LET’S PLAY WINTER BALL

Some of the golfers in the group suggested that we look into playing slo-pitch in a ‘golf dome’ – a facility for golf club members to practice their shots during the winter. The Dominion Gold Course people were receptive, and Winter Slo-Pitch was started. It wasn’t an ideal facility for slo-pitch, which meant that several ‘ground rules’ had to be instituted – but basically it was slo-pitch and that was all that mattered.

Members has to ‘pay-to-play’ out of their own pockets. A group of players would finish their slo-pitch outings by gathering for lunch in the course dining-room and, frequently, the topic of finances came up. Playing in the dome was fairly expensive on the individual participants.

The original executive had a desire to make sports participation free for everyone, so funds had to be raised. The Legion Branches continued their very generous support, (we really don’t make a big enough deal about the efforts of these branches, but without them, we never would have been able to get anything started) but the league grew faster than the finances and it was obvious that other sources of revenue were needed.

LET’S PLAY BINGO

About this time DOUG SMITH came into the picture. Doug was a fine slo-pitch player who joined our ‘Winter Slo-Pitch in the Dome’; but he had another skill that enabled the organization to really grow. Doug’s nickname was ‘BINGO’ and that described his contribution. He was quite experienced at conduction bingos as fund raisers and he suggested that we organize ourselves in a manner that would allow us to apply for a bingo license.

Several meetings were held at the Dome with Doug, and he convinced that group that the Bingo idea to raise funds would work. It seemed out of reach, but Doug knew what he was doing. He led us through the application for the license, organized the entire program, and trained several members to be able to run bingos. In 1993, the first bingo was held and some $4000.00 was raised!! Wow!! Now the sky was the limit, seemingly as far as the number of players and teams and activities that could be taken care of. And the organization really too off!!

At first it wasn’t recognized just what Doug went through. A bingo license, which permits the licensing organization to conduct bingo, was not easy to get. It usually took organizations several months or years to get one, but Doug found a way to get one for us. A license permitted the organization to conduct 13 bingo, which could bring in several thousand dollars. So a bingo license was precious and scarce.

To obtain a bingo, there had to be an organization. After much discussion, the group came up with the name: WINDSOR/ESSEX COUNTY SENIOR SPORTS ORANIZATION. That’s how WECSSO came into being.

The thinking behind this name choice (recall that WINDSOR RETIREES was the original name) was that it better reflected what the organization really was about. By this time we had several members who were from outside Windsor, thus the addition of ‘Essex County’ in the name. Then we had several members who weren’t retired and still wanted to play, thus the ‘Retirees’ was dropped from the title. The word ‘sports’ was added for obvious reasons – we already has slo-pitch, volleyball, dome slo-pitch – and so the organization, by happenstance, was becoming all encompassing. This is an important distinction. In playing tournament and exhibition games against teams in different sports from other cities in Canada and the United States, we learned that we were unique. These teams would say – we have a slo-pitch league back home, or we have a volleyball club back home, but we never heard of an organization that includes all sports. They were astounded. SO WE ARE SPECIAL!

The following were listed as officers of the first WECSSO executive:

FRANK EDWARDS – President

HARRY LAPLANTE – Treasurer

JERRY VIDLER – Secretary

And its charity was listed as ‘sports for seniors 55 years of age or over’.

Doug Smith wasn’t finished. Shortly after the first license was procured, he was at the license bureau and learned, by accident, that another license had become available, which meant another 13 bingos – and he ‘snapped it up’. This also meant that another organization had to be formed. ON the spot, Doug came up with the name – WINDSOR RETIREES SPORTS ORGANIZATION or WRSA.

This was an unfortunate choice of name because the original organization had the name WINDSOR RETIREES – and the similarities presented problems. Eventually, on the advice of our layer, WINDSOR RETIREES ceased to exist. Some of the funds that they still had on their books from the original federal grant plus the Legion donations were used for hockey, under JIM BROWNELL, but eventually the remaining funds were turned over to WECSSO as a last gesture. Thus the demise of THE WINDSOR RETIREES, the founding group. It was necessary for the WRSA to have a ‘charity’, and so it sponsored a Monday Evening Slo-Pitch League for players 50 to 55 years of age.