About Mansfield Youth Soccer

• MYS Mission Statement
• MYS Goals
• MYS Program Background
• MYS Commitment to Field Development
• Purpose of the Fields of Green Project
• Goal of Fields of Green Project
• Preparation for Fields of Greens Project

MYS Mission Statement

Mansfield Youth Soccer’s mission is to provide a positive youth soccer experience for all players in the league. Mansfield Youth Soccer is an organization that provides the youth of the town an opportunity to learn to play soccer and be part of a team in an enjoyable, fair and safe environment.  MYS strives to ensure all players have a rewarding experience that encourages continued participation with soccer, development of basic soccer skills, learning the value of team work and building personal confidence.

MYS Goals

• Provide the opportunity for all players to participate in all levels of play including recreational and varied levels of travel soccer.
• Promote small sided soccer for all ages.
• Promote player development by supporting an environment that allows each player to develop their skills to their desired level of play in a fun and fulfilling environment.
• Provide financial aid to those players that need assistance.
• Promote the development of coaches by offering instructional courses and resources that will allow them to further improve their skills as coaches.
• Promote the development of youth referees by offering instructional courses, training, and resources that will allow them to further improve their skills as referees.
• Promote good sportsmanship, teamwork and development of character traits such as respect, self-control, responsibility, honesty, trust, caring, fairness.
• Promote a respect for the game of soccer through fair play and good sportsmanship.
• Provide parents an avenue to share feedback about our program through our web site surveys, feedback forms and board position of membership relations.
• Promote parent awareness for supporting a positive environment as a spectator to players and referees.
• Work closely with town to make sure that the children will always have enough safe fields to play soccer.

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MYS Program Background

The Mansfield Youth Soccer program celebrated its 25 years of service in 2006. The program serves over 1,200 children ages 4 – 18 each season, fall and spring and high school age players in the spring. The program offers off season play as well in the form of summer pick up summer and winter development clinics. There are two levels of play offered, recreation and travel, to cover all player skills and commitment. All our administration and coaches are volunteers who are CORI’d and insured by Mass Youth Soccer. Our program offers player scholarships and family discounts to ensure no one is kept from joining our program and playing soccer. Our program does not turn away players; all players who register are assigned a team. In 2006 the program instituted two high school annual scholarships of $1,000 each. The program also offers a very successful, well respected and attended Columbus Day tournament. The goal of the program is to offer a large number of youth the opportunity to learn and play soccer in a fun and rewarding environment. The key to our program’s success is the volunteers teamwork, dedication and professional approach to running the program.

MYS commitment to field development

The MYS board is committed to working together with membership and the town to maintain high standard of fields. Over the years our program has supported field development at Plymouth Street. In July of 2000, MYS gifted $94,000 to the town for creation of field 1 as well as paid for the irrigation of the fields. In the years since our program has donated $10,000 to $25,000 per year to maintain the field by fertilization, cross seeding, deep tinning and aeration. We remain committed to our long term relationship of improving the facility. The fields are no longer meeting our standards.

• There are a large number of Mansfield residents served by our program and a great deal of interest by our membership to renovating the fields.
• Our program is committed to funding a large percent of the project through grants, sponsorships, private donations, bank loan.
• We have approximately 300 volunteers that help support the program as coaches, field maintenance, equipment, food etc. These are Mansfield residents that donate thousands of hours of time each season to help this program be successful at no cost to the Town.
• Our program has invested much time and money into town property to date.
• Other youth and adult programs will benefit from this project over time.
• Without renovating these fields our program will be faced with cutting back or limiting player participation.

The Plymouth Street fields are town owned and used by a variety of organizations. However, as its largest user and understanding the financial constraints facing the town, MYS has decided to step forward and undertake this project.

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Purpose of the Fields of Green project

Mansfield Youth Soccer has undertaken a financial campaign to raise funds to be used specifically for field renovation at the Plymouth Street facility. The field area that is commonly known as field 1 or “front fields” has a severe water damage and drainage issue. As a result of very poor drainage (improper drainage and soil composition) the fields are often unplayable or, as occurred in Fall 2006 taken off line for extended periods of time. In fall 2006 and spring 2007, MYS was forced to cancel over 100 practices and over 90 games because the fields were not fit to play on.

This renovation project consists of raising funds as well as driving the effort to implement the field renovation solution.

As a reference point, following is some statistics from this fall 2006:

• 9 week season.
• Part of the front field area was closed all season for re-growth.
• 4 weeks out of the 9 week season the other “open” areas had to be closed to all games due to standing water on fields.
• 3 of those 4 weeks the fields were closed due to wet fields from rain during the previous week and not due to rain on the game days.
• Countless weekday practices were lost on sunny days due to wet conditions.

Goal of Fields of Green Project

The goal of the final project is to eliminate the drainage issues. How that is accomplished depends on how much money can be raised. At the upper end it would involve a synthetic playing surface; at the other end of the spectrum would be field reconstruction with new drainage and natural turf.

The board of directors has set a financial goal of raising $750,000. This amount coupled with the program’s ability to borrow funds would provide the capital needed to undertake this large scale project. The account currently has a $50,000 balance and has been open approximately 1 ½ years.

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Preparation for Fields of Greens Project

MYS has set up a separate bank account for funds raised for this project. This account will be used only for field renovation and will insure funds are not used for normal operations or other projects. In addition the board of directors has decided that the funds from our annual tournament will be earmarked for this account. The board is also actively raising funds through other events and sponsorships in support of this project. The board explored two options that would help address the drainage problems on the fields.

Option 1: We have invested in an initial design and planning for an artificial multipurpose turf field. The proposal is that a turf field would cost in excess of $750,000.00. Option 1 will provide 1 artificial turf field. $1.4M for replacement of the full front field area with 2 turf fields.

Option 2: We have obtained the cost estimate for the less costly but less durable, natural surface with new subsurface. This option would replace the entire area of the front fields. The estimated cost is $450,000 to $650,000.

It is clear that the drainage problems need to be addressed regardless of which option is chosen.

In addition, MYS has invested in the education of our field manager and a town employee as they attended a field development seminar paid for by MYS. These are the first steps to assessing the final solution given the financial limitations. The total investment to date for these steps is approximately $10,000. All of MYS steps have and will be coordinated with the DPW, and recreation departments along the process of the project.

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