The Sunshine Coast Baseball Association (SCBA) added three new members to its executive board at the annual general meeting (AGM) on Jan. 12, which had an impressive turnout of about 30 people.
Second vice president Jim Pringle said that although there had been concerns of losing gaming grants if the AGM attendance was too low, that is no longer an issue.
“We were really pleased with the attendance,” Pringle said. “For any of these little community associations, it’s hard to draw much of a crowd, but I think there was a real positive mood from everybody looking forward to the season getting started. We managed to get three new members to our board and filled some key positions, along with five returning members. So a good strong group of volunteers involved.”
Pringle said that the biggest project they will be tackling over the next 12 months is to replace the batting cages that were removed from Brothers Park when the RCMP building was built there.
“We’ll strike a sub-committee in the upcoming weeks and months to take that project on,” Pringle said.
He said they are hoping to have teams formed and start practices by the end of March. This year pitching is going to be a big focus for the younger teams.
“One of our big focuses is to get the kids introduced to pitching quite a bit earlier,” Pringle said. “The first year of pitching has been mosquito in the past – we’re going to try to introduce some pitching into our tadpole leagues, both for the kids who need to pitch and for the kids who need to learn to hit. Hitting off a pitching machine is a little limiting in some cases, so we’re going to try to get some pitching involved in some of our lower leagues.”
Due partly to the recent success of the Toronto Blue Jays, Pringle said the association is expecting a higher enrolment of players in the coming season.
“As much as we love to see the high level competitiveness success from kids on the Sunshine Coast, our main focus certainly is participation and getting kids active and having fun playing baseball,” Pringle said.
For more information, see www.sunshinecoastbaseballassociation.com
