Code of Conduct

(Violations can be reported here: Anonymous Code of Conduct Violation Report )

Youth sports are a fun and exciting time for players, coaches, parents, family and friends.  It’s a time of learning for the athletes about competition, team play, socializing, hard work and how to make that pay off.  Baseball, as America’s pastime is the perfect sport to education young athletes about all of these.  From time to time, “heat of the battle” issues arise during competition, develop during practices, or just things don’t go right.  Tempers flare and normal people just don’t act normal.  For these times, RYBA has developed a Code of Conduct and a Compliance Committee to handle these issues.  The following link will direct you to these policies and I urge you to read it carefully.

http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0022/3355/2011_RYBA_code_of_conduct_and_violations.pdf

RYBA code of behavior outlines the issues that can impact a game and a team.  We have expectations that all players, coaches, families, and visitors will follow these codes.  We cannot address every individual type of inappropriate behavior but we provide these rules as a guidepost.

Violations for breaking the RYBA code of conduct will be strictly enforced (outlined in the section).  Any ejection will immediately require that individual(s) to leave the premises if the offender fails to leave the grounds for any reason, the game will be forfeited to the non-offending team.  If the individuals still will not leave, law enforcement may need to be called.

Any ejections of any kind are reported by the umpire to RYBA.  RYBA will then convene the Compliance Committee to investigate, meet, and go over the incident with all individuals deemed involved in the issue.  The Compliance Committee will hand down the decision and meet with the offending party in the issuance of its decision.

A critical aspect of the Code of Conduct deals with “Respect for the game”.  RYBA takes this seriously and this applies to not only players, coaches and umpires but also applies to the spectators themselves. Please read these and we suggest that you talk over these with your player, as well as family.  Abide by these and please report any conduct you feel is in violation of these principles. 

Compliance Committee

                On our website, you will see not only the rules, but the sanctions as well.  These are handled by the Compliance Committee.  This committee is important to maintain an unbiased investigation and ruling should issues arise.  You can read the make-up of the committee and how investigations and decisions are made.  Remember, the committee will not involve any board member that may be considered “part of the situation”.

Summary:  RYBA takes this policy very seriously.  Unfortunately, we meet a number of times throughout the year for issues that arise. Most are handled easily and efficiently, some take more time.

One question that always comes up is “how do I report a violation of the Code of Conduct if an ejection doesn’t happen and I want to point out the violation?”  RYBA urges you to please call or email the grade commissioner involved immediately.  Their email contact is located on the RYBA website and included in this link below:

http://www.rybamn.com/page/show/262203-ryba-board-of-directors-and-committee-assignments

                There is a very good article that has circulated around baseball lately.  It is from Mike Matheny, former major league baseball player and currently the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.  It is a valuable read and we encourage everyone to give this a serious look.

http://www.mac-n-seitz.com/teams/mike-matheny-letter.html

Please remember these rules apply to not only house, K-8, but for all levels including traveling.  Our policies are guidelines and rules to ensure that the game of baseball is an enjoyable time for all and a time for learning valuable lessons of life and leisure.

Thank you,

Dan Herold

Past President

Rochester Youth Baseball Association (RYBA)

WHO IS RYBA?

BLOG POST #2

TITLE:            WHO IS RYBA?

The 2014 season marks the 57^th year for the Rochester Youth Baseball Association.  Baseball now competes with newer sports and activities, but the image that baseball represents remains an indelible marker in our consciousness.  Baseball stirs emotions in people.  With the coming of the baseball season, we know the long, cold, and dark Minnesota winter must inevitably give way to sunny days, and warm evenings.  For a kid, baseball season means school is about to end.  They’re older.  They’ve completed another year.  And soon, for the next 10 weeks,  they’ll be free to head out in the morning to play with friends until it’s time for dinner and then head back out again until it’s time for bed. 

It was December 5, 1856, when a writer for the New York Mercury newspaper first called baseball, "the national pastime."  The sport exploded in popularity after the Civil War and professional baseball leagues began springing up soon after in the 1870’s.  It’s surprising that it took over a century for organized youth baseball to come to Rochester Minnesota.  Sure kids played ball long before the RYBA began in 1957, but until a group of dedicated parents formed our association, organization was not part of baseball in our city.  This legacy has been passed down to us for three generations and it’s ours not only to protect, but to grow and evolve.

So who or what is RYBA? 

There’s the TECHNICAL definition.  RYBA is a registered 403-C, non- profit organization.  That explanation is a little dry however, so what about looking at it in another way?

We have a charter, a vision, a mission, and a motto.  All good organizations use those things to define who they are and what they want to be.  For those of you unfamiliar with them, here are ours.

Vision: Become the premier youth sports association in Rochester

Mission: Provide a sports experience that delivers growth in fitness, skill, and sportsmanship to youth ages 5-15.

Motto:  Youth Growing Through Baseball.

As a board, we are the caretakers of the game and we use these to operate in a more VISIONARY way.  These principles provide great guidance for us when we’re making decisions that affect our constituents.  But when we get at the core, there’s a REALISTIC definition.  

RYBA is people.  It’s the kids, parents, volunteers and sponsors that keep baseball alive in Rochester.  If we are to protect and grow the game for the next generation, we need involvement from the entire community.  If you have the ability, please consider a role as a coach.  It’s an incredibly rewarding experience.  Coaches teach, guide and set a powerful example for the players.  There are more organizational roles that are needed such as, league commissioners and board members.  Finally, as a non-profit and we have to generate income to continue to offer  baseball in Rochester.  We charge participation fees, to cover most costs,  but wouldn’t it be nice if we could generate enough income from sponsors, donations, and concessions to lower or even eliminate these fees.  Fundraising is an important role and we welcome help in any way.

Step up where you can and let’s keep the baseball ideal alive for future generations.

Direct questions and comments about this blog to:

Tony Horvath - RYBA Marketing Director

horvath.tony@rochesterbaseball.net

We Heard You Loud and Clear

PARENT SURVEY RESULTS AND RYBA ACTION PLAN

Welcome to the new Rochester Youth Baseball blog!  We are launching this new feature to bring an additional level of transparency to the workings of your association.   Sports are an important part of developing our youth and we take this responsibility seriously.  Our goal is to deliver the best youth sports program in Rochester. 

SURVEY RESULTS:  We had a great response to our annual post-season survey and we heard you loud and clear.   About 25% of our customer base took the time to complete the survey and provide us with feedback.  This year we took a deep dive into the survey results.  Every single comment was read and reviewed by the team.   We’ve developed an action plan based on what we heard. While we are very thankful to those of you that participated, we’d like to increase this number in the coming year.  The best way we can get more feedback is to assure you that we are listening and acting on what you’ve already told us.  We can’t act on every comment, but those that had critical mass will be addressed in 2014.

ACTION PLAN:  This blog is the first step in giving you more information about RYBA.  Over the next several months we’ll directly address all the top issues that were brought forward by parents.  In most cases we’ll be taking action to correct things and we’ll lay out those plans on this website.  On other issues we’ll be explaining why our current practices are really best for the entire organization.

Here is a list of the next several blog posts.  We hope you’ll read them all.

January 19  - Who is RYBA?

January 26 – RYBA Code of Conduct

February 2 – Fields and Facilities

February 9 – The House Program

February 16 – Formation and Structure of House League teams

February 23 – Balancing Practice Time and Game Time

March 2 – The Travel Program

March 9 - The Try-Out Process

March 16 - How Coaches are Chosen

March 23– Why are there different rules by age and level

March 30 – No Blog: Spring Break

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

Later this month we will be holding some 90 minute parent feedback forums.  Many of you volunteered to take part in these sessions and although we can’t invite everyone, we will send out invitations to 16 house league parents and 16 travel program parents.  These forums will be conducted by an outside researcher/interviewer not associated with RYBA.  This will assure that your comments remain confidential and that the feedback we get is not filtered by an RYBA representative.   The more we learn about our member needs, the better we can structure our programs to meet those needs.

RESPONSE TO BLOG POSTINGS

At this time we don’t have the ability to have an interactive forum, but any comments can be sent to the author of the blog and you will receive a personal response.  The author name and e-mail address will be listed at the end of the post. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:  The members of the Rochester Youth Baseball Association will work as hard as we can to deliver the best sports experience for your child.  We promise to make changes where they will benefit the largest possible number of participants of the program and we encourage you to continue bringing your thoughts and ideas forward throughout the year and not just in these surveys. 

Tony Horvath

RYBA Marketing Director

horvath.tony@rochesterbaseball.net