Monthly Schedule
- Maintain monthly schedule in Excel.
- Send a copy in Excel format to Fitness and Wellness Director Jamar Edge at: jedge@evergreen-lm.com. His phone is 863-496-3522. Jamar wants the schedule in Excel format 4 days before the end of the month. Alert him if there is an unusual activity like Polk County Games, Halloween, Sadie Hawkins, etc. so the Riviera knows that none of the courts are available.
- Jamar will accept revisions to the schedule for a week or so following the start of the month. This procedure of giving them the schedule is a long-standing agreement between the Club and the Fitness staff. Only send a revision if there is a new team or a major change that starts early in the month. If there are changes late in the month, advise the captain involved to call and reserve the court(s) 3 days in advance thru Riviera, 863-427-7130. The Captain must do this for the remainder of the month.
- Save the monthly schedule in PDF format, which is necessary to post on the Smashers website.
- Also posted on the website and is the responsibility of the Scheduler is the Teams Looking for Players list.
- Each month update the schedules at ALL Pickleball court locations. When making changes to the schedule during the month, also make the necessary changes on the schedules at the courts as well as on the HOA website. This allows it to stay current even though the controlling schedule is the one at the Riviera.
- By staying current on working schedule, it is easy to post the next month’s schedule, save it with the new month and date of posting.
- If you assign an open court to a group after you have given the schedule to the Riviera, you might see if the Riviera will accept the addition. If the Riviera does not want to accept remind the Captains they need to call and reserve their courts 3 days in advance until the Riviera gets the next monthly schedule.
- There are 2 keys to the bulletin board in the shed and the Scheduler has the original key.
- Captain Communication
- It is suggested that a Captain’s meeting is held as soon as possible before the new season, in order for the captains to get familiar with who you are. Ask the sitting Board members to attend.
- Discuss with the Captains their responsibilities in heading their teams.
- Determine what the Board’s emphasis will be as it relates to scheduling.
- Discuss the need to keep the courts full. Remind the captains that it is their responsibility to ensure they have enough players to properly fill their courts. If they need new players, advertise on the “Team Needing Players” list on the Smashers web site.
- Remind captains that if they cannot fill their courts, they have some options.
- Combine with another team in similar straits.
- Give the courts back to the Scheduler
- It is a great opportunity to gather input from the captains.
- When there is a tournament; clinic; event or community event (garage sale, Veteran’s Day, etc.) work in conjunction with the person responsible for Club communications and let the captains know if their courts will be used. Also mark tournaments, clinics, etc. on the monthly schedule.
- There has been significant gains in our ability to communicate with the Captains using Constant Contact. When you want to communicate to all the captains write out what you want to say and send to Email blast coordinator for transmission.
New Teams
- Direct the Captain of a new team to the HOA for a list of Smashers’ Standing Rules, which are also available on the Smashers website, especially SR 4 (it outlines captain responsibilities) and court rules. Eight members for each court reserved. Three reservations are permitted during weekday prime time and one during weekend primetime. Go to our website and fill in the roster form. The roster can be found on the Smashers website. Click on “Enter Team Information”
- Once the team is accepted and the team roster is filled out, save the team’s information in a ‘Team Roster’ electronic file or keep hard copies in a notebook Insist the Captains keep members of their team information up-to-date with their membership obligations.
Team Rosters
- Request an annual update of team rosters from the team captains before March 19th. This information is necessary to update the Smasher’s Team/Captain list. Ask captains to remind all team members they need to renew membership by 2/28 in order to continue team play. It has been helpful to send the captains a list of the members who have not renewed by 3/1. The Treasurer will provide this info.
- Constant Contact is set up to send e-mails to every team captain as a group. When you want to send an email to all the captains write out what you want to say and send to email blast coordinator for transmission.
Teams On Hold / Summer Play
- During the summer many of the teams cannot fill their courts. This could be due to snowbirds going home; travel of players; etc. Fortunately, there is very little pressure from teams requesting playing times and may courts sit empty, even during preferred time slots.
- We have utilized summer scheduling modifications as a result of teams not having enough players to fill their courts during the hot months.
- An e-mail should be sent to team captains in May asking the captains if they want to place any of their courts on-hiatus for a defined period of time during the summer. During the 2018 summer we had 11 teams on hiatus.
- The designation ‘on-hiatus’ allows those courts to be assigned to other teams during a defined period of time. At the end of the specified time the on-hiatus courts return to the original team.
- The defined period of time will be full months only and the suspension period will only be for the months beginning June 1 thru September 30.
- A distinctive color, orange beige, is used on the posted schedule to indicate to the membership what courts are on hiatus.
- The membership was notified by Blast that the on-hold courts are available for play June 1 thru September 30 (The hiatus period was restricted to full months only) and that the scheduler will accept team requests in conformance with the Solivita Smasher Team Rules, Standing Rule #4.
- If the original team chooses not to resume play after the defined period of time, the on-hold courts will be reassigned beginning with the summer replacement team having the option to keep the court.
- Be advised that prior to accepting courts to be put on-hold team captains are asked to review the “Teams Looking for Players” list on the HOA Smasher website in an effort to get new players involved on their teams. I urge teams to combine during the summer to share courts, thus putting other courts onto the on-hiatus list.
- The positive carry-over in the fall will have been the development of a readily available list of subs. Teams are expected to fill their courts during the summer or put them on hiatus.
Offering Court Time for Teams on Hiatus
It is only fair to send an email to all captains and membership by Blast notifying them of the court times temporarily available for the summer. They were told to check the schedules to determine what was available. Also, the procedure was outlined in order to avoid confusion at the end of the hiatus period.
Teams Looking for Players
This list is maintained on the website and updated whenever a team captain sends the required information. This allows players to go to the web site for up-to-date openings.
Waiting List for Court Reservations
There is no waiting list. The schedule shows all open court times and there is usually no problem with filling available courts. A requesting captain asks if the time is still available and if so, they are assigned the court. Courts may not be given to other teams. They must be turned in to the Scheduler. The court/s will appear as open on the following months schedule.