The North Zone Vice President Steve Miller and field director Cindy Miller held two informational meetings on Sunday October 23, 2022 in Aroma Park, Illinois and Crest Hill, Illinois. The first meeting was held at the Boat Club in Aroma Park at 2:30 PM and the second meeting was held at 6:00 PM at the Crest Hill Press Box of Joe Marshall Field.
The Aroma Park meeting was with a group that represents about 12 different communities that have players from the Pinto level to the Palomino level. We provided packets with information for the upcoming 2023 season. There were a lot of good questions and good conversations on the age change and the tournament dates provided. We asked them to reach out to the surrounding communities that are not part of the PONY family and see if we could recruit some new teams and leagues for 2023. The North Zone President was presented a walking stick, that Mr. Luke Shepherd made from a tree from the Shawnee Forest near the Vice President’s hometown. Mr. Steve Cantway presented the vice president with the new Aroma Park baseball hat. It was great meeting, and everyone would like to see it become an annual event.
The Crest Hill meeting was also well represented by everyone in the PONY DuPage River Conference. This conference has teams that play from the Shetland division to the Pony division. We provided packets with information for the upcoming 2023 season. There were a lot of good questions and good conversations on the age change and the tournament dates provided here as well. Once again, we asked them to reach out to the surrounding communities that are not part of the PONY family and see if we could recruit some new teams and leagues for 2023. We also discussed how flexible PONY is and the many ways the leagues can operate to promote better league play as well as more post season play for their players at all levels.
We would like to thank both Aroma Park and Crest Hill for hosting these meetings. We are trying to setup our next meeting in the Indiana area for early November. If you know of leagues that would be interested in having us come and present our new program, please let us know.
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