La Finca, monthly report
What's happened, what's next and what's after that (and how we're going to pay for it all!)
Friday of this week marked the halfway point in our season. With just 4 weeks left (plus an extra weekend for a special event) we wanted to take a moment to report on what’s happened so far and share our ideas about the future.
What we’ve done
Since launching La Finca on January 14,
We’ve held 34 training clinics for kids 4 - 13 years old
25 6-9 year olds, 58 10-13 year olds and 20 4-5 year olds have played at La Finca
3 local teenage teams have played a combined 12 times at La Finca and over 40 adults have played too
With respect to staff, we’ve offered weekly clinics with 2 seasoned La Finca Trainers with assistance from 3 trainers-in-training (we call them Youth Mentors), and we’ve hosted 2 incredible guest coaches. (Our training model values exposure to a variety of styles, so these are key numbers for us.)
And we’ve used 125 zip ties and broken 8 lights :)
Up Next
Next week is Family & Captains Week. The Junior sessions (6-9s) will be run by pairs of volunteer parents, and the Youth sessions (10-13s) will be managed by the players themselves (we call the leaders of these group Player Captains). We want our 10+ players to feel confident running pickup sessions. This means understanding the rules of the game, managing other players, making teams with any number of players and resolving disputes. Player Captains are critical to expanding opportunities for play.
After that, Weeks 6&7 offer Freestyle sessions. We’re super excited to be hosting local talent and freestyle guru Alex Ober. At just 16, Alex has competed at the highest level and brings his love for the game and footskill magic to our kids. The kids will learn the latest juggling tricks and practice Panna, the 1v1 high-skills game rooted in mutual respect and showmanship. No prior experience necessary.
Look out for more visits from our guest pro coaches this season. Craig Canavan and Adrian Salguero will both be back. See the schedule for special Tuesday sessions.
And, due to popular demand, we’re pleased to be adding a second 4-week Peewees session. Please sign up for just one of the two sessions each week to make sure everyone gets a chance. We’ll alert everyone to any available spots after the first round of sign ups.
And lastly, with a little luck we’ll figure out our closing day event, Futsal Fiesta, so put a hold in your calendars for March 20. We’ve been wrestling with the scheduling challenges due to COVID but the team is narrowing in on some creative solutions.
The Future
While we haven’t yet finalized Spring season details we’re clear about what we want. Here’s the Top 3 on our wish list:
No more dormant parks. The beautiful parks in our region are closed 5-6 months every year. This pains us. Parks are critical to the health of a community. As the great Frederick Olmsted understood when designing NYC’s Central Park, the public park is where the public comes together on equal footing, where every member experiences a shared sense of ownership of public space. We hope to see Marbletown and other local parks re-opened all winter long for La Finca programming from now on. The pandemic got us back outside and we plan to stay.
All-year program. Small-sided soccer and futsal has finally arrived and we want to see it happening all year. We’ve seen firsthand how small-sided soccer with a walled-pitch excels youth development and we’re very excited to see what a year-round program produces.
Technology. We launched La Finca with several free scheduling and marketing tools. We’re pretty satisfied with their performance but we know the administration could be smoother and there are functions we know we want, like making it possible for players to create additional games easily, to notify potential other players and keep track of scores and maybe player rankings. Developing a website and an app that really meets our needs is on our blue sky list for the coming year.
Support
The total cost of our program this season, included the capital expenses of building La Finca, adds up to roughly $12k and we’re just $2500 shy of our goal now, at the halfway mark in the season.
We’ve raised support through 3 sources: 1) crowd-sourced funding (the GoFundMe campaign to build the court), 2) user donations from families and adults who play at La Finca, and 3) business sponsors, who advertise on the court walls. Starting next season we’re hoping to apply for grants and we’re committed to exploring for-profit ways to supplement the non-profit club, just because that’s in our DNA. We like to build stuff fast and elaborately!
So if you’ve enjoyed the programming and want more, and you haven’t gotten around to contributing yet, please do so we can keep planning for next season, and if you’ve contributed already maybe share the Community Futsal Club support page with your extended network. This is definitely going to take the village.
Big THANK YOU to all La Finca Business Sponsors:
All Motor Cars, Cabinet Designers, The Eggs Nest, Fresh Air Reality, Global Dwelling, The Hasbrouck House, MyTown Marketplace and Stockade FC