In order to align with the high school program we are becoming the Robbinsville Ravens and moving to red and black uniforms.  ALL players need to be sized for the new uniforms.  Sizing will be this Sunday from 9 – 3 at the Senior Center.  One additional date will be announced.  Attending one of the sizing sessions is MANDATORY.  Thanks for your support as we take this important step.

Registration is officially closed for 2012 season and we have seen yet another   significant increase in our #’s this year. If you are interested in playing and have not yet signed up please send an email to robbinsvillelax@gmail.com with “LATE REGISTRATION” in the subject line and the following information in the body of the email.

- Player name: First and Last
- Gender
- Current Grade
- Town
- Primary contact #
- Primary email address
- Yrs of experience with lax
- Jersey size (YS-AXXL)
- Shorts size (YS-AXXL)

This will form our official wait list. We will contact you if a spot opens up on a team. We will maintain this wait list until March 11. The late registration fee is $300 which we will collect if you are contacted.

Spring registration closes 1/31/12.  We have reached wait list status for the 5/6 & 7/8 Boys teams.

RLA parents –  Happy New Year to you all and may 2012 bring you good health, happiness and success.

As promised I wanted to give you all an update on our registration for the 2012 season.   As indicated in my note to the league our #’s appear to be growing again which is great news.  Also great news is that a few parents have volunteered to be head coaches and a larger group has committed to assist each of our teams.

Unfortunately it is the head coaches that determine the # of players we can field per team.  While I am grateful for the support it still does not appear to be sufficient to accommodate what I project to be the total # of kids who are looking to play lacrosse in Robbinsville.  As of tonight we have close to 160 children registered and all teams still have a spot available based on confirmed head coaches.

As a comparison we had just shy of 100 children registered last year at this time.  On line registration has helped increase these #’s but there are still many who played last year that have yet to register. I believe we will quickly move to having to establish a waitlist for most teams in the very near future.  I have reviewed the current registration list and there are only 2 potential player who might not be eligible to participate in RLA based on the criteria defined in my last note.  I have also been in touch with most of the head coaches and they have reconfirmed their intent to coach this season.  

 Areas of need are at both girls and boys 5/6 and 7/8 head coaches.  This is still tentative as we might have some flexibility to move some of our head coaches to different age levels given they have multiple children in the program. This will be finalized in the next few weeks as we see where our numbers come out.  I would ask you all one more time to consider a head coach position.  For those who have agreed to be an assistant;  please reconsider being a head coach.

The last thing the RLA board wants to do is to turn away children who want to learn to play this wonderful sport and I promise is to do everything I can to accommodate your children but there is a very real chance we may have to limit registration for 2012.

 Summary

-Everyone who has registered to date (on-line and manual) as of 12/31 is on a team for the spring  (still need to validate 2 out of town registrations).

- Exceptions to get off waitlist ( if necessary) – Rville township residents (only)  who are willing to play goalie.

Regsitration levels for 2012 have been high.  In order to ensure that we can provide a positive experience for all players we have suspended registration until we can determine the number of teams we can support.  We expect to have this resovled by January 3rd. Any questions or issues email robbinsvillelax@gmail.com

RLA Parents,

It is hard for me to believe we are entering our 10^th year as a youth lacrosse program in this town.  2012 is a special year for RLA as the 3^rd grade boys and girls who ventured on to a lacrosse field for the first time back in 2002 are now seniors in high school with quite a few still playing lacrosse and a handful who plan to continue to play lacrosse in college.  Never did I expect to be involved in this program for as long as I have and never did I expect how much this experience has positively impacted my life and the lives of my family.

We are gearing up for our 2012 season.   There will be a # of important changes to our registration process, requirements and deadlines that you should take special note of to ensure you do not miss out of what will be a great 2012 season.

We have moved to on-line registration.   I hope this will facilitate the sign up process and ask that you all please use this method for 2012 registration and Sawmill winter clinic signups.  We will still allow you to come to the senior center in Robbinsville on December 3^rd & 4^th and January 7^th 8^thfrom 10am-3pm. This will be an opportunity for you to ask questions, purchase RLA apparel or lacrosse equipment from Play it Again Sports.   It will also allow for new uniform sizing.   We would like to eliminate our manual registration forms and will only accept manual forms in an exceptional case.  Fees will not change for 2012 and we will be hosting our 8^th annual Shootout on May 19th.  Fliers with the signups dates will be distributed in Sharon and Pond Road schools this week and this program letter will go out to all who played last year.

It is important to signup as early as possible to ensure your spot in this year’s program.  I was optimistic that we would have a few parents volunteer to coach this year but to date we have had no response and no new volunteers.  As a result our 2012 registration #’s may have to be capped/limited to the # of teams that we can field.  With the dramatic increase in # of players in our program last year I am concerned that we will be unable to accommodate everyone who wants to play lacrosse this year.  That would be a great shame and I sincerely hope it doesn’t occur but we cannot coach effectively with more than 25 players per team.  Registration will be on a first come / first serve basis and once we have received registrations (including payment) in excess of the maximum per team (25 at the moment) we will start a wait list in the hopes we get additional head coaches to expand the number of players we can accommodate.

It has been suggested that we start limiting our program to those who are only Robbinsville residents. The past and current success of our program has been in great part due to the significant involvement in both the board and head coaching positions from non-Robbinsville residents.  This makes this suggestion very difficult to pursue. In fact, of the six confirmed head coaches thus far (3 boys teams and 3 girls teams) only 2 are Robbinsville parents with children currently in the program.  These same stats carry over to our board membership as well as only 2 current board members are Robbinsville residents that have children currently in the program.

Never-the-less CJYLA rules do strongly encourage all players to play spring youth lacrosse in their hometown (assuming lacrosse is offered at their age level).  RLA will encourage new players from towns that now offer lacrosse to play for their hometown program.  We will continue to allow non-Robbinsville resident players to sign up as long as they meet ANY of the following conditions:

1. Played with RLA last year.
2. Sibling of current player(s) who played RLA last year and are signed up with RLA this year
3. Township of residence does not offer youth lacrosse for your age group
4. Parent is willing to volunteer to be a head coach.

If you do not meet ANY of the requirements above you will be put on a wait list that will allow you to play only if there is still room on a team at the end of the registration period.

Confirmed head coaches/teams = 1 team of 25 players each at 2/4, 5/6 and 7/8 for both boys and girls.  This equates to a maximum of 75 boys and 75 girls or 150 players in total.  As a reference we had 220 players last year and 8 teams.   We may increase the total per team to 30 but if we do we will have to use a squad approach again, which is not preferred.

A transition to predominately Robbinsville head coaches and board members from our program is needed to sustain this program going forward.  In the next year we will lose 2 head coaches and at least 1 more board member.   PLEASE CONSIDER BEING A COACH OR BOARD MEMBER.  I cannot stress the importance of this for the future of our program.  Any interest?  Please contact me at robbinsvillelax@gmail.com.

Coaches- We have agreed to potentially hire paid head coaches.   We have posted a job description on laxpower.com.  Other local programs also take this approach and while I would prefer to have only volunteer parents coach in our program it is still a priority to be able to offer lacrosse to the greatest # children who want to learn and play this great game.  So we are pursuing all areas of opportunity at the moment.   I will keep you posted if we are successful in getting anyone to apply.

Robbinsville Goalies- Have you never played goalie with RLA but are interested in learning?   Are planning to attend Robbinsville High?   If you answered yes to both questions then I am willing to offer you the following:

• Free registration /uniform
• Free goalie equipment and goalie stick
• Free goalie specific goalie Instruction (available to all RLA goalies regardless of the town you live in)

This is limited to 2 Robbinsville goalies per team.  To be eligible you must currently be a Robbinsville resident, plan to attend Robbinsville High School and have not played goalie for RLA previously (more than 3 games at the goalie position) and be willing to play goalie for at least ½ of each game.  You will still have the opportunity to play other positions as well.

Robbinsville High School lacrosse- There have been a number of very positive decisions that will allow RLA to more closely align with our high school lacrosse program.  With the last year addition of a new girls varsity coach Ms. Jan Pittas and the newly hired boys varsity coach, Mr. James Buchanan RLA will finally be able to start working with and learning from these high school coaches to develop a more consistent set of base strategies, techniques and coaching principals that will help to transition our players more effectively to high school lacrosse.

Important Dates

• On site – Dec 3^rd and 4^th and January 7^th and 8^th 10-3pm Senior Center (Around Back).
• Parent Meeting – February 19^th Senior Center time TBD
• Girls Winter Clinic start – January 8^th 5:30pm -9pm
• Boys Winter Clinics start – February 12^th 5:30 – 9pm
• Practice Starts – March 4^th.
• March 31^st – Games Start

While I realize the tone of my note may hint at some concern I am hopeful that some of our township parents will be willing to step up and try something that I am sure will be a positive experience.  I look forward to seeing all again this spring and on behalf of the RLA board wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season.

Michael Langford
President – Robbinsville Lacrosse Association

Registration is now officially open.  During the Registration proccess – when you hit the final “Submit”,  you will be taken to Pay Pal to pay for your registration.  If you do not complete the payment process you will not be officially registered.  Last year we “sold out” in that we did not have enough slots for the number of players who wanted to play — so please register early.  We are having “information sessions” in December & January – see Events page for details.

If you want to register your child for the Winter Clinics you will need to register them for the Spring Season.  This is necessary so that we know how many kids we have at each level. It also reserves a spot for your child in the event they want to play.  If they do not want to play — we will issue a refund for the Spring season fee.

Parents,

For those parents whose sons have tried out and already been selected for a summer  team – congratulations!  For those who are still looking for a  summer team, were waiting to find out about JET, unsure if they wanted to  play or looking for a great way to be introduced to summer lacrosse without  having to spend a boat load of money.  I have some important news for you.

For the past month Jerry Dohn (JET) and the new owner of NJLC  lacrosse Brian Wolchok have been discussing opportunities to connect these two programs.  I am happy to announce that Jerry and Brian have agreed to join forces under the NJLC name to provide both youth and high school summer lacrosse 0pportunities for lacrosse players in this area.

The strength of this combined organization comes from a shared vision to:

- provide an exceptional experience for your sons to  advance their lacrosse skills.

- play against quality competition in some of the  best run tournaments in the area.

- be coached by current and former college lacrosse  players who know the game and how to teach it.

-provide support to the parents and players who may  be interested in playing in college on what they need to do to prepare to be  recruited.

What was critically important to both Jerry and Brian was to try to make this experience affordable to as many families as possible.  The fees that will be charged compare favorably to most programs in the area.

High school

Current 8-11 graders.  Final tryouts for the summer season will be held Sunday, November 27th.

Youth Team

Current 3rd-7th graders – teams will be formed from grades  3rd to  7th grade.

Brian and Jerry are working on the details around the the youth  program and will communicate shortly.

website :  www.newjerseylacrosseclub.com

I  believe this provides another great option for our RLA and  RHS players and it is right in our backyard.

Questions? — Feel free to reach out to Brian Wolchok at NJLCLAX@GMAIL.COM,
Jerry Dohn at  Jerry at JERRY@JERSEYELITETRAINING.COM  or myself.

Thank you,

Michael

We had a great meeting … lots going on with new rules … scheduling … recruiting coaches and the like.  Our new online registration opens Thanksgiving weekend …