Captain’s Log, January 26th, 2014 

 

This is week 4 of the Spring Session. Everyone on your roster needs to be paid up in membership dues this week, or they will be dropped from the roster. Qualified teams especially need to get these memberships paid up, because you cannot make changes to your roster of any kind after the 4^th week. There are some other little nuances about memberships that I’m going to explain that I know some of you might be curious about, so here goes…. 

A lot of players have taken advantage of our online membership services to pay their memberships with a credit card. If you need help with that, please call the office. We would be happy to help you with that. If you are paying by credit card, make sure you get them paid before the score sheets get printed for week 5. Sunday and Monday divisions go out on Thursday, Tuesday goes out on Friday and Wednesday and Thursday divisions go out on Monday. This is almost always the case, except when we have to work around a postal holiday.
 

If you are on more than one team, you do need to submit your membership fees with the team that plays first for that week, Sunday being the start of our week. If you play on Sunday and Thursday, and you submit your fees with your Thursday team, the Sunday stuff will already be processed and sent back out before we ever receive the Thursday stuff, which means you will have been dropped from the Sunday team already. 

Paying the captain your fees and us receiving the fees are two different things. You can give your captain your membership fees, but if the score sheet is mailed in after we have processed and mailed out score sheets for the next week, you will be removed from the roster. We can’t assume that membership fees were submitted and it’s just late, so it’s extremely important that the week 4 score sheet gets mailed on time. 

If a player does get dropped for non payment of fees, AND THE TEAM IS NOT QUALIFIED FOR CITY CHAMPIONSHIPS, you can add the player back and submit the fees with the next score sheet. Any dropped player will not be allowed back on a team until fees are submitted. Adding a non paid member to your team after week 4 and not submitting their fees will automatically get that player a paid membership and the team will be held responsible for that $25.00 membership fee. DO NOT ADD SOMEONE AFTER WEEK 4 WITHOUT COLLECTING THEIR FEES FIRST! 

I have some concerns about the return envelope that we send out each week. There is a reason we stamp them for you, as we don’t want to inconvenience you with having to locate or pay for a stamp each week to mail your envelope. There is a reason they are gold instead of generic white. Gold is easier for the Post Office employees to recognize and separate from other people’s mail. Timely submission is key, and we have done what we can to help your stuff get to us as quickly as possible. Gold is much more expensive than generic white, but the cost is worth it to us to make sure your stuff doesn’t accidentally get stuffed into the wrong PO Box. With that said, here are the concerns….. 

We provide a spot by the return address where you are supposed to supply your 5 digit team number. Not everyone is supplying that information for us, making sorting a much more lengthy process. Your team has a 5 digit number, which starts with your 3 digit division number and your 2 digit team number. It’s in the upper right hand corner of your score sheet and in other places as well, and should not be confused with your host location number. Writing your name and address is great, but doesn’t help us sort envelopes in the office when we pick them up. Bonus points can be lost if you aren’t writing your 5 digit number on the envelope.  

It’s fine to bring us the envelope at Blast tournaments or leave them at the bar where in house leagues are playing, but don’t waste the return envelope by writing on it and/or sealing it when you don’t have to. The 46 cents are paid for whether you give it to the post office to deliver or not, so when you don’t use the post office and then seal it or write on it where it is no longer usable, it becomes trash. It’s not a big issue, but we are spending more than a small fortune on postage, and even small things like that help out a lot. 

We are still taking sign ups for the Bonnie and Clyde and Southwest Challenge tournaments coming up in February and March, respectively. Flyers were posted to our web site for all to see. Don’t delay. Get your teams signed up now. The Bonnie and Clyde always fills up. Entry forms for the Southwest Challenge will be mailed out next Thursday for the teams that are signed up.

Shoot Pool Good!