Notice of Name Change for our Facebook News Group
Notice of Name Change for our Facebook News Group
From: ISC International Softball Congress
To: AlsFastball
Well as we slip into the Holiday Season and towards a New Year, we have taken the decision to change the name of our Facebook News Group.
I was enjoying my job as the Webmaster for the International Softball Congress (ISC) many years ago when one day I decided to register a News Group on Facebook to take advantage of yet another way to promote the game we all love, Fastball.
The News Group has grown from a membership of one to 6.6 K members!
If you love the game of fastball, then there is a great chance that many of your friends are already a member of this News Group. We have grown because so many members have invited their fellow fastball friends to the group.
Most members know that I also have an actual website called “AlsFastball” – It can be found at
http://www.alsfastball.com/
It will continue, at least for now but we are considering closing it down possibly this coming year when our hosting contract runs out. For the past several years, we have been able to keep the page going thanks to the very kind support of a wonderful gentleman from Hamilton, Ontario who pays our hosting fees annually. His support is very much appreciated.
We have found that the number of updates we receive from managers, players, fans, etc. is slowing down. There are lots of other places fans of our game can go and get updates on our sport, including on Facebook. We are leaning towards closing down our own webpage and concentrating on just using our Facebook News Group to share the news we receive on our great game.
As part of that evolution, we have decided to rename our Facebook Page News Group Page to AlsFastball. We have not tested the theory that this should be an easy transition however we have our fingers crossed. In advance of making the change, I wanted to let everyone know that this is coming, so no surprises, we hope.
The time is right for this change. My issues with my vision have gotten worse over the past three years and I am to the point now where I am lucky if I can find three hours in the morning to read my emails and make new postings to the website. Posting news items to the Facebook News Group is much easier, with most being done on my cell phone, forwarding an interesting piece of news to Facebook.
As well, the timing seems right with the ISC and an encouraging fresh approach to how they use technology to promote our game.
The actual name change may come soon, after we make this basic announcement about the change. Changing the outline of the news group may come a bit slower as I am not sure how easy or hard it will be to edit the outline and rules related to the News Group.
The focus of course will still be the ISC, but as many have noticed over time, that has expanded to the many associated topics that link to our great game. Case in point, Michael White, the great pitcher from New Zealand is creating great interest in the women’s game. He is not alone with many well known former ISC players, managers, etc. now involved in the women’s game.
Then there are the feeder groups. The many WBSC groups in International Softball. Many of their players will catch the attention of ISC teams and end up on the rosters you will see down the road at ISC World Tournaments. NAFA has a great history with many of their players and management stepping up to play in the ISC. And it’s no surprise that many of those players may still play the game with NAFA after playing in the ISC. There is lots of movement in our game and we will continue to recognize that if and when we see stories worth sharing to the News Group.
We expect that the Junior ranks will continue to grow and many of the rising stars will end up playing senior ball and hopefully many will make it to the world stage with either or both of the ISC and the WBSC.
And let’s not forget the great interest these days in Masters and Legends, great seeing the stars of the game continuing to play in their later years.
Al Doran
ISC Hall of Fame, 2008
EMAIL:
fastball@pmihrm.com - for all news items for AlsFastball
NEWS: http://www.AlsFastball.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2431357717
TWITTER: http://twitter.com/AlsFastball/
Website Director for International Softball Congress (Retired 2015)
