees only once.
• Unique Club Membership Fields – Common membership data (such as name, email, and select demographics) is viewable by the club, PA and PCO.  Clubs may ask members to provide additional information that is only viewable by the club (e.g., volunteer interests).
• Unique Club Waivers – Waiver of Liability acceptance is built into the online application / renewal process.  Clubs and Provinces can customize this area to meet specific local or regional requirements.  For example, Code of Conduct acceptance can be included.
• Mass Emails – In its initial phase the National System also includes emails and newsletters.  Mass emails may be sent from the system or data can be exported to other software such as MailChimp
• Future Features – Functionality for event registration and a store feature are under development and expected in the near future.  These functions would be available at the club / PA and PCO levels.

Change in Membership Year

PCO, in consultation with Provinces, has recently determined to move to a January 1 to December 31 membership year.  PA will transition to the same year and we encourage clubs to do the same.  Aligning the membership year will significantly streamline membership management and simplify the integration of membership management at all levels.  While we need to determine the details, it is our plan to shorten the upcoming membership year to May 1 to December 31, 2021.  The 2022 membership year will run from January 1 to December 31, 2022.

Costs

In our current PAWA (Wild Apricot) membership system, PA pays a usage and development fee to Wild Apricot of approximately $6,000 per year or $1.50 per member in 2020.  Payment processing fees are based on the number of transactions and the amount of each transaction ($0.30 plus 2.9% of the dollar value).  These fees are almost entirely absorbed by the clubs who are using PAWA to collect and manage their memberships. 

In the new National System, the usage and development fees are tied to the payment processing fees, and together these are 5% of the dollar value of each transaction. These fees are calculated separately for club, PA and PCO fees. Starting in 2022 PCO is looking to introduce a modest annual fee for provinces and large clubs to help fund future national system enhancements.

Pickleball Alberta is excited about the possibilities of this system as it truly has the potential to dramatically reduce volunteer time spent managing membership applications, renewals and fee payments at the club, PA and PCO level.  Considering all three levels, thousands of volunteer hours could be saved each year.

Further details on the system will be coming soon.  We are planning a system demonstration in the next few weeks and will advise details.  If someone from your club would like more information at this time or is keen to help out with this project at the provincial level please reply to me.

Beverley Walker

Past President, Pickleball Alberta

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Keep your paddle up!

Happy New Year!  Still Waiting for the OK

We hope your mild winter holiday weeks were grand! St. Albert and the surrounding areas have a wonderful access to other activities if you’re so inclined. If you’re more into reclining, then we also hope you’ve discovered some rewarding pastimes.

Some of us may be betting folks, but there’s low odds in successfully predicting a return to club play.  All we can do is guess, but the Board is ready and prepared to resume club play as soon as we get the “all clear.”  We are proceeding with club business and keeping the light shining for when we can all come back.

In the meantime, perhaps some of you can relate to these new substitutes for our previously active PB lives.

1.  Binging HGTV Mexico Life. (Did you see the house with its own PB court!)

2.  Zooming with the grandkids just doesn’t cut it!

3.  Cajoling any household member for play along in your DIY kitchen, tool room, or garage dink court...(ok, I confess to that one).

4.  Not looking in the mirror unless you have to.

5.  Life journaling for posterity..(because someone in the future has to remember this crazy epoch)

6.  Adopting a pet, then maybe two more.

7.  Ardently trying Spanish, again.

8. Every day's joy is the Amazon delivery.

9. You need three drawers now for your PJs and comfy clothes.

..and #10

10.  A self-rewarding (have a swig!, have a bite!) point system for any sit-ups or stretches!

Future Facilities

Recently in November when we canvassed you all about a willingness to plan for funding future facilities, we received enthusiastic feedback and support for the idea. A special thank you to all the members who not only took the time to read at least part of the report but who also took the time to provide input. All this input was so positively supportive that we have adopted the plan. We will also continue to take direction from that feedback as we begin to implement it. 

This plan considers both our immediate need for more courts and projects the future popularity of pickleball when even more play facilities will be required. It has lots of good stuff about what we need, what the possible opportunities are, and how we should be planning, now, to build up some of the initial funding needed for additional future facilities. As intended by this plan, our club strategy is to positively improve our revenue generation and capabilities to serve our members’ playing needs.

We’ve also benefited from the good thoughts and contributions of our club’s Facilities Task Force. The Board apparently enjoys “over the holidays” assignments and has posted the full plan on our SAPC website.

If you’d like a sampler of that plan here’s the table of contents (below). 

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SAPC Facility Reserve

Investing in our Future

January 14th 2021 Edition

Contents

Executive Summary. 3

Where Are We At and What’s in Our Future?. 5

Membership Projection. 5

Indoor Facilities Needs. 5

Establishing Ratios of Courts Needed Per Member. 6

Projecting Indoor Court Needs. 6

Outdoor Facility Needs. 7

Establishing Ratios of Courts Needed Per Member. 7

Projecting Outdoor Court Needs. 7

Future Facility Options. 8

Indoor Play Venue Options. 8

Schools and Churches. 8

Servus Place. 8

Active Communities Alberta (ACA) Sport and Community Campus. 9

Rental or Lease of Private Sector Warehouse Space. 10

Rental of Private Sector Gymnasium Space. 10

Facility Ownership by Club. 10

Outdoor Play Options. 11

The Ideal Facility. 11

City-owned Courts: Alpine Courts Model 11

Future St. Albert Sport Campus. 12

City-Owned Courts Managed by SAPC. 12

Courts Leased or Owned by SAPC. 12

Priorities for Securing Facilities. 13

Role of Grants. 13

Role of a Facility Reserve. 14

Growing a Reserve. 14

Recommendation, Acceptance, and Implementation. 16

Appendix A: Questions and Answers. 17

Q1: Won’t the City provide needed indoor pickleball space without any contribution or involvement of a club like SAPC?. 17

Q2: Will the “for profit” private sector step up and provide needed pickleball space, as appears to be happening with the Edmonton Volleyball and Pickleball Center (EVP)?. 17

Q3: If SAPC were disbanded, what would happen to the capital reserve?. 

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Whet your appetite for more? There's more. In detail! On the website, under Plans, Policies & Bylaws.

Until we chat, serve, drive, dink, chip, lob (noo please!), again!

We're just sharing an opinion comment published in the St. Albert Gazette regarding the City's vote against continuing with the Active Communities Facility project.

https://www.stalberttoday.ca/opinion/letter-halting-the-st-albert-rec-facility-the-alternative-is-2903716?utm_source=Email_Share&utm_medium=Email_Share&utm_campaign=Email_Share

Dear SAPC Members: In addition to setting up as many pickleball play opportunities as possible, you likely expect your board to be looking after the club's long-term needs. This year, the Board and the club's Facilities Task Force have looked at the club's immediate, intermediate and long term facility needs. 

We have determined that to address these needs, there is one imperative. It is something that all successful sports organizations eventually do, and we've learned that the earlier we start on it, the better. That imperative is to build a capital reserve.

Without some cash set aside for facilities (as a capital reserve fund), we have no hope of continuing to meet current demand, let alone the projected future demand.

We've laid this out in a report. We invite you to read the whole report and provide thoughtful comments and input. Your email response, for example, could address these questions:

i. Do you know of any other way other than building a capital reserve, to qualify for future grants, to seek matching donations and to have the financial capacity to address our needs for court space.

If so, what is that way, and how would we go about it?

ii. The report proposes a reserve be built slowly, over many, many years, by adding a 15% premium to all club prices.

Should SAPC build a reserve more quickly than is proposed?

Other clubs have done this more quickly. For example, the Kelowna club added an annual surcharge of $30 to their $60 membership fee. 

iii.Do you know of any facility, grant or partnership opportunities that should be researched and documented in future versions of this strategy?

If so please tell us all you know about such opportunities.

iv. Do you have any other opinions or suggested positions regarding anything else in this report?

If so, please provide a detailed rationale for taking an alternative position.

• Please email your responses to secretary@pickleballstalbert.ca by Sat. December 5th. 
• Put "Facilities Strategy" in the subject line of your email. 

Your detailed comments will be preserved, will be made accessible to all board members, and will be summarized for board discussion and decisions at its January meeting.

If you just want to know a bit more about this proposed strategy but not provide comments, we invite you to read the two-page Executive Summary at the front of the report.

You may find the confidential member-only report "SAPC Facility Reserve – Investing in our Future" on the Plans, Policies and Bylaws page under the Club Mgmt menu of our website, or click this link: 

https://www.pickleballstalbert.ca/resources/Documents/Plans/SAPC%20Facility%20Reserve%20-Investing%20in%20our%20Future.pdf 

In this issue:

Cohort play update

Future use of schools

Update on Cohort Play

The Club had planned to implement Cohort-based play on November 22 nd, before receiving the changed guidelines from the Premier on Nov 12. We are aware there are many questions about cohorts and cohort based play. Please be patient as we continue to plan and we will try to answer as many questions as possible.

In responding to the mandatory cohort form, members chose to be placed in a cohort based on:

- Level,

- Partner,

- Specific play time;

- Or placed in a formed cohort under a specific leader.

Please note that some members asked to be placed in a men only or women only cohort . There were not  sufficient replies to make a men only or women only cohort possible.

Those that asked to be with a specific leader, automatically have someone to help organize the group/cohort. The other cohorts (level, partner, time play) were created by the club and do not have a leader. Some members in these cohorts did volunteer to be captains, when they replied to the survey. Nicole Currie (Nikki) contacted these members asking if they indeed would help be a captain for the cohort they were placed in. This was in preparation for play at Red Willow. We want to thank all those members who have agreed to help out as captains/leaders. They will be contacted again closer to the restart date to finalize the process and answer specific questions on processes for the captain.

Of course Pickleball play through the club is now put on hold and we are waiting to see if play will resume after the two week closure. Dependent on this news, you will receive notice of when and how play will resume at Red Willow. If you have been registered in a series play at Servus and BActive you will also receive notice about whether/ when these series will resume. More information will be sent regarding refunds but be patient as we have to wait and see what will happen and whether/ when pickleball will resume.

In January there will  be a maintenance process put in place to accommodate cohort requests from new or existing members who had not previously asked to be put in a cohort. It will also accommodate changes within a cohort. In January whether/ when play resumes , new cohort-based play at Servus Place and other SAPC venues will be organised.

I know you are asking “How will this cohort play work.” The Club will assign each play time to a particular cohort. The system will only allow you to SEE and register to play, IF you are a member of that cohort. So for example when play begins at Red Willow, a member will check the Red Willow calendar, and will only see the time(s) available to their cohort. That is the only time(s) they are able to register to play. This will be the same for all play venues beginning in January.

As we've mentioned before play times will be allocated equitably to each cohort on a "per member" basis. This means that cohorts with more members will get more play times. Note that in larger cohorts, only a small portion of them can attend each session (e.g. only 10 out of 50), whereas in a small cohort a greater percentage of their members can attend each session (e.g. if only 10 in cohort, all 10 can attend a session.)

You must log into the website in order to see cohort-based play opportunities. You will not see opportunities open to other cohorts. This prevents you from accidentally registering for play with the wrong cohort.

The cohort you are in (example M03 or S05) is now indicated in your membership profile. You can also see a new cohort directory online -- so you can contact your cohort colleagues when you need to. To see who is in your cohort, do an advanced search specifying your cohort group (eg: SO5). All your cohort members will be listed.
Here is the link to the cohort directory.

Special thanks to Ray Keroack for all of this behind the scenes work which has taken so much time to create.

Now for all of those questions you may have; on the website under the heading “Play”- cohort based play, you will find the explanation and the answers to the questions you may have. Many we have mentioned above. Here's a shortcut to that page.

As we move forward, awaiting news about pickleball play reinstatement; please read the cohort play information on the website.

Future School Use

The districts have confirmed that there will be no Community Use of Schools through February 2021.

Until then stay safe!

In this issue:

Changes Coming - Get Ready for Mandatory Cohort Registration

Red Willow Play Changes

Changes Coming - Get Ready for Mandatory Cohort Registration

We are changing our play to make it more overtly compliant with new health guidelines and to keep our members safer and healthier.

A mandatory cohort form is coming in the next two days. All members who want to play in future sessions this winter MUST reply to the mandatory form, thereby qualifying for this new play. A link to the form will be provided in an email to you.

You have seen in our news that COVID cases are rising in the Edmonton zone. In response, new restrictions on gatherings have been released for the Edmonton area. In addition, this month, there is new Guidance for Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation.

For the first time, pickleball is explicitly mentioned as a sport that must only be played in cohort groups. These rules also now clearly state:

• no one should be part of more than one sports cohort,
• sports cohort groups must have no more than 50 members, and
• participants switching sports cohorts should not play for a two-week interval.

In response, your board has passed a resolution that, for the foreseeable future, all our play will be more overtly and explicitly compliant with these rules. Your safety matters.

To do this as quickly as possible, here’s some of what will happen.

• A mandatory cohort form will be issued to all members by Oct 27.
• • Members will only have three days to respond.
  • The form will ask if you are in a well-functioning, cohesive cohort and want that cohort kept intact and assigned some play times in our calendars.
  • If you are not in a well-functioning, already-established cohort, you will have the opportunity for the club to place you in a new cohort. We will place you based on some high-level criteria. We DO NOT have the capacity to quickly plan this to meet everyone’s detailed criteria. We will do the best we can, using ONLY the criteria we have put into the survey.
• A second form will be issued to the identified leaders or prime contacts of the previously established, well-functioning cohorts to identify and confirm their SAPC members, desired play times, etc.
• Based on the results of these two forms, play times will be assigned to cohort groups.

If you already have an SAPC play time reservation at Red Willow, B-Active or Servus Place, please keep your reservation and attend the session you have booked. In addition, another week or two of reservations at Red Willow may be booked using the current reservation practices. No one expects that we can convert to explicit cohort-based play overnight.

Explicit cohort-based reservations will become available for some November times at Red Willow as soon as we can implement this.  The same will apply to January and subsequent play times at other venues.

What can you do now to get ready?

• If you are in a well-organized cohort, you need to quickly decide amongst the current members of that cohort if you want to belong to and play only in that cohort going forward. You also need to pick a leader or prime contact for that cohort, and each of you needs to identify that same leader on your responses to the mandatory cohort registration form. This will then be the SAPC cohort we assign you to.
• Watch for the mandatory cohort form and complete it with the three-day period.
• If you are a leader of an existing cohort:
• • pick a name for your cohort,
  • determine 1^st and 2^nd choices for play times (weekday mornings, weekday afternoons, weekday evenings, weekend days).  Note that weekday-day times are likely to remain more plentiful than evening and weekend times.
  • determine if your cohort wants some assigned reservation types like the following:
  • • reservable series play, where members pay up front for 8 to 14 weeks of play, once a week, first come-first served within the cohort, no refunds or cancellations. Members find their own substitutes within their cohort for any sessions they need to miss.
    • sticker-pay, individually-booked events, first come first served within the cohort, self-cancellations allowed
    • reserved cohort-determined play. This is open only to well established cohorts. It is cohort-determined play, where you assign play times to cohort members according to your own methods not using SAPC systems, and where the cohort figures out how to pay. This means either (i) pay up-front online with no refunds or (ii) pay by means of stickers on a sign-in sheet, and guarantee to the club that your cohort will always have the minimum number of stickers needed. This option is not recommended unless you already have a proven method of fairly and equitably assigning play times to all your cohort members.

Note that only SAPC members can be in SAPC cohorts. If someone wants to join our club now, they have only a day or two left to do so. Then we will likely suspend taking new memberships for at least a month and  until this new cohort-based play is well organized. This is only fair – we have new members joining every day and we usually welcome them. But we don’t want people inadvertently joining our club, paying their $30, then finding they can’t play with the club for two-plus months because they didn’t respond to the initial survey and because we’re not yet ready to start adding new members to existing cohort groups.

Wish us luck. Your club volunteers have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to make this happen.

If you want to help us through future projects like this, or want to serve in any other volunteer capacity, please update your volunteer interests in your profile. You will find there are many options to choose from. Your profile can be found under the ‘head and shoulders’ icon (or arrow icon) in the top right corner of any page of your website.

Red Willow Play Changes

If you were to chat with fellow members about “how’s Red Willow play going for you??”…you’d possibly hear, “nice to be at it again inside away from the wind, my serves stay in!”, or-“Sit-play-sit s'more!!??”, or- “Not sure I’ll go anymore” ..etc..??

In early October we launched Red Willow (our solitary venue at the time) and have since heard feedback and have also launched more and different venue play opportunities.

Here’s what’s being done to address the play and financial stress of Red Willow play. (You probably didn’t know that Red Willow was teetering on a negative cost for the club).

Starting November 1^st, Red Willow Sessions will transition to the following:

• 10 player limit (at each session) - so captain plus 9 registrants.
• 2 stickers per player.

This change is to help us enjoy more quality play (less sit time!), and helps with the financially sustainability needed for this venue.

Keep your paddle up!

Weekly Online Registration for Indoor: now at Thurs 12am.

Just when some of us are now accustomed to the new digeetal youniverse and are ok with using the website scheduling tool, here's a curveball.

Well not so much a curve, as an off-speed slider. You know those serves right?  

Here's the changeup. 

The Indoor Session Registration window time is changing. Here it is.

Starting this week on Thursday Oct. 15th, and for each Thursday thereafter, the "registration window" opens at 12am, yep, the spooky zone.

It's just the way the system will work best, meaning- no human has to interrupt their dinner and urgently manually manage the window.  Our website will do it for us!

Only, it can't tell time, just the day. So, we have a 12am. start, Thursday Oct 15) to register for ALL indoor sessions for that following week's period (Sunday to Saturday)

Ok, so the recap. This time with colour!

Starting THIS week, and for all future weeks, the night owls and early birds can scoop their weekly session spots starting at 12am Thursday mornings (aka Wednesday midnight).

Just getting the word out- real-time, to get-in-line, in-time!

Reserved Group Play at Red Willow

Your club is always trying to satisfy the diverse needs of our many members, and we're not afraid to experiment once in a while and adapt as circumstances change.

Some of you have asked if your small cohort group of pickleball players could reserve Red Willow or a couple of courts elsewhere.  Well, we're still looking into the "elsewhere," but we also have an opportunity now to try this at Red Willow.

This opportunity has arisen because we don't yet have enough individual members booking into the established sessions at Red Willow. (Yes, we know that is because most of you would rather keep playing outdoors while the weather holds, and we understand that.)  Anyway, we might as well make good use of any indoor facility we can, right?

Here's the scoop on our trial group plays at Red Willow:

• Two sessions are now set up, one for this Thursday Oct 8 and the second for Thursday Oct 15. You will see these in the Red Willow calendar, the Indoor calendar, the Reserved Play calendar and the All Play calendar.
• One member may book the entire session on behalf of their cohort or other group of fellow players. All players must be SAPC members.
• The sessions will be from 9 am to 11 am.
• The one who reserves will also act as captain and must agree to learn and apply our club's rules for safe play at Red Willow. This includes adherence to the rule to sanitize and leave the facility by 10:55 pm.
• The fee for the two hour session is $50 including GST, and this must be paid online by credit card upon reservation.
• Of course, there can only be one reservation per session, and it will be first come, first served.
• Registration for the Oct 8 session will be open at 12:00:01 am Tuesday Oct 6, and registration for the Oct 15 session will open at 12:00:01 on Thursday Oct 8. At that time you will begin to see a "Reserve" button on the event description page. (Sorry for the inconvenient time, but that's how our system's automated registration opening feature works. Will you wake up just before midnight to snag this spot? Maybe you can rotate this job within your group if we have more of these.)
• Instructions for accessing the building will be provided to the captain upon reservation.
• The captain will have all attendees fill out the regular sign-in sheet, but will not collect stickers. The captain may collect cash from each group member.
• Each group may range from 8 to a maximum of 16 players. 
• For this trial, if your group manages to snag the Oct 8 time, please let some other group grab the Oct 15 slot. (However, if no one has booked the Oct 15 slot by Oct 10, then go for it!)

For this trial period, questions regarding these specific group reservations may be directed to Treasurer@pickleballstalbert.ca. After the trial, please direct reserved play questions to RegPlay@pickleballstalbert.ca.

Questions from potential captains regarding the Red Willow venue may be directed to our Red Willow venue coordinator, Nicole Currie.

Please see our website's home page or the Sep 28th news posting for Red Willow safety and play rules. 

See the Reserved Play page under the Play menu for instructions on making and cancelling a reservation.

Keep your paddle up!

We're pleased to bring you more play opportunities, and your board and the Facilities Task Force is busy looking at warehouses and other facilities to try to address some of the expected shortfall this indoor season, but we also gather from the low sign-ups so far for Red Willow play next week, that many of you are not yet ready to move indoors.

That's okay -- we understand.  But we want you know that the reservations made for Red Willow play next week are very low.  So low, that the club may lose out, economically-speaking, on each and every session.  Now, we are prepared to lose a bit on several sessions at the beginning and ending of each season, but we have to draw the line somewhere. We hope you understand that if we don't get all of next week's sessions at least 60 or 70% filled by say sometime Sunday Oct 4, then we will start cancelling some of these sessions.

Don't worry, we will bring them back in subsequent weeks when the weather turns colder.

All indoor sessions are reserved play and we have several other provisions in place to limit contact between people.  Making a reservation is easy, and you can't play indoors without one.

For more information see:

- the article on your website's home page,

- the newsletter posting of September 28th, and

- the updated webpage on Reserved Play found under your website's Play menu.

By the way, if we do cancel a session that you've already reserved, you will get an email telling you that your reservation is cancelled.

Keep your paddle up!

More Indoor Venues Please

Red Willow Indoor Play: How To

Getting “Carded!?”

The Search Continues

More Indoor Venues Please

St. Albert is a vibrant, growing bundle of award-winning communities that…uh-oh, s’cuse me- sorry, this isn’t the Mayor talking or a Tourism Alberta brochure. Ok- back to our newsletter.. Our club did however get a well-crafted plea in front of the Mayor and council this week though, asking for more PB play venues. And it’s exactly because St. Albert is filled with, and here’s the key word, “Active” communities, we registered the interests and passion of our members with the civic purse-strings in hopes of them tabling future plans for more indoor PB courts! Have a read at the letter that was well-received (and kindly responded to!) by the Mayor.

This initiative is part of our club vision to grow our venues and facilitate more facilities, until we can all enjoy courts within walking distance, preferably along covered & heated civic corridors, or at least maybe have those moving escalators like in airport terminals. Ah well, a club can dream can’t we?

In stride with this dream and more rooted in a “near term” feasibility, we are looking at possible warehouse bay options and evaluating the physical and financial requirements for that kind of supplemental venue.

Red Willow Indoor Play: How To

There’s a few (6!) things to both prepare for, remember and do when attending Red Willow this Fall season, ok- PLUS another eight COVID codes for indoor play..so, a brainfull of things to know and do for Oct 4^th and our new beyond.

This list of essential play protocols is also on our club website. These protocols are absolutely the “law’ of proper entry-play-exit actions that in fact enable us to use these facilities.

Just because it’s soo important, we need to emphasize the MASK protocol. No Masks- No enter, No exceptions. It’s just the way it has to be to satisfy the conditions of using this facility.

Please study & review this list, and follow whatever helpful direction the Captains may have to give you to steer you along while coming to and being at Red Willow.

FYI, we’re starting with just 2 sessions a day for the first week Oct 4-10^th.

After this first “adjustment week” we’ll fill out the calendar with our planned play for the rest of the month.

Red Willow Specific Rules: Online Registration starts on Oct 1st.

1.     15 reservable spots and one held for captain for a total of 16 players per session.

2.     One sticker for now - may change in January or if we reduce the number of players per session.

3.     There are no hangers or chairs in the lobby. Hang your coats on the back of your chair.

4.     No backpacks please. Bring only a small bag, water bottle and indoor shoes.

5.     Captains will be sanitizing chairs. (The church is providing a cloth and sanitizing cleaner for them to use)

6.     Only one person in the washroom at a time and only use the middle stall and middle sink.  Members must bring wipes and sanitize each contact point in the washroom after each use.

To manage the risks of COVID-19 infections, here is the new way we’ll conduct Indoor Play sessions. 

1. Play is by reservation only.  Click on a session in the indoor calendar to reserve a spot.

2. Chairs will each be spaced 6 feet apart in the gym and are not to be moved or shared. Each player must use the same chair throughout the event. (Captains will sanitize the chair at the end the session.) 

3. To enable the socialize we know will happen, masks must be worn at all times except when playing. Masks may also optionally be worn while playing.

4. Court players can either agree to each serve with their own ball or to share a ball.  Players provide their own balls and should sanitize any used ball after each game.

5.  Session starts and ends:

6. No touching of others' paddles. Do the "Covid wave" after each game. 

7. We have promised our venue owners that we will touch and use nothing else in their facilities other than what is referenced in this article. Please help us keep these facilities safe for all.

8. As indoor play opportunities are limited during this pandemic, please limit your reservations to "All Play" sessions or sessions rated at your specific rating level.

Give a cheer that we can at least have some fun (and relatively safe) play this winter!

Getting “Carded?!”

Ah, those early “pre-legal” days..of sprucing up or having some jawline stubble to help advance our age at the tavern entrance. Well, being asked to produce your club ID may take your mind back to those anxious times, ahem- that is, if you ever tried that, not saying anyone did. Not to worry, this is not being asked of all of you.

Although, as we’re moving to a digital wonderland of cloud-accessible membership info, captains at play venues that are simply doing their duty may need to check “who’s who” from time to time. If you’re “opting out” of having your name and rating displayed on the membership directory (as is your preference), our much appreciated volunteer captains- who can now check a paperless directory online, won’t “see” you, and thereby be put in the onerous position of declaring you unwelcome to whatever specific rated session it may be (thus preserving precious, limited play spots for paid, registered & appropriately rated members).

So, please enjoy the new feature of printing out your membership card IF you’re a ghost and we can’t see you in the directory. This is your new obligation to help maintain our club “members only” play privileges.

The Search Continues

No, not for the Ark, Spock or an ever-flowing Fountain of Youth. We search for something far more plausible- some assistance with club duties!

These current postings for a Web Coordinator and an Assistant Treasurer, are opportunities to learn and contribute to the goings-on of our year-round club business and development projects! There’s training and support from all of us current Board and Committee members, so if you’d like to pitch in and help shape the future of our SAPC, take a look at the duties and send us a note. (Note that the Assistant Treasurer duties are not specifically posted, and will be developed in collaboration with anyone who steps forward. The duties could range from some basic bookkeeping to advanced financial management. They will be a subset of the duties of the Treasurer which are listed in the Board Members Job Description document.)