A letter to our GLL families

First, on behalf of our GLL Excecutive team, let me wish everyone a very happy new year!  2023 is going to be an awesome one for our Glebe Little League community.

As your newly elected Glebe Little League President, I'm happy to report that we have an energetic and committed Board of Directors - all volunteers, and many new faces.  We are eager to take on the 2023 baseball year, and with that will come the following:

• Greater communication with parents
• Prompt responses from our Board of Directors to provide assistance with your inquiries
• A restructuring of our younger divisions to offer more flexibility for families and an improved learning environment for our players
• Training for first time Coaches, Conveners, Head Coaches, and Assistant Coaches
• Ongoing support for our volunteers
• Unchanged fees - spring to fall 2023 program fees will not be increased
• Fun events and a few surprises are in the works
• Improved website and more prominent presence on social media

Looking to the year ahead, I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the challenges we faced last year and let our GLL families know our plans to resolve them to make future GLL experiences even better for all participants.  In that regard, I hope you’ll read this important letter in its entirety, or jump to any of these areas of note:

• Challenges & Changes
  • Player Health & Safety
  • Parents
  • GLL Website
• Starting Soon
  • Winter Skills Academy
  • Spring Registration
• Training & Volunteers
  • Head Coaches and Conveners
  • Training
  • Board of Directors

Challenges & Changes

Player Health & Safety
The past couple of years saw many challenges for GLL. Operating a sports league with multiple teams across a wide range of ages, amidst a global pandemic, was not a simple task.  Like many organizations we were constantly making last minute changes to deal with the evolving situation. The situation is still evolving, but families can be confident that GLL will continue to make every effort to keep your children safe while we adjust to, and follow, any health regulations or protocols laid down by the city or province.  We will always keep you apprised of changes that affect our programs and player participation.

Parents
Several board members and head coaches moved on as their kids aged out of GLL, or due to pandemic-related concerns.  This left a gap that could not be filled until health restrictions were lifted. In 2022 some spring/summer teams were unfortunately not operational as we did not have parents to coach or act as conveners for those teams.  We are committed to ensuring this doesn’t happen again, but we will need parents to step up.  Nevertheless, we're infinitely grateful to those coaches and volunteers who put in so many  hours to ensure a successful 2022 season for their teams.

We've already had a few parents stepping up to volunteer for the coming season, but we'll need more volunteers to ensure that our programs run successfully.  Please reply to this email to put your name forward, or to get more information on how you can help your child's team be successful this year.

Website
We're always working to enhance and update the GLL website to be your ‘go to’ resource for everything parents, players, coaches, umpires and volunteers need to know.  This is an ongoing task and we appreciate your patience,  but welcome input from users to let us know what is or is not working for them.

Starting Soon

We'll be starting our Winter Skills Academy on January 14. This is a very popular program where kids learn while having way too much fun!  GLL’s indoors Winter Skills Academy is a wonderful opportunity for players to learn and develop skills to prepare for Spring Ball, or simply to learn a new skill or be active during the winter months.  Check the website for schedules and information to register your player if you haven’t already done so.

Registration for Spring Ball will be opening in the next few weeks.  We'll notify families once it has opened.

Call Out & Training for Volunteers

Coaches & Volunteers - We need you!
Planning for the spring session has  begun. Once again, all teams will need parents to step up for coaching and convener positions, safety officers, scorekeepers, etc. When these critical roles are not filled, teams are denied play.  So I'm making an early call for Spring Ball head coaches and conveners to ensure our kids have the most complete experience. If your child loves to play ball on a little league team, please consider putting your name forward to help out.

Training
We'll be hosting training sessions for new coaches and supplying a wide variety of online tutorials on all aspects of running successful practices to impart baseball skills. New coaches will be contacted with more details about the training sessions.

Board of Directors
As mentioned, our Board of Directors is an enthusiastic and robust one.  As the saying goes "many hands make light work", so we welcome anyone who wishes to be part of this great team.  To make your contributions and be part of an historic organization,  simply reply to this email or  join us at our next meeting.
The Board meets on an as-needed basis to discuss GLL items while throwing in some good old-fashioned socializing!

Our Commitment

While we're introducing some improvements for the upcoming season, our commitment to player development remains the same, as does our philosophy: have fun, play safe.

On behalf of all of us here at Glebe Little League, we look forward to making 2023 the best season yet!

William Barlow
President 
Glebe Little League
Canada’s Oldest Chartered Little League