10/12/07 Update

Been a busy week for Polo this week. Had meetings with 2 principals and the district this week. On Tuesday we had a meeting with Bob Messina of Canyon to discuss our proposal. I think we cleared up some issues relative to travel and the program and helped him get more comfortable with the program. This is good because he had not supported the proposal to this point.

Also met with Rob Gapper at the district office on Tuesday. It was a good meeting. The district thinking is beginning to evolve on the program. I think they are now leaning towards taking the coach stipends under their responsibility as they do with all other sports. I think this approach makes sense and prevents the temptation of parents calling for the removal of a coach if they don't have a winning record. I was also able to provide Mr Gapper with a comparison of the proposal we made vs. the actual numbers from Royal High in Simi. Royal has a very successful program that is self funded so they would make a great program to model from. Interestingly our proposal compared very favorably with the Royal program. Some Numbers were a little higher,or lower, but when you sum them up it was very even.

On Wed the principals got together for their bi-weekly meeting with the district where the topic of Polo was discussed. Gapper presented our findings from Royal and I think helped to calm some of the concerns about our proposal being a Bare Bones program since we had Real Numbers from another program to compare it to. We owe a big thanks to the Royal program for their assistance.

Also met with the Hart principal today and from that conversation it sounds like the principals have come to the conclusion that they can support the program if they can get some protection on unexpected costs related to transport. In a follow up call with Gapper I know the district is working on this. Our original proposal had money in for transport in the Spirit Packs so that may also be an avenue if the district can't find the extra money for the transport as the principals have requested.

I would say that I am very optimistic as we have a supporter at the district who has continued to represent the program to the principals and I think the principals have finally come to the realization that it is not really as complicated as once thought.

Will be following up with the district in the coming week. I would like to push for a favorable outcome at the next bi-weekly meeting on transportation and we can probably call this thing done. Thanks for all your support at the schools I am sure the principals have taken this into consideration as they have weighed the merits of the program.

See you at the pool

Jeff