Calendar update and the MN Hockey site

We now have an introductory MN Special Hockey page on the MN Hockey site. I've added this link to our web site reference and links page.

At least for now we're expecting to use the MN Hockey page for outreach, and the www.mnspecialhockey.org site for program information.

Along with this page we got some calendaring software. Toni Boelter is working with it. The good news is that I've integrated the calendar from the MN Hockey site onto the top of this news page and into our web site calendar page. Any changes made to the MN Hockey calendar will show up in these pages as well.

If you're technically savvy these web calendars can also be delivered to your desktop computer (Outlook 2007, OS X iCal, Google Calendar) or your iPhone or Palm Pre. The "web address" you need for that is shown on our MN Hockey calendar, it's:

webcal://www.minnesotahockey.org/event/ical_feed?tags=85015%252C85013

For example, I access all my calendars (about seven including this one) using Google Calendar and on my iPhone.

MN SH summer events and the kick-off skate Oct 25

I’ve added most of these to our Google Calendar which can be seen on this news site and on our web site.

This summary is from a Toni Boelter email (I’ve omitted events that have passed) …

Friday, July 24 - 2nd Annual, MN Special Hockey Saints Game. RSVP by July 1 and Board Meeting

NOTE: The annual board meeting will take place at Midway stadium starting at 5:45 pm.

Join us on Friday, July 24th, 2009 as we enjoy a picnic dinner and then sit back to watch our St. Paul Saints take on the Lincoln Salt Dogs. Dinner will be served inside the park beginning at 6pm, with a game time start of 7:05pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend and the number of tickets you will need to your respective team coach. Cost for this event will be $8 per person, which will include your meal and ticket into the game. Hope to see you all there!

Eagles: Toni Boelter tboelter@minnesotahockey.org
Polars: Chris Winkel Christopher.Winkel@target.com
Stingers: Cheryl Caffrey chery.caffrey@target.com
RSVP’s must be received no later than July 1st. For further questions, please contact Toni Boelter at tonib@dakcom.org or by cell at 651-307-0660.

August 1 - Equipment swap. Minnesota Hockey will be opening up its storage shed to Disabled hockey only on Saturday, August 1st from Noon to 4pm. Come after our summer skate (see next item) and browse through the shed for new and used equipment. I have seen it...it is a gold mine! More information will be posted on the Minnesota Special Hockey website in the next few weeks.

August - Summer skate! We will be skating 3 times this summer.
http://www.mnspecialhockey.org/2009SummerFlyer.pdf
We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

August 22 - Section 108 Golf Tournament, information will be posted soon. http://www.section108golf.com/. We will need volunteers to help with registration and selling raffle tickets.

Sunday, October 25th - Mark your calendars for our kick off skate on October 25th - 2 - 3:30 p.m. at Mariucci. More information to follow.

President Susie email – Board meeting

My name is Susie Miller. I am the President/Executive Director of MN Special Hockey.

Just a little history about our program. We started in the Spring of 2006. We held a 6 week mini program at Richfield Ice Arena. We had 27 skaters register. We were thrilled with the interest. That fall we started our first season. We had two teams. The South Stingers, out of Edina, and the North Polars, out of Blaine. The Stingers started strong with many of the spring session participants signing up. The Polars had less than 10 players attending on a regular basis. The 2007-2008 was the year we added the East Eagles. We had just a handful of players, but at this point the Polars and the Stingers both had nearly full teams. For 2008-2009 we did not add another team. We wanted to make sure all three teams were successful. Last season we found success with all three teams, so this fall we will be starting another team. The West Wildcats. They will play out of Albertville and Rogers. We are also planning on adding a team in International Falls this fall.

With the growth of the program MN Special Hockey organization has also grown and changed. As of March, 2008 we officially became a 501c3 Non Profit Organization. We are an organization with a 8 Member Board of Directors. Each year we are to have an annual meeting. At this meeting we will hold elections for our board of directors, as well as have a mini summary of the past year and receive a treasurers report. We are holding our Annual Meeting on Friday, July 24 at 5:45 p.m. at Midway Stadium in St. Paul (immediately before our summer Saints game celebration). We hope you are able to attend…