November 9, 2000

Dear Coaches, Parents, Players, and Supporters,

As of this writing, we are winding down from an extremely successful Fall season. We are about to host our second Zerious Zoccer at the Zone Tournament and I anticipate that it will be even more successful than our inaugural one last year. There are over 100 teams entered. Many of you are volunteering a significant amount of time to ensure the success of the tournament. To all of you I say, "Thank-You." It is your efforts that will bring lasting results for our children.

As I previously stated, this past Hampton Roads Challenge League (HRCL) season was one of the most successful in our history. There were 136 teams competing in HRCL this past season from U9 through U19. HRCL has 14 separate divisions and Chesapeake competed in 12 of those. The end-of-season tally is quite impressive. Of the 12 divisions in which we participated, we had semi-finalists in 11 of them. We had two semi-finalists in 4 divisions, and three in 1 division. In the end, Chesapeake teams won the championship in 5 divisions and were finalists in an additional 3. At the U12 level, we even had two Chesapeake teams in the final match making Chesapeake the winner. All-in-all, an outstanding performance by our teams which bodes well for our program.

Our program is heavily dependent upon volunteers. The Board of Directors is working diligently to develop lists of members to help coordinate the various activities the Club schedules throughout the soccer year. It is an iterative process and requires a significant amount of time. If you have not ever been contacted about helping out in some way and wish to do so, please do not hesitate to contact me or any member of the Board. As we all get better at organizing ourselves, this process will become easier.

The future indeed looks bright for the Club. Jim Schrader and George Miller, both Past Presidents of your Club have been working very hard on obtaining fields that we may one day call our own. I recently had an opportunity to speak with both of them on this subject. For reasons that some of you may know, we are keeping any negotiations out of public view in order to avoid the type of political furor that was generated when we first approached our city fathers on this project over two years ago. I can report to you that we are moving closer to our goal and I am hopeful that arrangements can be completed by the end of February. I will keep you posted.

I have several visions for the Club this year. The first obviously, is fields. Another important issue is the establishment of a Micro-Soccer program for children ages 3-7. This will require some work on our part as well as plenty of volunteers to get this off the ground. I would like to see this thing get started in the Fall of 2001. An additional issue is to help alleviate the referee shortage here by scheduling more certification/re-certification classes and, most importantly, a mentoring program.

I hope to see you somewhere on the pitch in the coming off-season months. Have a great Holiday Season!

Ken Halloway