To all Women’s and Men’s House League Players,
For those of you who don’t know me I am Mike Sutherland and I am the President of Kemptville District Soccer Club.
I’m writing to inform you of some required changes to our Women’s and Men’s House League programs and the reasons behind those changes. Change is never easy and decisions to change are not taken lightly by our Club.
At our last Board meeting, the Board voted to move our Women’s and Men’s House program to Sunday evenings at South Gower. We will be hosting an opportunity to discuss further but continuing under the status quo model at KCAT is not an option.
I met with the Municipality a few weeks back and while the Municipality will be taking over the College, the soccer fields will continue to be managed by a 3rd Party company.
Here are the reasons for our decision and the challenges that we face no matter which path we take:
1) The Club lost $(30)k last year. When we normalize for one time items that will not recur in 2018 we still lost $(24)k. The main driver was a drop of 200 total participants in our House League programs (u3 – Adult House) on a forecast of flat numbers. This problem is multiplied as fixed costs are spread over a fewer number of users. Our club holds a reserve and that reserve has been reduced. Obviously, this is a trend that cannot continue. We have an action plan in place to reduce costs and to ensure profitability, on a forecast of 100 fewer players. My personal belief is that the largest driver for these declines is cost, with the rate increases that were introduced last year and the HST that was being charged. We learned part way through the season that the government ruled in our favour and that we could rebate the HST to our players, but the damage was already done as these were real dollars to be paid up front.
2) The fields at KCAT are very expensive compared to every other field that we rent and their quality is poor. Player safety was an issue cited by our Head Ref so we ended up absorbing another $800 to roll the fields to protect our players.
3) The rate charged in Women’s and Men’s House last year was $190. The cost per player in Men’s was $243.22 and the cost per player in Women’s was $228.35. This is based on Activity Based Costing (i.e. costs being allocated where they are consumed).
4) Dealing with the Management Company for the College fields has been painful and the Board has no desire to continue dealing with KCAT fields. We had issues with fields being cut at the beginning of the season, we had issues getting access to the fields some evenings and we were charged on numerous occasions for the replacement of locks being cut. These instances were not proven to be caused by our player community (i.e. we are required to lock up the fields each evening but there were times when all players were gone, yet cars remained. This could have been someone coming in to walk a dog, as an example.).
5) If we move to Sunday evenings we can use South Gower, which are some of the nicest fields in the city. Costs will be lower and Men’s and Women’s Rec and Competitive players could join House if they had previously had a conflict. Some players cited issues with getting back from work in time to play weekday soccer as a reason for decline.
6) Ref availability during the week is a challenge with conflicts with our Competitive Youth game nights.
To have stayed at KCAT would require too significant of a rate increase to our House players. Numbers would have suffered. By moving to Sunday nights we will lose some players but we might also attract some new ones.
This is a more complex issue than can be shared in a single note so we are inviting interested Men’s and Women’s players to join a town hall session on Sunday, March 4th at 7 pm in the classroom under the Club Office (Ferguson Forestry Centre - 275 County Rd 44 RR 4) . In addition, please feel free to share thoughts, pro or con, with our Club Administrator at club@kemptvillesoccer.com or reach out to your league coordinator.
Lastly, our Club Board is running with four vacant positions and so the time that we each have to spend on the many issues a Club faces day to day is less. If you are able to volunteer your time then please reach out to our Club Administrator.
Thanks,
Mike