It was a weekend of wet weather from North Carolina to Vermont as Hurricane Irene attracted much of the nation's attention. By one early estimate, damage from the storm may reach $7 billion and a handful of injuries & deaths have already been reported. While many stories have focused on personal property and business damage, playing fields and sports facilities also felt Irene's impact.

In one sad story, Castleton State College (CSC) in Castleton, Vermont sustained damage to indoor and outdoor athletic facilities. Damage to their gym is seen above. The school's weightlifting room, outdoor stadium, and side fields were also damaged.

In San Antonio a few weeks ago, we received a creative giveaway courtesy of South Texas Youth Soccer Association. While they didn't have a ton to do with youth soccer, the branded sunglasses were the hit fashion statement of the weekend.

The giveaway itself was a toss-in with other materials distributed to attendees. In many cases, we see these giveaways used as bribes at tradeshow booths in order to attract attention.

After working with our RosterPro™ Registration System for many years, we realized that players and club staff members don't remain with their organizations forever and don't need to be quite as visible. To assist administrators with their day-to-day tasks, we've added the ability to archive these individuals. Rather than deleting the user and erasing their data and club history, archiving saves all information and stores their records in a separate area.

After logging in as a club administrator,

Does your youth soccer club print US Youth Soccer Player Cards each year? If so, a new feature in Demosphere's Online Registration System allows users to automatically print out player cards for each of your teams!

To activate the feature, go to Registration Setup > Update Registration Options and proceed to Step 2. Once activated, a new link will appear under the Special Links section of your administrative home screen. From there, select the team/season and indicate the appropriate state association (pictured below). The resulting page is designed to print on US Youth Soccer cardstock.

Late last month, Missouri passed a law prohibiting teachers from adding students as Facebook friends or otherwise privately communicating with them on any social media site. On Friday, the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) sued in order to repeal the law.

According to an MSTA News Release, "MSTA believes the bill signed into law by Gov. Jay Nixon in July infringes on educators’ first amendment rights of free speech, association and religion. MSTA is asking the court to keep that section of law from being implemented until the constitutionality can be determined."