By Greg Nikkel
The Weyburn Senior Beavers had a strong season in 2015, including five playoff games and a turn-around in their financial position, and heading into 2016 with a plan to continue in the same vein.
The successes of last season were laid out at the Beavers annual meeting on March 29, held in the Weyburn Credit Union’s community room.
The plans for the coming season were outlined, including the new games schedule, plans for baseball camps, and for fundraisers to follow up on the success of 2015.
The 2016 schedule will have 48 games, evenly split between home and away games, with the addition of two new teams in the west, Fort McMurray and Brooks.
The season will open on Sunday, May 29 versus Regina, and the first home game will be Friday, June 3, when they host Yorkton for a two-day stand.
Team president Garnet Hansen noted the Beavers will play every Friday and Saturday at home in June with some weekday games, and in July there will be more weekday games, which he had asked the league for and received.
“We don’t have any Saturday games in July, but two Friday night games and one Sunday game. It’s one long stretch when we go to Alberta, and we’ll have the Weyburn Fair to work around,” said Hansen.
The team will continue with offering birthday parties and team windups for minor ball teams, a feature that garnered some success in bringing out young ball players and their parents to Beavers home games.
In addition, the Beavers will send out a tourism package to the parents of players of the visiting teams, to promote tourism in Weyburn while they come here to watch ball games.
“We’re working on things to bring money into the city and get people to stay here. We’re not backing off. We’re getting bigger and better than we were last year,” said Ken Larson.
Two new fundraisers coming in 2016 is the first annual golf tournament, set for Saturday, June 25, and a “Chase the Ace” fundraiser that is a variation on the 50-50 concept, but uses a deck of cards to build up a pot of money as each game a ticket-holder gets to try drawing for an ace for the pot of money. Each game there is a 20-per-cent payout for a ticket-holder, and 30 per cent is added to the pot each game, and every game that the card doesn’t get pulled, the pot gets bigger.
The team will also put on a free ball clinic in May for minor ball players, and will put on two ball clinic days in July at a cost of $35 per player.
Chad Klein reported that the “Give Back to Schools” program will see the players work with the schools again this year, with the program expanding to St. Olivier School in Radville, where the teachers are excited to have involvement with the players.
In the 2015 unaudited financial statement, the Beavers had total revenues of $154,639, and total expenses of $151,622, with net income of $3,107.
Added to the surplus from the beginning of the year, the team now has a surplus of $4,466.
Some of the increases in revenues included $15,000 from the Red Wings-Beavers joint 50-50 fundraiser, and increase in season tickets from $1,335 in 2014 to $4,615 last year. Revenues at the gate went up from $9,844 to $20,703, and the beer gardens increased from $13,114 to $20,283. Merchandise revenues increased from $50 in 2014 to $3,258 last year.
Some expenses also went up, including operating expenses from $6,250 to $11,863, and travel expenses were also up for hotel rooms and meals, plus a large increase in umpiring fees, from $9,905 to $16,125.
“Weyburn should be proud we have a team in this league, because we’re facing some pretty big operations,” said Larson, noting the new team in Brooks has a budget of $264,000, and the new Fort McMurray team has a budget of $420,000.
He pointed out that Weyburn’s team can meet these other teams on the field, as shown by winning the east division in 2015, letting the bigger markets know that there is a good solid baseball team here in a smaller market.
