BCLL Corona Virus Update - 5/26
Dear Bear Creek Families:
Last Thursday Judge Lina Hidalgo extended the “Stay Home, Work Safe” order in Harris county through June 10. As you’re aware, our league is located in a Harris County Park and the extension of this order will keep Bear Creek Little League shut down for a while longer. After careful thought and much consideration, the BCLL Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to cancel the spring season. The same is true for most of the leagues in our district and throughout the state.
The safety and well-being of the BCLL community is our top priority and the board is already taking action to ensure proper safety measures are in place for the Fall season.
In alignment with our previous email, we will refund an amount equal to your registration less the $100 raffle ticket sales.
This refund can be distributed as follows:
- A tax-deductible donation to the league
- A rollover of your registration to the fall season
- A physical check to be mailed to your residence
- A VENMO deposit to your account (please provide VENMO user name).
Please email
to advise how you would like your refund distributed. If you would like to receive a physical check, please ensure you include your player’s name and home address. If you would like your refund VENMOed please ensure you include your Venmo username.
We have over 300 registered players, so the Board respectfully requests your patience as we work through the refund process. Additionally, if we do receive direction from you by June 14th, we will assume your refund choice to be a donation to the league.
The Raffle
As you know we were only 5 days away from Opening Day when the league was initially subject to field closure, resulting in the bulk of the league’s normal operating expenses such as uniforms, field maintenance, insurance, etc to have already been incurred. As well, the league continues to incur monthly operating expenses, specifically field maintenance, during the shutdown. To help mitigate the costs already incurred and the costs yet to come, the Board will move forward with the raffle drawing. Our league is fortunate to be able to raise much needed money through the raffle fundraiser, but also allow our families an opportunity to recoup all of their Spring registration fees by selling the raffle tickets prior to the drawing.
The raffle drawing will be held on June 13th via Facebook Live. Please make sure you “like” our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/bearcreekll/) to ensure you get to see the raffle drawing. If you have not already sold your raffle tickets, we encourage you to continue selling (once it is safe to do so) to recoup up to $100 of your registration costs. If you have not picked up your raffle tickets, please contact Alice Holzen at
.
- The top prize for the raffle was a cruise/travel voucher, this has been replaced with a $1,000 gift card.
- The second prize for the raffle was 4 Astros tickets and a parking pass on opening weekend, this has been replaced with a $700 gift card.
Your raffle tickets can be dropped off for the June 13th drawing on the following dates at the fields under the Pavilion.
June 8th 6:00 – 8:00
June 9th 6:00 – 8:00
June 10th 6:00 – 8:00
June 12th 3:00 – 5:00
June 13th 4:00 – 5:00
Fall Season
The below are the tentative dates for the fall season.
Registration opens July 1st
Teams Formed August 1st
Games begin September 1st
We look forward to seeing you all at the BCLL fields soon. Until then, please be healthy and safe, and let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
The BCLL Board of Directors
BCLL Corona Virus Update - 4/28
Dear Bear Creek family,
We hope you are all doing well, staying safe, and staying healthy. I know we are all ready to get back to the fields and resume our season, so I wanted to offer a quick update on where things stand currently, and our projected path forward.
The board has continued to monitor the impact of COVID-19 at a national, state, regional, and local level, and yesterday Governor Abbott announced additional details related to his plans to continue reopening the state, including how organized sports can work toward a safe re-opening. Phase I of his plan includes sports that have no more than 4 individuals, and they must continue the practice of social distancing. The examples Governor Abbott gave were golf and tennis. Anything that involves more than 4 individuals gathering in the same location will be considered in a future phase of reopening. Per his plan, the state will review progress in two-week intervals and if all is going well they will then reduce restrictions and advance to the next phase. At this time it will be a few more weeks before we can safely gather at the park for practices or games, but we hope things move in a positive direction, and the Board will continue to plan accordingly.
As many of you may know, this Spring season brought Bear Creek Little League the highest registration numbers in over a decade, which also means the highest number of teams in each of the divisions. But aside from higher numbers, we also have new lights and new fencing, we hosted a solid draft, and thanks to our awesome ground crew the fields look great. And for the first time in a long time, we had more coaches wanting to volunteer than we had teams. All of this demonstrated to the Board a high level of enthusiasm going into this season. Everything lined up for what was expected to be a fun, competitive, successful season, and as of today, we do not think anything has changed. As we talk to families and volunteers, the overwhelming feedback is everyone is ready to start playing and are all still looking forward to a great season. Although we had an unexpected break, we fully expect things will pick up where they left off once we are able to safely get back to the fields.
That said, I want to reiterate that the safety and well-being of our players, their families, the umpires, coaches, and all other volunteers are paramount. Safety has been (and will continue to be) the Board’s primary focus and what drives all decisions regarding play. We have not communicated much to date because we are in a holding pattern and still awaiting clarity as to when our environment will be safe enough to resume. As well, Little League International is in process of finalizing and distributing guidance to the leagues, which is expected to arrive in early May.
As we await additional guidance, I want to share with you what we know:
- With strong encouragement from Little League International, our intent is to still have a complete baseball season. This is now a summer season, rather than a spring season, but will still be a full season.
- We will still hold the opening day raffle. The raffle will most likely occur toward the end of July, so if you have not already sold your tickets we encourage you to continue selling (once it is safe to do so) to recoup up to ½ of your registration costs. If you have not picked up your raffle tickets, please contact Alice Holzen at
- The top prize for the raffle was a cruise/travel voucher, this has been replaced with a $1,000 gift card.
- The second prize for the raffle was 4 Astros tickets and a parking pass on opening weekend, this has been replaced with a $700 gift card.
- We are projecting a season start date of June 1st.
-
If you are concerned about missing a week of play during the summer for vacation or other previously scheduled conflicts, please know we are anticipating this and have built intermittent absences into the schedule to ensure everyone still has a full and meaningful baseball season. As well, we do understand there may be a few that just cannot participate in a summer league due to scheduling conflicts. For those individuals, we will refund your registration less the $100 raffle ticket sales. Please contact
for a refund request.
Finally, we have established an online survey and would appreciate a few minutes of your time to complete it. The survey can be found at http://www.bearcreekll.com/Survey/Default.asp?id=5274&n=&org=bearcreekll.com.
The Board would like to thank each of you for your patience and understanding as we all continue to navigate this incredible and unprecedented time.
Stay Safe,
The BCLL Board of Directors
We again hope you're staying safe (and sane) with everyone at home. I know we are all dying to get back out to the baseball fields, but with the extension of the order from Judge Hidalgo through April 30th, we'll have to wait a little longer.
On May 2nd we will open the fields and teams may begin to practice (practice schedules to be released at a later date).
On May 11th we will start playing games. We will have our normal 8 week season and should end right before or after July 4th.
We would again like to reiterate, our plans have not changed and we are still gearing up for a full, fun, and exciting season. We are all anxious to get back on the field but feel that we must make sure it's safe to do so. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates if anything changes.
