In this issue:

Facility Strategy Takes Shape	Thanks to Volunteers
Website References for FAQ's	Member Ratings - Other Clubs
Indoor Play	Red Willow Registration/Cancellations
New Communications Director

Facility Strategy Takes Shape

Your Facilities Task Force wants your input!  Help shape our future or just see what is going on.

We have now posted a draft of our new Facilities Strategy - our 5 to 10 year vision for more pickleball facilities in St. Albert.  Please note that this document is a work in progress - some blanks need to be filled in and member input is needed to make this strategy even stronger.

Please read the draft strategy, which is now posted on our Plans and Policies web page, or jump straight to the report here.

Have a look and ask yourself - do you share this vision?  Is this how we should go about pursuing these new facilities? 

After reviewing the draft Facility Strategy document, if you are so inclined, you are encouraged to send an email to the Facilities Task Force c/o Treasurer@pickleballstalbert.ca with the subject line: Facilities Strategy - Member Comment.  In your email, please identify one or more of the following questions by number and provide a response to each question you have identified:

1. Do you agree there is or will be a need for more pickleball facilities in St. Albert in the years to come?
   
2. Do you agree with the three priority objectives laid out?
   
3. How would you strengthen or alter the rationale for one of the priorities?
   
4. What else needs to be added to the plan for one of the priorities?
   
5. Do you have some information on other pickleball facilities that can fill in the blanks in an appendix or add to the strength of the research we have provided?
   
6. Do you have suggestions regarding an advocacy approach with the City of St. Albert?
   
7. Would you like to join our Facilities Task Force and add some more muscle to help us realize a future as glorious as these golden days of pickleball in St. Albert?  This is the legacy we will leave to our children and grandchildren.  We'd love to have you join our team!
   

Note that this is the second piece of our overall facilities strategy. The first piece was our SAPC Facility Reserve--Investing in our Future.  Over 30 members commented on that paper, validated this approach, and strengthened our financial resolve.  If you missed that paper you can review it on the same webpage referenced above.

Thanks to Volunteers

Thanks to all the captains who led and organized our summer play and who signed up to captain our indoor play.  We know COVID safety has made your jobs just a bit more of a challenge, but you have risen to that challenge and are keeping us safe.  Kudos to all of you!

Thanks to Eileen, not only for your tireless work as our President, but also for your separate work as Venue Manager.  You and your team of Venue Coordinators have again secured a great roster of indoor play venues (the envy of all other clubs in the region), you have liaised with venue contacts, organized captains and play times and met with and supported our captains.  It is an inspiration to see you go -- you make us dizzy at the start of each season!

Thanks to Mark Nadeau, our very capable Equipment Coordinator, who along with his helpful partner Arlene, have done an absolutely fantastic job organizing and inventorying our equipment, buying new nets and balls and much, more more - and always with a smile!  Here's hoping we can continue seeing your "around the post" play in person this indoor season, and not just via videos (great acting though - we've nominated you for the Academy Awards for that!).  Thank you for organizing volunteers to do the sad, but necessary, equipment take down to end our outdoor season at Alpine Courts.

Thanks to Nela Alfonso, our Binder Minder, who stocked and organized all our captain's venue binders, helping to make us ready for indoor play and thanks to Douwe for having those sign-in sheets printed.

Thanks to Marion Spriensma for pumping out and mailing all those sticker cards our members are ordering as we ramp up for indoor play.

Thanks to our Rating Coordinators Gerry Gartner and Karen Cabot who organized all of our rating clinics and even attended the ones on that very chilly day in September.

Thanks to Carol Peabody, our Registered Play coordinator, for setting up our summer shootout events in our calendars and for setting up all the reserved play for our indoor season.

Thanks again to Ken Dentzien and all the people who ran SAPC's biggest tournament ever this last September.   We are now set up to run even bigger tournaments in the future!   (thanks to James Porter and his team for working hard through the technical issues with the tournament software).  It is worth noting that such tournament events are very important for our club; not only did 20% of our members participate and have FUN, such events can significantly raise SAPC's profile in St. Albert.   We would like to hold more tournaments in the future.  Multi-day tournaments, for example, have economic development spinoff benefits for St. Albert hotels, restaurants and other businesses and they can be used to generate publicity further raising our profile with the City of St. Albert and attracting more members.  All of that helps as we begin to collaborate with the City to build more pickleball facilities as noted in the first article of this Newsletter.

Speaking of that first article, many thanks to Ray for his hard work and many hours spent working on this first draft of our Facility Strategy.

There are many, many more volunteers we have to thank -- sorry we didn't get to everyone this issue. To all of you, thank you for your interest, your caring and your time. All our members and our entire community benefits from your spirit.

Do you have one or more volunteers in our Club that you would like to thank in particular?  Send your name(s), your "one-liners" of thanks or your stories to communications@pickleballstalbert.ca -- or post it directly to our facebook page!   We would love to pass those along.

Website References for Frequently Asked Questions

"You've got questions?  We got answers!"

We'll bet that several of you would like to be reminded of the answers to one or more of the following questions.  Well, you're in luck!  Here's how and where to find answers - click on the links provided below to direct you to the correct webpage:

1. How do I reserve a play spot at Red Willow?  See the Reserved Play webpage.

2. What are the rules for indoor play these days?  See the Guide to Indoor Play Fall 2021 article on our Home page.

3. How do I use a club credit?  See the Finance and Technology FAQ webpage.  Please use your club credit when you renew your membership for 2022 - you can only do that by following the steps provided.   Use it or lose it!

4. How do I renew my membership for 2022?  See the summary information here.  To learn more about the new process, see this new SAPC FAQ page on Pickleball Canada memberships  (Note: If you are using a club credit to pay for part of your membership please alter this procedure based on the process referenced in the question #3 above).

5. How do I add my picture to my membership card?  How do I print or save my membership card to show captains?  These questions are also answered on our Finance and Technology FAQ page.

As you will have noted from this short list, the SAPC website is a treasure trove of good information with answers to many if not all of your questions - be an archeologist this Halloween season and do a little diggin'... it will be fun!

Member Ratings - Other Clubs

With more and more members playing in multiple jurisdictions including down south, the question often comes up as to whether a SAPC member can use another club's rating for purposes of organized SAPC play.  The answer is yes, under the following conditions:

• The other club must have a formal club rating system using certified or experienced raters and a database of members' ratings.

• Proof of rating must be provided to an SAPC Rating Coordinator and must contain:

Note that if the proof is a letter or email, the originator must be a current or past club president, rating manager or other position responsible for ratings and must state the writer's position.

The following will be accepted as partial proof of rating, but must be accompanied by any other information needed as described above:

• A member's rating evaluation form containing the evaluator's name and contact information, date of evaluation, evaluation result and the successful rating level achieved.
• A membership card with a club rating on it.
• A screen-shot (image capture) of a member's profile with a club or tournament rating on it. 

All of the above can be referenced by clicking on this link to our website.

Note - VERY IMPORTANT:   It is the SAPC Member's responsibility to comply with this rating policy and for the Member to provide the information requested as noted above; the Club will NOT seek out this information on your behalf nor contact anyone on your behalf to obtain same.

Indoor Play

Just a reminder to members that for those beginning to come indoors to play that all the information about playing indoors can be found in the previous, September 30 Newsletter.

Red Willow Registration & Cancellations

When you register at Red Willow and the session is full you can decide to add your name on the waiting list.  If you do this, it is very important that you check your e-mails right up until the start of the event because a member can cancel at any time (try to avoid late cancellations as noted below).  If a member cancels, you will automatically receive an e-mail that you are now registered.  Therefore, if you don’t check your e-mails, you won’t realize that you are in the system and expected to play at Red Willow for that session.

If you need to cancel from a registered session please do so as early as possible to allow time for the above process to take place and another interested Member to register for the session.

By the way, once your name is on the wait list you cannot remove it by yourself should you change your mind.  The only way to remove a name from the wait list is within the program by the site manager; to have them do so, please send an e-mail to regplay@pickleballstalbert.ca.

New Communications Director

The Club is pleased to announce that we have a new Communications Director.  Roger Hutlet has agreed to take on this role and to join the SAPC Board - welcome aboard!  Roger says that he is looking forward to working with the SAPC Team including all volunteers.  This is his first Newsletter so please be patient with his sense of humor, misspellings, etc.

Until next time, keep your paddle up!