Members of ISC,

As the Fall season draws to a close I would like thank all of the coaches and parents for the vast amount of volunteer hours expended to support the programs in the Club.  We have 300+ coaches, assistant coaches and managers, who combined, put in well over 20,000 hours volunteering every year .  Without your dedication we would not be able to support the players in the Club.  Thank you very much, you are the heart and soul of the Club.

On November 15^th, we had our 2011 Annual General Membership meeting.  At the meeting we reviewed this year’s accomplishments; introduced upcoming player development programs; announced our Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) franchise and upcoming season; discussed the Club’s financial position; edited a few bylaws and elected new Board members.  I would like to thank the Board for their service over the past year and welcome two new members; Justin Lee and Mauricio Uribe.  The Board’s PowerPoint presentation from the meeting is posted on our website for you to review.

For those of you who may not have heard, ISC will be hosting a new WPSL franchise for the upcoming 2012 season which runs from May to August.  We are very excited to be able to bring this opportunity to the Issaquah community.  The Issaquah WPSL team will be the only team playing in this league from Western Washington.  For more information about the program, please see the news article posted on our web site.

The Club supports nearly 2600 players in this community.  It is one of the largest, if not the largest, soccer club in the State of Washington.  We provide programs for players of ages 5 to 18 at all levels of play.  We participate in eight different recreational, select and premier leagues both statewide and regionally, with nearly 200 recreational teams and close to 50 Arsenal and Gunners teams.  We will continue to work towards opening up as many playing opportunities that we can both locally and regionally.  With the new WPSL team, we will be adding a new dimension to the club by participating in a women’s national league.

Did you know that ISC has, unequivocally, the best staff of any club in the State of Washington?  Well, I may be biased, but they are a special group of people who run the day to day activities of the Club.  This year we welcomed Leigh, Kelly, Shelley and Chelsea to the staff.  I would like to thank all of them for their hard work and dedication in serving the members of this organization.

For the past three years, the Board of Directors has been actively working to execute a long term development plan for the Club.  In the coming months we will be sending out a newsletter to discuss the structure of the Club; the continued execution and expansion of our coaching and player development philosophy; improvements to the Lake Sammamish complex; and development of the Club’s program offerings.

Issaquah is one of the few clubs that have access to its own soccer complex.  We are the caretakers of the nine soccer fields located in Lake Sammamish State Park.  The Club is the only organization with this type of an arrangement with Washington State Parks.  This year, the fields have been in the best shape that I can recall over the last 13 years as a member of the Board.  Thank you to Moe, Mikey and Randy who take care of the fields for us throughout the year