The following press release was sent out to prospective Kansas Sports Official Association (KSOA) members via email on Friday, May 3, 2019.
TO: Prospective Official Members
FROM: Executive Board of Kansas Sports Officials Association (KSOA)
RE: Association Launch
Fellow officials, it is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the Kansas Sports Officials Association (KSOA) and invite you to our first member sign-up event. This is an idea that has been in the works for the past year. Many of you have provided valuable input in forming the KSOA. This is something that has been discussed at Call The Game sports meetings, “Dish with the Commish” sessions, and other input sessions over the last several months. We have talked with hundreds of officials, gathered your ideas and used them to develop the organization.
KSOA is really intended to help get officials better. We primarily see the member benefits as providing continuing education and training opportunities. We also see a strong need for opportunities to socializing, recruiting and mentoring. We believe we have some of the best officials in the State of Kansas in the seven sports we will represent, and that harnessing our collective wisdom within the structure of an officials led association will make us better.
Over the past 5 months members of the initial Executive Board have undertaken the work necessary to get the KSOA started. We have received approval as a 501c3 organization by the IRS, appointed a group of officers, opened a bank account, adopted by-laws, established a website, named the organization, developed a logo, prepared a budget, prepared a membership intake process, coordinated with KSHSAA, coordinated with assigners and have been developing a myriad of other steps to begin the organization. Much of this work can be found on the website at www.ksoasports.org.
We have coordinated closely with KSHSAA and Executive Director Bill Faflick offers his support in this statement, "The Kansas State High School Activities Association supports the concept of local official’s associations engaging with local school leagues and officials throughout the state of Kansas. LOA’s have demonstrated an added value to the recruitment, training, and assigning process for the interscholastic activity programs. We believe this new endeavor by the Kansas Sports Officials Association (KSOA) will fill a void in the Kansas City area."
We have also coordinated closely with John Dehan, the Director of Officials for the EKL, Sunflower League, KCAL and UKC and he has issued a strong statement of support, “I am completely in support of what the KSOA is trying to achieve and I encourage those who I assign to join the association.”
This is to provide you with the initial announcement of the launch. Our organizing documents have an official start date of July 1, 2019 for membership. However, we are prepared to welcome officials now. You can go to the website at www.ksoasports.org and join, you can e-mail membership@ksoasports.org and request a registration link be sent to you or you can attend an in-person registration event on May 19 and 20 at Coach’s Bar and Grill on 135th Street in Overland Park from 4-7 p.m. Come out register, meet the Board and socialize with other officials.
The dues for the organization will be $35 as one sport and an additional $10 per sport up to a maximum of $55. We have set up multiple methods of payment including utilizing RefPay and other means.
On behalf of the Board,
Jack Messer, President