Dakota Gold Soccer Club

Statement on Fee Increase

Dear Members,

What do you get for your $350 a year Membership with no Fundraising?

Here is a list of some benefits and breakdown of your Annual Fee.

1. Dakota Gold Soccer Complex. 28% of annual fee. We have a tremendous opportunity with having our own complex. Look at some of the general benefits, but the sky is the limit to what we can do with these fields. Think about what this offers the players. How it improves coaching effectiveness. Festivals, clinics, tournaments etc…these fields are for our members only to use as we see fit.

Here is a Field Fee comparison between non-members and Dakota Gold members.

	Non-Dakota Gold	Dakota Gold Member
Field Rental Fees?	Pay per game on SFSA Fields such as Yankton Trails, Tomar and Spencer park. ($10 per game, but that is not the total cost)	Not applicable per game. Unlimited games and practice sessions. 28% of your Annual fee is used to cover this complex expense per year.
Referee Fees?	Required. (Example: U17-U19 is $55 per game plus a $5 Referee Assignment fee)	Not required. Coaches can control game action and teach on the fly. Corrections made on the spot adding efficiency and acceleration to improving play.
What are the total costs per game?	Total minimum fees for one game with only the one required ref at U17-U19 at Yankton, is $70 per game. For the younger players, U10 is $37 a game with only the one required ref.	Unlimited games. No other fees required to play lots and lots of games and practices on fields that have beautiful goals and lines!
Moveable Goals with wheels?	No.	Yes, build the game to your needs. Save the grass when you can to keep maintenance costs down. Coaches can be more effective and in addition, save our grass to the best of our ability.
Cancellation fees?	$5 Cancellation Fee and $5 Referee Assignment Fee charged. If no written approval to cancel is obtained, the rest of the fees are charged. ($37-$70)	No fee.
Who determines cancellation?	Sioux Falls Soccer Association. Typically for damp/wet fields. They must consider this to help everyone in Sioux Falls. Remember, Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation must budget for maintenance of the fields so it makes a tough decision for everyone whether to cancel or not and there is no “bad” guy. Just budgets and facts.	You and the Dakota Gold members determine cancellation. This is our park so be conscientious and future thinking about it’s use and abuse. However, Dakota Gold believes that developing great players is more important than developing great grass. Ask Brazil if they think good grass has played a role in developing the top talent that has won 5 World Cups.
Flexible Sessions?	No.	If you want to play half a field and share with another team, no problem. Joint session? No problem. These are Dakota Gold Members fields.
Centralize Staff Coaches? Improving communication between teams and coaches?	Games are scheduled and played all over the place. Hard to coordinate and communicate.	In one night, our DOC, Coach Cristian, could observe close to 16 teams playing full games. Not to mention other staff coaches presence on one complex. It is effective use of Staff coach time bringing top coaching to our developing players. Coaches have dialogue with staff coaches and our Director of Coaching right on the fields. Teams getting together. Communication is improved significantly.

2. Operations 7%

Items such as office rent, telephone, postage, marketing, and advertising. Items that keep our club moving forward.

3. Staff Coaches 31%

Staff coaching is one of the most undeniable reasons to join Dakota Gold. Coach Cristian is dedicated to implementing great coaches in our organization and offering coaching improvement/education to our coaches. This year Staff Coaching will be strong and present everywhere in the organization. The design Coach Cristian has modeled will provide even better and more opportunity than ever before. The largest concern in staff coaching is having a guarantee of sessions. Coach Cristian must first receive the budget numbers after the tryout process and then he can make the Staff session decisions using every penny allocated for your players to work with Staff Coaches.

4. Payroll 34%

This portion of your fees goes to having an office administrator and DOC/Executive Director. It also pays for taxes, healthcare, and insurance fees such as workman’s comp.

Kandis Feltman, office administrator: She already is extremely busy with maintaining the club needs. However, instead of trying to make her job easier by doing less for us, she chooses to make her job better and our lives better by continually asking how she can help more. It is inspirational to see someone take such pride in helping others, going above and beyond each and every time. If you stop in the office, let her know how much she is appreciated, because this is more than a job for her, it is much deeper than that.

Coach Tim Cristian is our Director of Coaching/Executive Director. Tim is 100% about player development. It is his skill. It is his passion. That is why he was offered this position and is a great fit for Dakota Gold’s mission. His ability as a coach and executor is a tremendous asset to us as we work toward continuing to support our club’s mission. Player development is a challenge, but worth the struggles to maintain in a world of quick fixes and lowered expectations.

Fundraising

The best part of the fee increase is it makes fundraising optional for families. We are a non-profit organization that relies on player fees, fundraising and contributions to exist. Your annual fee covers it all. Fundraising will still be offered to help families bring costs down of membership and hopefully to help go above and beyond budgeted items to offer even more to our members. Players participating in Fundraising can be reimbursed $50 for each fundraiser. Up to $100 back. The final fee for a fundraising member is $250 a year.

If you want a free membership, do not forget about the Football’ers Club:

Incentive based juggling competition encouraging our youth to develop skills with the ball in the air. From Hall of Fame recognition on our website to T-shirts and new soccer balls, young players are challenging themselves to reach new goals. You will never meet a professional soccer player who cannot juggle!

Oh, and if you don’t like paying player fees? No problem, Coach Cristian says “juggle 150 times in a row and earn a free year membership!” Two of our players have taken Coach Cristian up on it.

Congratulations, Adam and Michael!

Club Mission

The purpose of Dakota Gold Soccer Club, USA is to create an environment for the development and education of players and coaches; to provide an opportunity for advancement to higher levels of competition in the sport of soccer; and to promote commitment to excellence and physical skills and mental discipline.

Club Philosophy

We must be unified in policy, administration, and purpose. We will maintain a unified club soccer organization with the goal of being all-inclusive and elevating the overall standard of play to its highest potential within the Sioux Empire Soccer Community.

Core Values of our Philosophy include:

1. Player development is our first priority.

2. Excellence and integrity in our approach to the game of soccer.

3. Inclusion of all players wishing to participate in club soccer using a multi-leveled team structure.

4. Placement of all players at their own appropriate competitive level through a fair tryout process
based on the player's skill level.

5. Education of players, coaches, and parents to enhance their passion for the game.

6. Commitment to excellence of physical skills and mental discipline.

Dakota Gold coaching staff offers some of the most qualified personnel in the state of South Dakota.

Team Coaches are required to have a minimum of a "D" National Coaching license within their first year with the organization. We also strongly request our older players to be mentors for our younger players.