Message from Tom Tobin about videotaping Scrimmage Day

AYSO has secured a grant from the So Cal Amateur Athletic Foundation to help improve the quality of soccer officiating in Sections 1, 10 and 11. Included in the grant proposal is the production of two new training videos for referees modeled after “Ready, Set, Ref” and featuring our young players playing the game the way kids do. We are ready to proceed with the first on the topic of Offside.

We are excited for the opportunity to shoot at your scrimmage day this Saturday, 3/22/03, at the Paul Revere Middle School in Pacific Palisades. It seems to me that this scrimmage day will yield a treasure trove of great footage for these projects. In exchange for this courtesy, we are happy to make a contribution toward the refreshments your participants will enjoy on that day.

Because this footage will be used in a commercially produced audio-visual work, we must get a signed Talent Release from everyone who may appear in the footage that is shot – players, parents, coaches, referees. The form AYSO requires us to use is attached. The language is all-inclusive and may strike a few people the wrong way. I appreciate the extra effort it will require to get these signed, but it really is necessary to ensure that AYSO’s resources remain devoted to the kids and not earmarked defending itself from even the most frivolous of actions.

A crew from Coast Video Services will be at the fields all day shooting for this project. I would hope you can give them all the assistance they might need so we get the kind of footage we need. He has been instructed to focus mostly on the U12 matches, but may shoot some U14’s as well.

I will not be present, but can be reached on my mobile phone at: 661-644-5096 if there are any questions or problems.


Tom Tobin
Section Referee Administrator
Section 10