Dear Parents

I'd like to welcome you all to the upcoming 2012 season of AYSO soccer in Newbury Park. If you are the parent of a returning player welcome back! If this is your first year welcome to what is considered to be the best youth soccer program in the USA.

In Newbury Park we run a program for over 1700 kids with around 200 teams! The reason that we have such a successful program is that we get support each year from hundreds of volunteers -- like you.

Our organization is 100% driven locally by a group of dedicated volunteers that form the Region 42 Board. We in turn are helped out in each division by volunteer coaches, assistant coaches, team parents, referees and many other functions.

Your coach has volunteered to coach the team and is now looking for help. All AYSO teams need to have a trained coach and assistant coach. An AYSO trained coach must be at all practices and games. If the team does not have an assistant coach and the main coach is unavailable for any reason then there can be no practices and the team cannot play games on Saturdays.

The team parent role in AYSO helps the coach with team co-ordination. It is not a difficult task. They are the coach's administrative assistant, cheerleader and traffic director all in one. These are things you will already be doing if your child is on the team, so take it one more step and help the entire team operate more smoothly! Every coach needs help arranging snacks and water for games.

For our U7 and U8 divisions we ask that one parent from each team be trained as a U8 official. It is national AYSO policy that all AYSO games have a certified referee. We encourage our youth referees to support the U7/8 divisions however we cannot guarantee that youth referees will be available for every game. When this happens we ask the parent trained as a U8 official to referee the game. If there are no youth referees or a trained parent U8 official then the game cannot take place.

At U10 and above we aim to provide a team of 3 certified referees (1 referee and 2 assistant referees). Again we look to parents to volunteer for these roles and we provide the training. Adult referees for U10, 12 and 14 games earn referee points that are included in team standings and can determine if a team makes it to post season league playoffs.

Our organization depends on the involvement of the parents of our players. Please consider becoming a volunteer for your team. You're making a difference for a whole team - a team that includes your child. It's a great way to make your child's team a family experience!

Thanks & Best Regards

Chris Davis
Regional Commissioner
AYSO Region 42, Newbury Park