Acceptance Speech, President Haim Katz

I with to thank all of you for the expressing your confidence in me to lead the organization for the next two years. I consider it an honor and a privilege to take on this position.

In the last 5 years that I have served on the IAB board, both Jay and Leon have been preparing me for this position. Under their tutelage they have exposed me to most of the aspects of the organization both local and international. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both of them, personally, and on behalf of the entire organization for the excellent job they have done. And taking us to where we are today. Jay has done an excellent job in the past three years through some very trying times. He has taken the IAB to a new level of organization and higher standard of management. As my first act as president I would like to present to Jay this plaque as a token of appreciation from the membership.

I look at the group of people in this room and I see family. We have spent a lot of time together, we have had a share in raising each others children. (And the children in raising each other's parents) As a family we share common goals and dreams. Like every family we do not always agree, and when we argue, the arguments are very passionate, loud and long. There is a simple explanation for this phenomena. The reason for this is because we are care about the organization, we care about the sport and we care about our children. But in spite of our disagreements, we remain strong and united in our desire to promote this great sport in our new land.

We are a family that, by enlarge made alyah from North America.
We made Aliyah not only with our sport, but with the values of the sport.

Our values of opening our doors, or should I say diamonds to all sectors of the population.
The value of respecting and tolerating our teammates' religious preferences both on and off the field.
The value of teaching sportsmanship, not just the sport.

We are the definitive contribution to Sport from the North American community.
We are positioned better than anyone else in Israel to use sport to build strong bridges between the youth of America and Israel.

But to paraphrase the most prominent athlete to make Alyah from North America.
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We are not on the map and won't be on the map until we have 20,000 baseball players in Israel. This must be our number one goal and what we must focus on and what we need to achieve in within the next 10 years. It is not enough to recite this mantra for this to become true. We must develop a concrete incremental plan to penetrate the great sport of baseball into Israeli society. The plan must include improving and increasing our infrastructure, fields coaches etc. Complaining about this is not enough, we need úëìñ.

One small step can take immediately - is to double the number of players we have in our organization by next year. In the next few weeks, we will work with the regional directors to develop concrete plans and allocate resources to this goal.

Small steps are not enough. To reach this goal we need to expand our infrastructure. More fields are obvious, but we also need to increase the support staff. Coaches, umpires, scorekeepers etc. To expand is not necessary for the same people to do more, but to get new people, recruit hitherto untapped resources. Retired American immigrants.

Over the past 15 years the organization has nurtured many friendships in the United States We have been calling out for their support over this time and they have responded in a modest effort. In order to attract the massive infusion required to put us on the map, we need to build a united, focused plan with clear detailed incremental goals both for the short run and the long run. If we build it, they will come.

To build it we need to start with each and every one of you in this room to start laying the building blocks. To paraphrase the words of a fellow US born President. I don't want anyone telling me what the IAB needs to do, I want to hear what you can do for the IAB.

To this end we will establish a number of committees which will deal with both the long range and short range planning of the organization.

Local Program Department - Nathan
Senior and Junior Leagues - Leo Chairman
Youth Leagues - RD
Rules committee
Local tournaments
Equipment
Player Recruitment

Player Development Department - Peter
National Teams
Sportai Pail
Enrichment Programs
Player clinics

Coaches Development - Ephraim
Coaches Training curriculum
Coaches Clinics
Training Manuals
Coach - coach communication

Strategic Planning and Fundraising Department
Fundraising
International Relations
Special Projects - International Tournaments
Field Development --
Publicity
Press
Newsletters & Brochures
Web Site

This structure will require a high degree of coordination which will require more frequent meeting of the executive committee.

To facilitate communication I plan to send out a newsletter to board once a month, and to the general membership every 4-8 weeks.

The new board will have its first meeting before the end of the year. By this meeting we should have most of the committees manned (womened).

Before I conclude I would like to thank my own family, particularly my wife Dalia for being supportive of my efforts and time spent in baseball. Hopefully they will continue to be supportive.

I want to conclude with one final quote. This one from a friend of my Father's, Al Skirboll. My father (of blessed memory) was many years ago President of his shul. In one of my recent visits to Pittsburgh, Al came over to my mother's house reminiscing about the days he was on the Synagogue board when my father was President. He told me the following: "You know, your dad wasn't the most organized guy around. We had to work our asses off sometimes to cover up for him. But we never had so much fun".

I can only wish that the same will be said of me when my term is over.