Most sport and fitness clubs and groups wouldn't be able to function without volunteers like these. Their get-up-and-go helps others stay healthy, make friends, enter competitions and more. Read on to find out what inspires them to make it happen for others.

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Tuesday May 01, 2012

Umpires hard to come by

Of all the necessary volunteers needed in baseball getting someone to umpire is by far the most difficult. Players, coaches, committee members, scorers, drivers and even people to set up the field are relatively easy to recruit but for some reason people are very reluctant to umpire.

The problem of a lack of willing umpires has really hit home recently when we discovered we were not going to get the usual individual to officiate for us. Since then we have asked current players if they don’t mind doing the occasional game. We’ve also asked former players who have now retired from playing however all are hostile to the mere suggestion like being asked to umpire is some kind of punishment or insult.

I am almost certain that we are not the only club with this problem. When we play away games the umpires are usually players who umpire one game of a double header then play in the second or the team manager who has to sacrifice his managerial role for that day in order to officiate.

I have been trying to figure out why people are so against being an umpire even for just a day and have to confess that I am one of those people. I coach, play and am club secretary but whenever asked if I will umpire I do all I possibly can to get out of it. The thing I find most baffling about this problem is that umpires are the only people in British Baseball who get paid with official umpires having a set rate plus mileage and usually teams like ours offering a reduction in registration fees or some cash incentive to whoever will do the job.

So why are people against umpiring? Is it the responsibility that the role demands? Is it that as an umpire you cannot please everybody and at some point will have to be the bad guy? Or could it be that people just aren’t confident that they know the rules well enough to umpire and are just scared as baseball can be a very complicated game at times, just ask anyone who is a scorer.

Whatever the reason for the lack of enthusiasm people have towards umpiring especially compared to other voluntary positions I cannot see a solution to it emerging any time soon. For the next few seasons at least I think we teams in lower leagues especially will struggle to find volunteer umpires from both inside or outside their clubs.

Posted by Simon ( 8:59 PM )
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Monday Apr 02, 2012

The busiest time of year

I have found, as a club secretary for the past couple of years, that this time of year in the British baseball is without doubt the busiest. This is especially true for clubs like ours who have few officers around to help out with tasks. Whether a club has four adult teams and a thriving junior program or just a single adult team the checklist of things which need doing is at its longest at this time of year.

Firstly we have to ensure we have enough players and more importantly enough players who are available to sacrifice their Sundays to play games. Although over the off season we have kept in contact with players regarding their intentions to play in the upcoming season it isn’t until the fixture list is published and outdoor training begins that we get an accurate idea of who is available.

Also on the to-do list is our home ground. With the fixture list now out we need to ensure that our home ground is available on the weekends we have home games. If it isn’t then we must spend whatever time we have between now and the start of the season either trying to re-arrange fixtures or to find an alternate venue, two things which are much easier said than done.

The third essential is the dreaded funding question. The rest of the league fees are due soon and then there’s equipment, umpire costs, ground fees if you pay them and the possibility of requiring overnight accommodation should we reach the finals which we must for finance sake assume we will. If teams are like us and do not receive funding from other sources such as the local authority then these fees must come from the players and other club members, collecting these fees is never a popular undertaking.

On top of the essential things there’s also the list of things which should be done if we have time. Communicating with league officials, updating social media and the club website on a weekly basis, promoting the club in the local area and anything else which arises, all need to be done as and when time allows.

The thing that I find strange is that compared to this time of year the actual playing season is actually fairly quiet. Other than communicating with other teams to ensure the weekend game is on there is very little to do. Obviously there are exceptional circumstances for example we recently discovered that we must relocate within the next two years so my season will involve trying to sort out another ground so it is ready for when we need it in a year or two.

Posted by Simon ( 10:40 AM )
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Friday Feb 03, 2012

Facilities Wanted

Recently I have found booking a venue for pre-season training very frustrating. It appears that this time of year every team wants to use the same facilities and at the same time.

At Hull Scorpions we train at a school which also has an all-weather pitch which we have used for around 6-8 weeks every pre-season for the past 6 years. Unfortunately, this year the facility has been fully booked by various teams from mens football to junior rugby league. This left me trying to find another venue at relatively short notice. During my search I discovered that there are very few facilities with all-weather facilities in the part of Hull where we normally train and those that have do not open on Sundays which is when we train. After expanding my search to include other parts of Hull and various indoor facilities it became clear that in order to get somewhere suitable indoor or outdoor was going to cost us £30 per hour which is £60 a week for a two hour session and would total up at between £360 and £480 for our usual 6-8 week pre-season. For a team which has just acquired new uniforms and equipment this is a lot of money and in order to raise it we would need to charge our players between £4-£6 each week which would inevitably put at least some of them off training.

Originally I thought that it was just us who had this problem then I discovered that the Northern Baseball Academy had to change its venue at the last minute due to their usual facility in Bolton been booked up. Like me they could not find a suitable replacement within the same area and had to move to Manchester.

As far as the Scorpions go it appears to me that as a team we would be better off braving our diamond and hoping that it doesn’t rain much over the next few weeks. However the whole experience has left me wondering why there appears to be so few all-weather facilities and even fewer that are affordable for an amateur team?

Posted by Simon ( 10:07 PM )
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Thursday Jan 12, 2012

Hooked on the game

Hi, my name is Simon and I am 23 years old and live in Hull. I have been playing baseball since I was very young, the first time I threw a baseball I was around 8 years old.  I have been hooked on the game ever since; playing, watching (the Atlanta Braves are my favourite team) and more recently in the running of the sport, both as a club secretary and a youth panel member.

During my childhood and teen years I was only a player and a fan. With my dad (a former Great Britain player himself) as my coach I achieved quite a lot. In 2001 my team won the Playball World Series and in 2003 I made the step up to senior with the newly formed Hull Baseball Club who won everything they entered that year. Despite representing the Great Britain under 18's side once during a weekend series in Ireland and attending two summer training camps in Florida my playing career has pretty much been restricted to playing in the lower British leagues in recent years.

Although I have always and still enjoy playing, at around age 20 I decided to get into other areas of the game such as coaching and administration. Regarding coaching I took my level 1 in London whist at University and helped out with my home team the Humber Pilots when I was at home. Since then I have taken my level 2 coaching course and am now head coach of the newly renamed Hull Scorpions and I also assist at the baseball academy during the off season. On the admin side of things in 2009 I saw an advert on the baseballsoftballuk website asking for people to apply to participate in a baseball softball youth panel, naturally I applied almost instantly and was thrilled a few months later when I got a letter informing me that I had been accepted. In the numerous youth panel meetings I have attended since then we have discussed how to attract volunteers to the sport, handed out awards for young volunteers of the year, decided to create regional youth panel groups, recruited more members and eaten a rather unhealthy amount of pizza.

Being a member of the youth panel also gave me the confidence to become the Club Secretary of Humber Pilots in 2011. As the Secretary I have organised training sessions, represented the club at AGM meetings, kept records of funds, administered our page on the British baseball website, contacted players late on a Saturday night when our Sunday game has been cancelled and generally been the point of contact for the Governing Body.

In the future I will be posting more about my role as a youth panel member and my activities in other areas of the sport.

Posted by Simon ( 3:57 PM )
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