Welcome to the Chesapeake Region Scorekeeping Family.  Did you know that we have 95 Provisional, 358 Regional, 8 National, and 4 International Scorekeepers in this Region?  Check the list in the Digs or on the Officials Website at http://www.vball-life.org/officials/index.cfm to see if your name is there.  If you think you should be, and you are not, notify me as soon as possible at scorekeeper.chair@chrva.org.  If your name has a 2003 beside it, look for information in September 2003 on how to maintain your certification.  It is much easier to maintain than to redo.  If you are not a currently certified scorekeeper, and you keep score at a sanctioned tournament, you run the risk of being penalized.

     The Chesapeake Region Candidate for National Scorekeeper this year is Lynette Muller.  Lynette has been busy keeping score, rating at fellowships, and reviewing scoresheets in preparation for her trip to the National Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May.  Good luck Lynette.

     In October and November, the Region held four clinics and six fellowships to process new officials.  During December and January, there were seven more “junior only” certification clinics with a combined attendance of 1200 people.

     If you attended a junior scorekeeping clinic, you must keep score, at a junior tournament only, at least twice to complete your certification.  If you did not attend a clinic this season, remember you are not certified to keep score.

     It would not be possible to run all these events without the help of many volunteers (a little arm twisting in some cases).  Just kidding!  I would not have survived without you.  So a BIG THANKS! from the bottom of my heart to these folks—Diane Abood, Kelli Auletta, Jan Bowser, Phyllis Coleman, Karen Daukantas-Jones, Corny Galdones, Shari Jennings, Scotty Knott, Larry Liden, Kevin Ludlum, Sherri Morgan, Lynette Muller, Debbie Reed, Amy Ritter, Scott Shipley, Tim Stubbs, Tom Sullivan, and Diane Zabetakis—for teaching, grading, rating, and reviewing.  Also, a special thanks to those who stepped up as raters during the fellowship season—Diane Abood, Julie Briggs, Bruce Burris, Chris Cant, Les Deason, Nellie Freeman, Cindy Hollies, Scott Master, Mike Matthews, Jeff Mazerski, Maura McKinley, Jill Pflug, Tina Rider, Judy Rogers, Gwen Sanford, Kevin Sippel, Amy Unger, and Lisa Yee.  When you are ready to join this fantastic crew of people, call me, email me, write me, or corner me when you see me, and I will be glad to utilize your services as soon as I can.

     Are you ready to volunteer to show off your scorekeeping expertise?  If you are, I am interested in hearing from you.  I would love to have every scorekeeper volunteer to keep score at a Regional Championship that they are not playing in.  This is your opportunity to show how interested you might be in moving to the next level or how much you just enjoy scorekeeping.  It might also give you a chance to see a level of play different from the level you play.   I highly recommend it.

     The scoresheets are being reviewed, and these are a few things that have come to my attention.

• Circle the final score in the service round box for both teams.  Circles in the running score column mean a point scored due to a penalty.  This rarely happens, especially on the final point.
• If the 25th point is earned on a side out, record 25 in the next possible server’s service round box without the little check mark on the teeny number.
• Hourglasses are in pen.  Each column with unused points gets its own hourglass.
• Start and end times are in pen.  Make sure to record.
• When recording the score at the time of substitution, record multiple substitutions down the column first and then use the second column when you get to the 5th sub in a position.
• At the end of the match, pay attention to detail, check, check, and recheck, to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.

     Enjoy the remainder of the season and keep up the good scorekeeping.