Role of Team Manager

General Info
Preseason Checklist
Transitioning TeamSnap

The goal for a Team Manager (TM) is not only to organize the team but to effectively communicate with the parents and be responsive to questions or concerns. Your Age Group Coordinator (AGC) and the CYSC Board are here to support you when you need assistance with your team. TM also plays an active role in building team spirit and morale. All of these things are what make being part of CYSC both easy and enjoyable for the players and their families, and what help to retain players, which in turn strengthens the team and the club.

Communication

TM is in charge of team communication with the parents, coaches and trainers. Prior to the start of the season you should inform your team as to what they should expect for the upcoming year in regards to dues, practice schedules and commitment.
TM is responsible for maintaining the team app with up to date roster and game details. (Many managers use Team Snap for this purpose). Make sure families understand the importance of communicating their game attendance in advance (or marking their attendance in a timely manner on TeamSnap).
It is customary for TM to send weekly reminders to their team with reminders on schedules, games, jersey colors, game locations & chaperone assignments. If you use an app like TeamSnap, much of this becomes automated through the app.
TM will notify the team in the event of a rainout or location change.
TM is responsible for weekly communication with the opposing team to confirm game and jersey colors.

Chaperones

Per CYSC, a practice cannot be held without a chaperone.
TM is responsible for setting up a chaperone for each team practice. You can assign practice dates at the start of the season or setup a sign-up to allow people to pick their own dates. You want to make sure that the responsibility is equally shared between all parents.
After chaperone dates are assigned people can “swap” if they need to. If someone cannot fulfill their chaperone duty it is their responsibility to find someone to swap with and inform TM of the change.
During pre-season camp 2 chaperones should be assigned to split each 3 hour session.
Chaperones must have access to a team roster in the event a parent/guardian needs to be contacted.
Chaperones duties include: dealing with any ill or injured children, monitoring kids going to/from the bathroom and remaining at the field until all children are picked up from practice. TM should remind parents of these responsibilities when setting up the chaperone schedule.

Tournaments

Most teams U11 and up enter at least 2 tournaments a year. The tournaments generally fall on long holiday weekends (Labor Day, Columbus Day, Memorial Day) but are also scattered throughout the year. U9 & U10 are also encouraged to participate in tournaments.
Tournament sign ups come out of team dues and must be factored into the overall team finances.
The team Trainer may suggest a tournament based on their experience and other team selections. It may be a good idea to speak with other CYSC Team Managers or members of the CYSC Board to become more familiar with tournament options and find the right fit for your team.
The TM will confirm player availability and sign the team up for the tournament, paying the fee out of team dues.
The TM will need to familiarize themselves with tournament specific roster rules. Some rosters will freeze at a certain point. This means you may need to anticipate and appropriately roster players who might be serving as subs for your team.
Tournament details need to then be communicated to the team as they develop.
Some teams send out a snack sign up when the team is scheduled to participate in an all day tournament. This is at the discretion of the manager/coach/trainer. A general sign up will include a tent, folding table, drinks and snacks.
CYSC strongly recommends that a trainer coach the team during the tournament, however if no trainer is available and the parent coach feels comfortable with the task the team may participate with only a parent coach.

Finances/Dues

The TM handles the finances for the team. When a child registers for the club they pay the initial registration fee and optional pre-season training camp registration fee. They will also purchase their uniforms through CYSC’s outfitter. Aside from these payments, all finances are team specific.
Each trainer operates on their own payment schedule. Any concern with trainer rates should be brought to the CYSC board.
Finances should be transparent to parents. TM may decide to share a working spreadsheet with families or just list the individual categories that the finances fall into.
TEAM FINANCES will generally include: (1) Trainer fees for practices and games; (2) Tournaments (registration and trainer fees); and (3) Equipment/Misc. (examples: team bench, tent, TeamSnap cost, etc.).
Additional finances that are specific to player participation include winter activity, such as participation in a winter league.

Additional Notes on Finances:

It is customary to collect dues early in the Fall season. Many teams collect for Fall and Winter at the start and then again in early spring.
Financial aid is available by contacting the CYSC board treasurer through the Financial Aid link under "Parent's Corner".
It is more efficient to err on the side of overestimating dues, as it is easier to return excess funds than have to continually collect.

Games and Practices

CYSC will reach out to the managers to determine the practice schedule. TM can survey their teams to find out the best days/times that work for players. CYSC as a whole will try and avoid any religious school conflict but cannot work around all individual player activities.
TM is responsible for CYSC medical releases and Armonk Indoor waivers. These are to be sent to teams in advance for collection. It is the responsibility of the TM to distribute a set of the medical releases to the trainer and parent coaches to make sure they and the TM have the medical releases available when the team is together.
TM and/or parent coaches are responsible for printing up the game day match card for their team each week. If the TM is not doing this they should confirm that the parent coach will be handling this weekly task.
TM or parent coaches are responsible for submitting game scores to the WYSL by Sunday night for any home games (and for away games if the home team fails to enter the score. Instructions for score entry are on the match card.

Team Gatherings
Many teams have end of season gatherings. It is not a requirement but helps build team morale. A family on the team may offer to host a gathering or something simple like an ice cream outing can be planned. Any extra dues can go towards this type of event or parents can chip in if there are no available dues. In the past some managers have used extra dues for a party, team keepsake, etc.

1) Get TeamSnap or a similar app up and running for the new season. If you’re a new U9-U18 manager taking over, the prior manager can transfer TeamSnap ownership to you so that you don't have to start from scratch. For all existing teams continuing on TeamSnap, you would go to Account—My Teams —Start a New Season to archive the prior season while keeping the roster and field information intact for the new season. Update your roster in TeamSnap by inviting players who are new to the team, and check that parents have included cell numbers in their Team Snap contact information -- this allows notifications to reach them more quickly via text alert and will practice chaperones an immediate point of contact.

2) Fall Scheduling: Poll your team about fall conflicts according to Stacey's instructions to help her prepare the practice season schedule. Once that schedule comes out, you will add the practice schedule into TeamSnap. Game schedules won’t come out until late August - when they do, you can add the schedule to TeamSnap - please include field info/address for each game, so that parents and coaches can easily click through to pull up directions on their phones.

3) Labor Day Tournament Registration: If you are thinking about having your team participate in a Labor Day tournament, you should speak with your trainer to make sure he/she is available and start polling your team for attendance. Some teams like the experience of an early tournament to kick off the season, while others like to wait for Columbus Day until they have a little more experience together as a team.

4) Budget and collection of team dues: By early-mid August, set your budget. First, connect with your trainer to confirm their rates for practices, games and tournaments. Estimate the number of practices. In fall we typically start the first week of school and finish the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving; in spring we typically aim to start last week of March and go through the week preceding Father’s Day, with no practice over spring break week. Estimate 10 games in fall and 10 in spring. You can also estimate 2 tournaments per year and collect enough from every player to cover the registration and trainer fees for those tournaments. It is less cumbersome than trying to collect separately for tournaments later on. By late August/start of school year, collect team dues -- ideally collect more than 50% of the budgeted annual team dues up front.

5) Chaperone Assignments - this will be needed for all practices (90 minutes) plus the preseason camp (2 chaperone blocks per day of 90 minutes each). You can do this via a signup or alternatively, assign the chaperones and let parents trade dates if you want to ensure that everyone is participating as a chaperone. You should add the chaperone schedule to TeamSnap (as “Assignments”) so that when TeamSnap generates automatic reminders about upcoming practices/events, it will include a note as to who the chaperone is.

6) Forms: By pre-season camp, collect the medical release form. It's available on our website under Parents’ Corner. The coaches and managers are supposed to keep copies on hand all year.

7) Check your roster info for the season: Prior to your first game or tournament, you will need to log onto Got Sport as manager and make sure each of your players has an appropriate photo (face on, shoulders and up like a passport) and their jersey numbers are listed so that they properly print out each week on your match cards, which must have the players' jersey numbers listed.

All of the directions below are based on the web version of Team Snap, not the app.

I. TRANSITIONING THE SAME TEAM FROM ONE MANAGER TO ANOTHER

Outgoing Manager:

Add the new manager to your roster as a Manager (non-player); otherwise you can only transfer ownership to the child, not the adult. Make sure you have their correct email.
Go to Account (top right corner). In the drop down, select Manage My Teams. About the fifth item down should say Transfer Team Ownership. That will take you to a dropdown where you can select the new manager. That person will then accept it to complete the ownership transfer.
If you have any players on your team who are moving to another CYSC team in the age group, it's helpful to send that other team's manager the parent emails so they can be easily invited to their new team's TeamSnap.

Incoming Manager:

Once you’ve accepted the ownership, update the payment method. Go to Account (top right corner). In the drop down, select My Account, then go to Billing & Plans. Change the credit card to your own. Please note the Basic Plan now costs $79.99 annually. That is the plan you will want to be able to track attendance, assign chaperones, etc.
Start a New Season so that the old data gets archived and you’re starting fresh without having to input an entirely new roster. Previously used field addresses or opponent names will also be saved this way. Go to Account (top right corner) and in the drop down select Manage My Teams. The 4th item should say Start a New Season - click that and follow any prompts. If you need to rename your team (it was called the BU10 Jaguars and now you want it to be the BU11 Jaguars, you go to My Teams (top right corner), select your team from the drop down, then click the Preferences icon. In the first tab (called Team Settings), you can edit the name.
Adding/deleting players who may be changing in your team for 2023-24. Can be done from the Roster function. Please make sure your coach and parent coach are also listed on the roster as non-players. And make sure everyone includes cell phone numbers in their TeamSnap profiles. Not only is the group chat feature very useful and is only mobile-based, but also cell phones are needed so that a parent chaperone can quickly reach a parent in case of injury or emergency.

II. SAME MANAGER, JUST ENTERING A NEW SEASON WITH THE TEAM

Follow the steps 2 & 3 above under Incoming Manager.
If you have a player on your team who has moved to another CYSC team in the age group, please send that other team's manager the parent emails for that player so that they can be invited to their new team's TeamSnap.

III. YOUR CURRENT TEAM WILL NO LONGER EXIST

Download the roster (available from the web version of TeamSnap) so that you can share player contact info with the manager(s) of the CYSC team(s) to which your players are going.
Go to Account (top right corner), Manage My Teams. If you scroll down, the bottom choice should be "Retire this team" and you will no longer be billed. Paid features get disabled, but archived data is still available.

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