CHANGES TO SRH FOR 2024-2025

I hope everyone has had a great start to their summer! I wanted to let you all know about 3 changes to SRH beginning with ’24-’25 Opening Night on Sunday, September 15^th. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns, but please understand that these changes are going to happen. I will do my best to help you, especially if you aren’t familiar with how to use Venmo. I know this is long, but please read it so you aren't lost later. I'd rather not explain this individually to each person later on.

CHANGE #1: We are going to strictly Venmo payments. I know that some of you will not find this to be a problem at all. Others may not be all that excited about it, but I assure you that it’s incredibly simple. This will be very helpful to me each week as I will not have to handle, count and sort through everyone’s cash as they come in. If someone forgets to pay, I can easily look through my Venmo account to see who it was and then request the money from them. I can send the money to Midwest Sport Hockey and the referee at the end of the night and be done with it. Also, you will no longer need to stop at an ATM or get cash from your debit card anymore. Be sure to put your name and SRH in the comments so I can easily see what the money is for. Please, no silly messages in the notes. I need to easily be able to tell exactly what each payment is for. If you don’t have a Venmo account, it’s very easy to get one. Here’s how you do it…

-Download the Venmo app for iOS or Android
-Open the app and select Sign up
-Choose the option to set up a personal account
-Enter your email address, phone number, and create a password
-Verify your phone number and email address
-Link a payment method, such as a U.S. bank account, debit card, prepaid debit card, or credit card by doing the following:

-Tap the Me tab
-Select the Wallet section
-Choose Add a bank or card
-Pick Bank or Card

DO NOT SEND ME YOUR $10 UNTIL THE DAY OF SRH! DO NOT PAY IN ADVANCE FOR FUTURE WEEKS! IF YOU CANCEL ON SUNDAY, I WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY SEND YOUR MONEY BACK TO YOU. YOU WILL NEED TO SPECIFICALLY ASK ME FOR IT!

If you absolutely cannot stand the idea of getting a Venmo account, then you can give your $10 in cash to another person and they can pay for you. That person needs to make sure to put in the notes that they are paying for both of you. I absolutely will not take cash from you. I’m not going to have separate cash people and Venmo people.

My Venmo Username: @jasonmillersrh
Last 4 Digits of My Phone #: 1177

CHANGE #2: We are going to adopt a new Sunday cancelation policy. One thing that will not change is that this applies no matter what the reason for the cancelation happens to be. I know that can be harsh because family emergencies can happen, but I don’t want to be put into a position where I have to weigh one person’s emergency against another’s.

If you cancel on a Sunday, you will still drop one spot on the call list and lose whatever number of nights played are necessary to make that happen. Here is the big change: You will also drop to the bottom of the call list for the following week. Again, I know this may sound harsh, but keep in mind that it’s often a real pain in the ass when a cancelation happens on a Sunday. Often the rest of the people on the call list have already made plans for the evening and no longer want to play.

CHANGE #3: There will be a slight change to the workings of the call list for goalies. As many of you may already know, it is sometimes very hard for us to find goalies for SRH. I believe that sometimes this is a result of the fact that the goalies outside of the top 2 spots normally assume they have no chance to make the cut and therefore do not reply to the weekly text and make Sunday evening plans even in advance of the Thursday deadline. Here’s what we will do to at least give those goalies a fighting chance to make the cut...

We will treat the goalies like the last skater spot on the call list. It’ll be a weighted lottery. Each goalie will have their name thrown into the virtual hat equal to the number of nights played they have on the call list plus 1. For example, Scott Kincaid has 350 nights played. His name will be in the virtual hat 351 times. Obviously, Scott Kincaid and Dave Lipscomb have many more nights played than the other goalies. They will likely win the lottery when they want to play, but it’s no longer an absolute certainty. This will allow the other goalies to get some games here and there and still feel like they’re a part of SRH.

Once again, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns, but please understand that these changes are going to happen. I will do my best to help you, especially if you aren’t familiar with how to use Venmo. That said, please don’t wait until Opening Night to get your Venmo account set up!

Jason Miller