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May, 2020

Season Status Update

SEASON UPDATE

Last night, the Great Falls Little League Board of Directors met to discuss the status of the Spring 2020 season.  It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that we made the difficult decision to cancel the season.  While our region has showed progress in slowing the spread of COVID-19, we believe our efforts are best served planning and executing a safe and fun Fall 2020 season while families work to navigate their individual expansion of social bubbles and everyday activities in the short term.

We want to thank all of the families that took time to provide input into our Return to Play survey.  There was a lot of enthusiasm about the idea of playing baseball and softball, but along with that enthusiasm, we learned that families have great concerns about what that Return to Play plan would look like.  Based on the guidelines set forth by the CDC and best practices defined by Little League International, we feel it is prudent for us to monitor the ongoing status of the pandemic and work to develop sound practices and protocols that will minimize the risk for our players, volunteers and families before reopening. 

We recognize that this is disappointing news for all of our families, but especially for those that have 12 year-old players who will age out of Little League this season.  For most Little League graduates who want to continue playing baseball, they will make the transition to the big field for their 13-year old year this Fall.  For those players that want to continue to play Little League, we will be offering the opportunity for our 12-year old graduates to play with us in the Fall 2020 season.  In addition, we are developing plans to celebrate all of the graduates and offer them one last run around the bases with pomp and circumstance in the August/September timeframe as we open up our Fall season, regardless of whether they play with us in the Fall.  We will do our best to honor these players who have lost out on their final Little League season.


REGISTRATION IMPACTS

 In terms of what the season cancelation means for everyone’s registrations, we are offering three options to families in the  Coach Pitch, AA, AAA and Majors divisions.  The options are as follows:

1. Make a tax-deductible donation to the league in the amount of the 2020 Spring fees. 

2. Receive a credit in your GFLL account for the Spring 2020 registration fee, less a $25 processing fee*. This credit will appear in your GFLL account online and will available for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 seasons, after which it will expire.

3. Receive a refund to the credit card used in the registration process, less a $50 administrative fee.

 *Please note that the league has already incurred expenses such as credit card processing fees, field maintenance, Little League fees, insurance, etc. which are not recoverable.  Please consider supporting us with a donation or credit on your account that can be used in future seasons. We have worked hard to manage costs since the start of the pandemic, but there will continue to be administrative costs that the league will need to absorb despite the season being canceled. We appreciate your support.

 For our Tee Ball families, many took advantage of our free registration opportunity this Spring and for those who missed the free sign-up, the cost to these families was a small fee of $25.  We will not be refunding Tee Ball registration fees as these fees need to be applied to the administrative costs already incurred for the Spring season.  No action is required on your part.  We hope you understand and will consider joining us in the Fall.

ACTION REQUIRED

We need for every player in Coach Pitch, AA, AAA and Majors to indicate your preference regarding registration fees by completing this ONLINE FORM as soon as possible and no later than June 10th. Please submit ONE form for EACH child registered for a Great Falls Little League division for Spring 2020. We expect to process all requests by mid-July.  

STATUS OF SUMMER CAMPS

 We also want to announce that there will be cancelations associated with the Langley Baseball and Langley Softball camps planned for this summer.  For BASEBALL, both sessions of the Langley camp are CANCELED (please see note from Coach Sronce here).  For SOFTBALL, the JUNE camp session is CANCELED.    

SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS

We want to take a moment and acknowledge our sponsors who have stuck with us as we navigate this difficult period.  We will be working with them to remain engaged for our Fall season.  In the meantime, our sponsors names scroll across the bottom of our website – please check them out and support them if you can (www.gflittleleague.org).


FINAL THOUGHTS

 As you can imagine, the decisions associated with all of our baseball and softball activities are not taken lightly.  Thanks to all of YOU for your support and patience as we have worked through all of the complex elements involved in the process.  Thank you for our VOLUNTEERS for your willingness to engage in our league this season.  You are essential to our ability to provide youth sports within our community and we value you tremendously.  And thank you to our BOARD MEMBERS who have been working behind the scenes to understand the landscape, assess the risks and make plans to get us into a position to resume play.  While the plans will not be put into action this summer, we will be ready to go in the Fall, if the conditions allow it.  We truly cannot wait to be back together again and get back to the game we all love.  Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and remember, we are all still safer at home.

With humble gratitude,

GFLL Board of Directors

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