Download - CLSA

Rarely is there an opportunity to partner with another organization
where both have an equal, but somewhat different benefit.
An opportunity of this nature did take place for the California
Land Surveyors Association (CLSA) and the American Youth Soccer
Organization (AYSO). On the surface it may not seem like a good
paring, but these two organizations are in fact very similar, with
AYSO being founded in 1964 and CLSA being founded in 1966
and both are non-profit organizations relying
almost solely on volunteers.
By: William R. Hofferber Jr, PLS - President
Two Organizations,
an Ideal Partnership
AYSO is a national organization with a mission to develop and
deliver quality youth soccer programs which promote fun, in a family
environment. AYSO is mostly run at local levels by teams of volunteers.
These AYSO volunteers indicated that soccer field layout
has always been a time consuming and challenging task; tasks that
the Professional Land Surveyor members of CLSA were pleased to
perform.
To have fields ready to go for the fall season, AYSO Region 85
needs 22 fields laid out at 14 different locations with these fields
ranging in size depending on the age groups of the players.
On April 23, 2011 CLSA members Tim Smith, Pete Wiseman,
Dee Smith, myself and three surveying students, met with
AYSO Region 85 volunteers Jim Bothwell and Michele
Horwich to lay out 2 of their soccer fields. They were quite
excited to see just how a land surveyor would go about performing
this task which usually takes them approximately 3
hours to accomplish.
The first field we surveyed was at Serrano Intermediate
School in Lake Forest, CA. After setting up the total station and providing
a hands-on demonstration of how the total station worked, we
had the requested 11 points for the field set in about 40 minutes. To
say the least, Jim and Michele were somewhat wowed! After surveying
this field we drove about 1 mile to a second location,
Olivewood Elementary School, to lay out another field of the same
size. The surveying of this field took us about 25 minutes to complete.
Afterwards, I was able to spend some time speaking with Jim
and Michele about how important it is for land surveyors to gain
some positive exposure through outreach.
We thought this would be an
excellent opportunity to showcase the
land surveying profession to the soccer
playing youth, and their parents.
Since completing the original survey
of soccer fields for Region 85,
CLSA members from Orange County,
Los Angeles and Riverside/San
Bernardino Chapters have participated
in layout approximately 50 fields for
AYSO. I would like to thank the 30 volunteers
who joined in these efforts!
AYSO was appreciative of our
efforts and allowed CLSA an opportunity
to further our goal of creating public
awareness for the land surveying
profession by providing us booth space
at their opening/photo day event. On
September 10th, Jay Seymour and
Mark Danielson, represented CLSA at
the opening day/photo day ceremonies
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www.californiasurveyors.org