Let me start off by saying that Chris and I do not work for any volleyball association, bar, league, group, nothing. We merely love volleyball and realized the need for a central site for Austin volleyballers to get and receive information, hence the website. The mailing list began with Greg Wood and a group of his coworkers at BMC who played ball during their lunch hours and on weekends. I joined several years ago and we began increasing the number of people on the list. We decided to start playing league at Aussie's and I would register for whoever wanted me to as a favor, since it meant that only one person would have to go in instead of seven or eight.

Now we run the email list, register teams through Aussie's, and have helped a couple of area recreation centers and YMCA's start new leagues. With all the interest, we have tried to keep up with the boom so we can still help everybody. Chris maintains the website and contacts various leagues around the area and gets schedules and scores for everyone's information and tries to get more and more leagues involved all the time. I encourage league/play participation by dealing with the players: trying to hook up teams with players, make registering for leagues easier, help with new leagues and trying to bring events and information to you. We do not receive any type of compensation from anyone except in two instances: Aussie's gives ANYONE who registers more than three teams a 10% discount, and Chris receives a credit from a few sponsors on the site for same day purchases made by clicking the sponsor link on his site.

For registrations for all leagues that go through me, I front the cost of the league as a service to the people who register through me and/or the website. This means you don't have to go in, fill out any forms, get your schedules on line and emailed to you and it saves you a little bit of hassle. Any money that is made (ex: 10% per team at Aussie's) goes initially to cover the cost to me of using paypal, which is 3% each transaction and to Chris for website costs. However, I do not charge any more for leagues than what you would pay if you registered yourself. So I lose money on all leagues except for Aussie's because paypal deducts money each time. If there is anything left over, it goes to cover my other costs (if someone doesn't pay, etc) and then things like tournaments. However, the money rarely gets past paypal and website costs.

I register for several leagues and even more teams and it can cost me a lot of money up front out of pocket and I expect people to pay me back promptly. I work with everyone to give them ample time to pay and try to contact them several times before I register another team in their slot, but if they do not pay, then I will sign up another team that CAN pay me. I have been burned before and do not want to lose any more money to another team that isn't going to responsible enough to pay me for their fees. I sign up as captain of any team I register and since I am the paying party, get to decide who plays in that spot. Once you register and pay, I make you the captain and no longer retain any "rights" to that team. But if you ask me to sign you up and don't pay, I am still technically the captain and it is my team to play who I choose. I will not let a team play that hasn't paid me for their fee. That may seem rough, but it is the only way I can insure getting my money back.

Again, we do not work for Aussie's, the YMCA or any other organization. If you have an issue with me registering your team, you have to contact me directly to resolve it or not register through me. If I don't get payment from your team for one league, I will not register your team for you anymore. If you went directly to the leagues, they expect payment up front, so I am giving you more time than they would.

League scores are the same - if you have an issue with scores, you need to go to the league directly, not to Chris. League managers maintain the scores for their leagues.

Chris and I and the other people in Austin that help out do so to encourage the sport of volleyball in Austin. Neither of us minds doing any of this but do not want to be taken advantage of. We also do not want you to feel you've been taken advantage of or feel uncomfortable with the arrangement. You can register directly through any league (unless it is one we are running) and are not obligated in anyway to use us. Again, this is a service we provide because we want to but we don't expect anyone to use it. Nothing we do is special to any group and you can do it yourself too (like register multiple teams for Aussie's).

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I am always available via email at naomiw@austin.rr.com or Naomi@austinvolleyball.com.

Thanks again,
Naomi