Dear Coaches and Managers –
Earlier todaY (on Tuesday, 10/4/11) we have posted revised schedules to address a number of errors and to accommodate requests from coaches with multiple teams. Our infrastructure was arranged, the referees assigned and all other steps necessary to make this a successful event were planned and organized.
However, we then got really bad news. As of early afternoon today, SUNY Purchase has pulled the grass fields. Based on the heavy rainfall last week and the additional rainfall yesterday, last night and this morning, SUNY Purchase has concluded that the water level on the fields will not drop sufficiently to use the fields on Sunday.
We looked at various alternatives. One alternative was to reduce the size of the tournament and use just the turf field as well as some grass fields in other areas of the campus, with some likelihood that those would be playable on Sunday. Ultimately, we have concluded that a tournament spread over several sites and reduced significantly in size would not be very attractive. There would not be enough room for teams to wait between games, food service would be very difficult and the registration and reporting set up would be highly inefficient. In addition, there would have been the risk that the other grass fields would also remain unplayable and that we would have to cancel on short notice as late as Saturday.
Accordingly, we had to make the difficult decision to cancel the 2011 tournament. We believe that it would have been much worse to wait longer and cancel on short notice at the end of the week. We understand that you and your team will be very disappointed, in particular as we are looking forward to a sunny weekend, and I can assure you that this was a very difficult decision. FC Westchester is a not for profit organization, and the annual Columbus Day tournament is our primary fundraiser.
Our tournament rules provide that we would refund 75% of the fees in case of weather related cancellations, allowing us to cover fixed expenses regarding the tournament from the remaining 25%. Based on the SUNY Purchase decision which came today, we were able to reduce the fixed expenses significantly. While some expenses are simply not recoverable, we have determined that under the circumstances we will refund the full tournament fee to all teams. To date we have not cashed any checks, and in order to minimize cost and administrative time, we will simply shred the checks we hold.
This is a major disappointment for all of us and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Juergen Moessner, FC Westchester - Tournament Director
NB: We would very much appreciate if you would consider donating to our Lucas Goldbaum Memorial Scholarship Fund, which we have established on June 1, 2010 in memory of Lucas Goldbaum. The purpose of the fund is to provide scholarship support to a player with an athletic, academic and character profile similar to Lucas, and in need of financial support. Lucas was the goalie of our 1996 team that won the Eastern New York State Cup in 2009 (the last year in which our teams were participating in this competition), and on May 12, 2010 passed away due to an inoperable brain stem tumor. Any donation will be tax deductible and can be made by sending a check issued to FC Westchester with the reference “Lucas Goldbaum Memorial Fund”.
