The Fall Session Blast is scheduled for January 25-26. The 8 Ball Blast will be on Saturday and the 9 Ball Blast will be on Sunday. Even if your team did not win the playoffs, double check to make sure your team isn’t in the Blast. The highest finishing team in the playoffs that isn’t already qualified gets advanced to the Blast for a chance at City Championships in each division.
It is membership renewal time for everyone. Many people have already started taking advantage of renewing their membership by credit card through the web site. Membership fees are due by the 4th week of the Spring Session. Qualified teams need to make sure that all of their players are paid up by the 4th week, because you are not allowed to make changes to your roster after the 4th week, including adding back players who have not paid their membership fees. This also applies to teams that become qualified at the Blast this month!
Membership fees are $25 for most people. Anyone who paid their membership after August 15th of 2013 has a prorated renewal of $15.00 that is good for the entire year. It will be specified on the score sheet how much each member owes. People that don’t show any fees owed next to their name just means that they have already paid for 2014.
We have included membership applications in the team packets for any new members. These need to be filled out completely when submitting memberships in order to allow these new members to get full access to our web site. Also, if you have moved or any of your information has changed, it is important to get that information updated so that your service does not get interrupted. You may update it via your APA web account profile, if you’ve claimed your online account.
Last year saw what I consider to be a real low in the form of sportsmanship around our league. More players got suspended or were given warnings or a week off for behavioral issues than any year I can remember in the past. We do play on different teams, but we are all APA members and we are all here to play pool and have a good time. We are glad 2013 is over, as I’m sure many of you are too, but let’s please leave all of the bad sportsmanship stuff in 2013 and let 2014 be the year we all get along peacefully and happily.
Schedules are likely to change in the first few weeks due to late teams adding or dropping. Please double check the schedule before sending your teammates to their originally scheduled destinations.
Something we hear in the office quite often is that a team is having a tough time finding players. The unique thing about APA is that ANYONE can play, and quite often the person who doesn’t know how to play pool at all is the person most teams are looking to place on their roster. There are hundreds of thousands of people that fit that profile, and the biggest reason you can’t get them to play on your team is that they think they aren’t good enough to play in a pool league, which is what you typically have to be to play in other leagues. It really comes down to how you explain it to them where they want to play on a team. You also have to place value on why they want to play on a team. Some just want to play on a team for the social aspects of our league with no thought of getting better. Others do want to play to become better, but if you place a bunch of pressure on them to perform, it isn’t going to be fun for them. The key to finding and keeping players on your team is to keep it fun for them. Most of the time, everything comes back to the level of fun someone is having as to whether it is worth their entertainment dollar. The league structure is there for anyone to have a competitive match and win, but you have to instill a level of enjoyment for those several hours that people sit around waiting to play their match, if they play that night at all.
As we enter our 19th year of running leagues, we notice that there are quite a few people that have been here all 18 years with us. We express our sincerest appreciation to all of you that have been with us for all of these years. We have a lot more we wish to accomplish with this league, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without you. Here is to what we hope will be a great 2014! Rack ‘em up and good luck in this final session to qualify for the 2014 APA National Team Championships!
Shoot Pool Good!