Be a Hero to your Child ... Volunteer!

We know that many people don't feel comfortable with coaching or reffing, but would be happy to help in other ways. We don't always do a good job of asking people for help outside of these two areas. So, here is a list of things that our region could use. When our Region moved to the Rifle Range location, it was set up for 500 players. We now serve over 1600. In order to grow and be able to provide the type of playing experience we want everyone to have, then our region will need to have a vision of the future.

If you are going to volunteer to be a coach, ref, team mom or dad, or anything else that will have you working around the kids we need to get a volunteer application. You can do this through eAYSO.

We need:

LAND! The 150 acres that surrounds our facilities are going to be part of the largest park in Knox County. We do not practice at the soccer fields in order to provide a nice place to play games. We need more land so that we can have practice fields and more land to create more playing fields. With 150 acres surrounding our existing location we could become the premiere soccer complex in Knoxville ... if not the state.

Parking. We have added a police officer to help with parking in the overflow area, and it has been a huge success. However, as we continue to grow, we will need to expand to provide more parking. If you have access to gravel, paving equipment, or other things that would allow us to increase our parking areas that would be a huge benefit to our facility.

Field maintenance. Since we only have 6 fields, and they are in use non-stop for 7 hours on Saturday, we try and let the grass grow during the week. We have to purchase fertilizer, sod, as well as pay for weekly mowing. If you have access to fertilizer ... or want to help spread it or do other lawn maintenance that would be great.

Field lining. Each week 4 or 5 people (usually the same few) line and mark the fields. This is time consuming work if we have only 1 or 2 people. If we can get a rotating group of people to help line the fields, that would take a chore that takes several hours and break it into a 1 hour job once a week. It isn't hard, and it is good exercise. If you can help, contact Chris Mott .

Fundraising. We try and use Soccerfest in the Spring as a fundraiser, and we have done well in the past. It is difficult to get coaches to be responsible for players selling things, etc. We also feel that the coaches do enough, and adding one more thing on them isn't fair. So any ideas on painless fund raising or leadership in that area would always be welcome.

Be proactive. Most of the board members spend a considerable amount of time planning, recruiting, and doing the day to day activities that are required to make our region work. We welcome your ideas and opinions, but the main way to make a difference is to get out there and lead the way. The board will do our best to support anyone who wants to help make Region 337 a better place to have fun!

If you want to be a volunteer e-mail George Burgess, Regional Commissioner