Thinking about buying or selling your house? Here’s a chance to help the Carlisle Soccer Club and it won’t cost you a dime.

Carlisle soccer parents Deric and Kathy Kidd have teamed up to offer a fantastic deal for home buyers and sellers..and the Carlisle Soccer Club. When you buy or sell your home with Kathy, a Realtor with REMAX Opportunities in Ankeny, she will donate 25% of the net Realtor professional fees to the Club in your name. When you finance (or refinance) with Deric, a senior loan officer with Academy Mortgage in Urbandale, He will donate up to $400 of the banker’s fees.

Buying a $180,000 home, for example, would mean a donation of approximately $1,400 to $1,600 to the Club with no cost to you! If Kathy sells your home and helps you buy one, the donation could be more than $2,500!  

This offers applies when you buy a home, sell a home, or refinance. There is no increase in fees to cover these contributions. This offer applies to anywhere in the Des Moines metro and surrounding communities, so tell your family, friends and co-workers. It’s just the Kidd’s way of giving back to the community.

For more information contact:

Kathy Kidd, Realtor
REMAX Opportunities
515-689-5478
kathykiddrealtor@gmail.com
www.UandYourHome.com

Deric Kidd
Academy Mortgage
515-979-9564
deric.kidd@academymortgage.com

JK Photography is happy to be providing your soccer pictures again this season. Pictures will be taken at the Carlisle Soccer Complex this Saturday, September 24th.

Here is the schedule (PDF download) and the order form (PDF download). If you have any questions prior to picture day, please give us a call at 710-6726.

Because we’ve had difficulty staffing the concession stand, the Board of Directors approved a new Volunteer Policy which will go into effect with the spring 2011 season. The key element is a $50 fine if you don’t show up for your concession stand duty.

"Part of making the game day experience a good one is offering a concession stand," says Mark True, president. "We’ve done a lot to improve our concession stand…adding hot chocolate, hot dogs, pop corn and cold beverages for families on the run on a busy Sunday afternoon. And it’s a good revenue source to supplement our registration fees.

"But we can’t make that money or provide that service if volunteers don’t show up, so we’re going to have to implement this penalty to ensure that volunteers who sign up for concession stand duty actually show up."

Read the new policy on the policies/forms page.

The board understands that things come up and a person may not be able to fulfill their duty. That’s why they are allowed to find a replacement. And there are other opportunities to volunteer. 

If you like to be outdoors, we have grounds work that needs to be done…at work days or throughout the year. If working on the computer is your thing, you can help with registration or serve on the fundraising committee, helping identify sources of grant monies. And if you like working with people, we can always use you to help recruit additional volunteers.

To let us know how you’d like to serve, contact the volunteer coordinator, Bridgett Davis at 989-6000.

Fall weather is coming, so that means it’s time to get your Carlisle Soccer Fan Gear. Hats, caps, shirts, warm ups and other great logo gear are available from Iowa-based Van Ginkle’s sporting goods.

Download the Carlisle gear order form, fill it out and turn it in with your check (made out to VanGinkles’ Sporting Goods) to the concession stand by September 26th. You can pick up your order at the concession stand two weeks later!

If you have questions, contact Mark True or Lisa Wilson.

Every season, the Carlisle Soccer Club struggles as we set up teams for the new season because we don’t have enough coaches. And registration for the fall season is now open!

Have you ever thought about coaching? If so, now’s the time to give it a shot.

We provide a variety of informal and formal club-level training and actively support our coaches’ participation at state-level training to create the best atmosphere for becoming a better soccer player. Specifically, the Carlisle Soccer Club rewards coaches for completing a youth module administered by the Iowa Soccer Association (ISA), and we provide partial reimbursement for E- and D-level certification from ISA.Coaching modules and E license courses are a great way to learn from experienced coaches. You’ll learn what motives and drives youth soccer players, how to teach them the critical fundamental techniques of the game and how to play with purpose and strategy.

And you’ll help your Club get stronger.

Some of our coaches have been coaching for several years and others are just getting started. Some have played the game before, but others have never touched a soccer ball. Most have had success coaching, no matter their skill. What’s important is their motivation! 

If you’d like to learn more about coaching, talk to Ken Sadler, director of coaching at 321-6221. He’ll make sure we find a place for you this fall season.

Just in case you haven’t seen the latest order form, here it is for download! Complete the form, attach your check made out to Van Ginkel’s and turn it in this Sunday at the concession stand if you want to get it as a part of the next club-wide printing. If you’re not ready, but still want to grab some great gear, complete the form and mail it in to Van Ginkel’s directly.

if you’re a Twitter user, follow @CarlisleSoccer for news and announcements about soccer in Carlisle, Iowa!

If every Carlisle Soccer Club parent (coaches, refs, fans included) read and followed these 10 tips, we’d have the best soccer club in the state, no doubt. It comes to us from US Youth Soccer Positive Parenting Program)

Top Ten Things Coaches Wish Parents Would Do
By Mike Baptiste

1. Try to get the players to practice on time, fully equipped, and ready to go. While we understand some kids have back to back activities and account for that, there’s no reason for a player without a previous activity to arrive at the field the minute practice starts. Players should arrive 5-10 minutes early, ready to play, with cleats/shin guards on, with a properly inflated ball and a water bottle.

2. Let us know in advance if your child won’t be able to make practice or a match. Based on the number of players who can’t make a given event, it can affect how we plan to run things. You don’t need to ask permission - just let us know a couple days in advance if you can.

3. Pay attention at practices. If you have a child that can be a challenge - stick around at practice at least once a week and watch. If your child starts to become a distraction to the team during practice, ask the coach if they want you to step in and take care of it. Some may, some may not. But don’t just drop your child off and run away, knowing they may be disruptive. It’s not fair to the
rest of the team. And don’t ignore the obvious because it’s your child. We coaches want EVERY child to have a chance to play and enjoy the game, but disruptive children sometimes become too much for a coach to handle and a parent really needs to step in and handle things.

4. Refrain from coaching from the sidelines. I say this as someone who is as guilty as any. Being a coach AND a parent, it can often be impossible to keep my mouth shut. But coaches want the players to focus on the game and any instruction they may shout out from the team touchline. So stick to cheering and encouragement. If you find the urge to coach overbearing - ask the coach if
they need an assistant!

5. Put your folding chairs at LEAST 4 yards away from the touchline. Many fields do not include ‘parent boundary lines’, so often parents are so close to the touchline that players can’t even take a step to throw the ball in. Plus it’s a danger to players trying to make sliding saves or who collide/trip/lose control near the parents.

6. Respect our decisions as coaches and if you have a problem, approach us about it. Don’t bottle it up inside, let it stew, and share it among the rest of the parents. We’re not perfect, but perhaps given some additional explanation you might understand what we did. If not, at least you know why we did what we did.It also helps us to identify possible "blind spots" that we are not
aware of. So communicating with us is a win/win situation.

7. Try to have your paperwork, fees, and any other administrative stuff taken care of well in advance. Even teams with adept team managers can be affected by parents dragging their feet with paperwork, confirming availability, and fees. If you’re having financial trouble and need help, please ask for help! Yes, it can be awkward, but we have financial aid programs in place. We coaches just want the kids to play, have fun, and learn.

8. Don’t scream at your kids on or off the field if they make mistakes. That’s how they learn. Too many players are afraid of making mistakes at a young age on the field. A lot of this is because they don’t want to hear their parents screaming at them from the sideline. Making mistakes are an integral part of the learning process.

9. Volunteer to help your team or the club. ALL of you. We are always in need of more help. Often a small group of individuals donate tons of time ensuring the teams and club operates smoothly. So when they ask for help doing concessions, tournament help, paperwork, uniforms, field maintenance, etc., offer to help. Too many clubs rely on a core group of committed but overworked volunteers to run things because parents aren’t willing to donate an hour or two during the season. They aren’t asking you to commit to multiple hours every week for the entire season (though they’d love it if you could!). Many hands make for light work.

10. Have fun. Youth soccer should be fun for kids AND adults alike. By keeping a level head and a positive attitude, you can have about as much fun as your child does. So keep things in perspective and have fun!

A recent article from the US Soccer Federation’s website tackles an issue of utmost importance to our Club as a whole, and our coaches and parents, specifically: the desire to win. There is nothing wrong with wanting to win, but what does winning measure? Is beating a weaker opponent better than playing the best game ever and losing against a tougher opponent?

The approach our Club is taking is one of development. Are we teaching soccer and measuring if our are players learning?  If you ask yourself this question, even after a devasting loss, you’ll almost always find the answer to be "yes."

Some players will learn, or appear to learn, more quickly than others because of early maturity, advanced motor skills, quickness and coordination. Note, however, these advantages quickly disappear as kids age.  As coaches and as a Club, we can’t control that. What we CAN have control over is teaching skills specific to soccer, getting parents involved in playing soccer with their kids like they do with other sports, and adopting approaches that facilitate learning soccer, both for our kids and our adults (coaches and parents). If we don’t, we’ll soon see - as we have already - players from our Club dominate early on but quickly becom less skilled than players that choose to learn.

If we adopt coaching philosophies with an emphasis on developing players, not just winning, we’ll develop a competitive program for our soccer club.

Our club has adopted concepts that I think will set us apart from the typical rec soccer program in Iowa. By segmenting teams by single age years and by gender at all ages, for example, we are forming core teams that will play together from the beginning of their careers all the way through high school. It’s an advantage that top clubs promote and have had success with.

Another change we will be adopting come this spring is the academy approach in teaching soccer. Again, it is nothing new, but the way we will implement this will be unique. Paul Gruber, the Club’s director of coaching,  will share more about this in the months ahead as we start to form teams with registration soon opening for spring soccer.

By popular demand, Paul will hold another U6/U8 coach/parent training session prior to the spring season as well.

Stay tuned to this website to learn about other steps the Carlisle Soccer Club is taking to deliver a select-type experience at a recreational price. We’re serious about making soccer fun again!