What's New

• Police Checks Required
• Advanced Learn to Play
• Registering for Select Tournaments
• 2008 Summer Softball Day Camp

Police Checks

As part of our effort to ensure the safety of our members, your children, in all areas, the WGSA will again this year require a Police Check for all people who are involved with the children on a regular basis (the WGSA Executive, coaches, assistant coaches and regular team helpers). If you plan on participating this year, please ensure that you have a police check completed before you begin. (Why not do so now and avoid delays later on?) Since WGSA requires Police Checks annually, we will accept any Police Check dated at September of the previous year (in this case September 2007) as it would cover the whole 2008 softball season.

Please be advised that WGSA will not be able to provide reimbursement for the nominal fee that the police department charges for this check.

Thank you for helping us address the safety of all of our children.

Would You Like to Register for Our Whitby Select Tournaments?

Once again WGSA Lightning is proud to host our Select peers in our annual tournaments:

If you would like your association to join us, the following forms will be of interest:

• Tournament Registration Form
• 2008 Tournament Rules
• Team Roster Form

What Is Advanced Learn to Play?

Building upon our success with our Learn to Play division, we are creating a new division this year, dubbed Advanced Learn to Play.

In Learn to Play the girls learn the skills of softball through fast-paced, fun centres. Advanced Learn to Play will follow this same design, but will introduce more advanced softball skills such as back-catching, pitching and ball sense (knowing where to throw the ball).

Click here to read a flier outlining this in more detail.

Congratulations Learn to Play

Last year the WGSA decided to revamp our youngest division to make it more appropriate to the attention span and capabilities of this age group and to make it more fun. As part of our research we investigated a program called Learn to Play developed by Softball Canada. Since it was precisely what we had in mind we adapted this program for our own use.

Softball Canada then had a contest for all organizations who used their program to find out who adapted it in the most interesting and innovating ways. We are thrilled to announce that WE WON!

We are very pleased and proud that our efforts have been recognized in this manner. Our greatest pride, however, comes from watching the girls have fun and improve their skills in our new Learn to Play division.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, WGSA Members

Announcing the WGSA’s Picture Day and 9th Annual Skills Competition taking place at Iroquois Park sports complex on Saturday May 24th, 2008.

The purpose of this fun-filled day is twofold: first, to get together for your TEAM picture; second a chance to join your whole team in the skills competition (hitting, running, throwing) and compete for individual and team prizes as well as special draws! Maybe we can even get your coaches to compete in the running drills!!

After you have worked up an appetite competing, your team will enjoy a free pizza lunch. This fun day is open to the Learn to Play, Advanced Learn to Play, Senior Mite and Squirt divisions. The Novice division will participate in the team pictures only.

The skills competition commences right after the pictures. Your coaches will be handing our information sheets at the start of the season so please mark May 24th on your calendar. If you can only join us for pictures that’s fine too. We don’t want anyone to miss having their picture taken with their team. Team and individual pictures only take about 10 minutes. Coaches will be distributing the schedules during next week’s start of our 2008 season.

As with everything we do, we are in need of volunteers to help out at this event. If any parents are available, we would love to have you. If any older-division players are available, this would qualify for your community hours. Please contact our Vice-President, Paul Tobin.

2008 Summer Softball Day Camp

Once again, the WGSA, with the Academy Baseball School, is pleased to offer a Summer Softball Camp opportunity to our registered players (Learn to Play through Novice divisions). The camp will be run out of Iroquois Sports Complex during the weeks of July 7-11 and July 14-18.

The regular camp fee is $160 per week, but the WGSA will fund $60 of this amount, so the net cost to registered players is only $100!

Each weekly program includes:

Sign up for either or both weeks, but register early as space is limited. For more details contact WGSA President, Stacy Novack. To view the Summer Softball Camp registration form (in Adobe Acrobat, PDF, format), click here. Mailing information is on the form. Click here to visit the Academy Baseball School website.