December 4, 2005: AAACTA Annual Meeting

Executive Director's Report (Sarah Cyganiak)

Project based summary:

1. Middle School Program

2. City Tournament

3. Emails

4. Events

5. Ideas/Room for growth

1. In mid-April 2005, a team of AAACTA officers and volunteers gathered together to begin again the process of organizing a bevy of tennis enthusiasts to teach, to encourage and to inspire sixth grade middle school students in the Ann Arbor area through the game of tennis. What resulted for AAACTA and for the volunteers was just that. The teaching, the encouragement and the inspiration, although the understood mission of the volunteers, resulted in their reaching both the sixth graders as well as the volunteers.

Areas of need:

a) we need more volunteers,

b) a more formulated plan for the teaching of the kids that can be disseminated to the volunteers for each sesssion so that everyone involved is has a bit of direction provided for them for that week's hour of tennis with the kids (whether the week's plan comes from the Executive Director or whether that comes from the leader of each school on the designated day, is material for a conversation among the AAACTA officers, the Middle School Program planners, and the Executive Director),

c) a continued generously donated supply of tennis materials (balls-used or new-, racquets for kids, updated park courts, etc).

2. In mid-March, members of the City Tournament committee met to discuss several matters which go into the creation and production of a successful summer tournament series. At that time committee tasks were divided up among those involved.

Areas of need:

a) Preparation stage: more people to help seek out sponsors. This 2005 proved to be a successful year again for sponsor(s) involvement. It would be nice to get some more equipment sponsors, for example, Prince or Wilson. One goal I think would be to have enough sponsors so that AAACTA could cover the costs of providing balls for every match for the Summer 2006 tournament series, adult tourney series as well as for the juniors.

b) Seeding committee: the tournament director should be best informed about how to seed people for the tournaments. This would require that the TD the communicate with those in the community in order to find out about how to seed the players best. Then, the TD and ED (or whoever is doing the TDM, or plugging in the tournament data) must communicate.

c) Publicity: in order to get more fans out for the tournament. Perhaps write an article for the May Observer, Ann Arbor News or any other local paper about the tournament, or do a feature piece related to tennis in the community, or an article on a Middle School Student who began in the AAACTA program, who then went through the recently created (by Rowe and Weitzman) All-Star Camp and have him or her share her experience, or the whole group, etc. Or this could be a feature for the AAACTA website; also, a historical article that could be interesting after researching a bit through the history guru of the AAACTA (name will be provided upon desire to write an article or something similar).

d) During the tournaments: we always can use more volunteers so that it is not the same people, so that burn-out be avoided during the events. Also, more people to help out with off-sites. Also, one thought would be to have the USTA on Tour truck at the Town Tennis Celebration, a way to incorporate the USTA and all the good stuff going on with them.

3) A new feature for the year with AAACTA was the sending out of reminder emails about tennis events in town. This is one effective way for communicating such events. In order to make this better and more effective, the Executive Director could go around town and connect with the various representatitves from the clubs, programs, organizations affiliated with tennis in order for them to know who to send their info to in order to announce events in the area. Inclusion and full, proper information should be prioritized. Basically, these emails entail a certain process: 1) gather information from the proper sources, 2) synthesize the info; 3) and write the info into an email or for the website.

4) New events this year:

i) US Open: Blake/Agassi: gathering as a tennis community for an enjoyable night of tennis at an area locale to eat, drink, chat and watch tennis. Meet other members of the tennis community, too. (early September)

ii) Bayou Benefit Bash: fundraiser for a specific cause. (mid-November). The BBB seemed to bring the tennis community together from all over, and to do it again would be lovely, so what would be nice with the idea of a fundraiser is to have one that would be able to raise money for AAACTA as a way to help grow the organization so that it can have a greater positive influence in the tennis community as a wholly integrated one, which will create more enthusiasm for tennis in the area and help grow the many dimensions of the game of tennis for kids of all ages. There has been discussion of a reading/writing/tutoring program in the summer, one that combines tennis and education for kids.

5. New ideas are always welcome. Best to throw them out there with the officers, the Executive Director, Board Members, and in order for most of these people to hear new ideas, it is best to come to meetings to talk about the possibilities for new projects. Bouncing such ideas off of others involved in the organization will allow for an idea of feasibility and potential for success for such ideas to be made reality.

-one idea, for example; a Tennis Block Party in May : USTA,SEMTA, AAACTA, etc.