Growler 2026 Starts July 28th!

As we approach another year of the Growler, here are a few points of order to remind/inform everyone of…

1. Volunteers are needed—Please sign up via the following link and help make this the best Growler ever:  https://growlervolleyball.com/player-info/volunteer/
   All 4 events are now visible as volunteering options (Big, Jr., Masters, and Her).
   If you are a player and want to focus on playing during the events… see if you can get your family and friends involved or volunteer to help with set up and clean up. Remember volunteering counts towards the GPI.
2. Registration is moving forward with 294 players registered as of this email. Captains have been notified of any missing players (based on last year’s rosters), and ALL players need to get registered before Friday EOD.
3. As stated above, Set Up Saturday is 4 days away (Sat 7/25 from 9am to 1pm). Hope to see you there. We’ll have donuts, water, and beer provided to those that attend. (27 of 40 slots filled)!!! The more we get the faster we finish :)
4. There will once again be a Player Pavilion this year on Weeks 1 and 4 at Springdale. Thanks to GFL, Pepsi, and Jersey Mike’s for making this possible. All players will report there to pick up a water/Gatorade and a Jersey Mike’s sub (to ensure each player has something “grab and go” that they can eat later). The Player Pavilion will be on the new deck by the covered Pool Pavilion (where the ice is) beyond the bathrooms.
5. Players can come pick up your T-shirt and bands on Sunday (2-6pm) and Monday (6-8pm) if you want to avoid the Tuesday rush.
6. Reminder to Captains… Captain’s meeting is Sunday (7/26) at 6:15pm at SARC. Beer will be provided :). Feel free to preview the rules before the meeting, but there are no expected changes from how we played in both 2024 and 2025. As always, I am happy to answer any questions if you have them—https://growlervolleyball.com/player-info/rules/
   However, I do want to talk about some ideas for the future (event-related), and as a result, I want every team to have at least 1 representative present so we can talk them through. A.K.A. attendance is mandatory. Nothing too significant, but I don’t want to make changes in a vacuum and without the chance for input from the captains.
7. The Growler website has the Team Schedules listed (https://growlervolleyball.com/2026-schedule-preview/). Please familiarize yourself with where you’ll be over the 4 weeks, as that might help with where you can volunteer, etc.
   All teams play at Springdale/SARC Week 1. All teams play 3 weeks at Springdale and 1 week at either Lake Park or Greystone.
8. Check https://growlervolleyball.com/volleyball-events/calendar/ for the full schedule of events.
9. Please visit the Growler Auction to WIN parking and the Jacob Construction Volleyball cabana (for your team) on any or all 4 nights! : https://app.charityauctionstoday.com/auctions/2026-growler-44642 This is under-utilized every year… Don’t miss out! The auction for night 1 closes in 4 days (Sunday at 6pm). The auction will remain open for Weeks 2-4 until the Sunday prior to those dates.
10. We encourage you to CARPOOL or Uber to Springdale. Please get with your team members and neighbors to share a ride. There will be security at the Food Lion parking lot helping direct you where you can park (they are approved by the leasing company that manages that entire shopping center, but we are covering their tab this year—so treat them well, as they have been great to work with). We will also have signage provided by Springdale Printing! We CAN’T really operate at our current size without that assisted space to park. We have secured overflow parking across Fairbanks at the back of the church (near the basketball goal) after 6pm and within the office complex (blue squares below). Be careful crossing the street (use the crosswalk).
    In general the security team should be sending you to the designated areas below. We’ll have them handing out fliers as well.

11. Last but most importantly… let’s try to get everyone registered on the St. Baldrick’s website under each of your teams. We have 36 teams with 294 registered players currently and just 167 participants currently on the site under the Growler page. I promise the sponsors aren’t doing what they do for the volleyball… they are doing it because of how we monetize the event into amazing things for the fight against childhood cancer. So please, create a St. Baldrick’s page and send an email to those dearest to you with the donation link and explain what you are doing, why, and who it benefits. I promise it will work. We all can “collectively” make this the best year yet!
    On a positive note, we are over $73K and actually 6k ahead of last year at this time… you all are amazing :)

Thanks to all in advance and the GROWLeadERship Team can’t wait for next Tuesday… It is going to be a blast.

See you all at the beach!

Bill Speri

Reminder of the NEXT Tap Takeover at Crooked Hammock, July 29th (the night after Night 1) This is a new partnership and sponsored by the Growler Masters crew! Hope to see you there… I will be :)

Print the certificate portion below and bring it with you, please, to ensure we get the $$$

Thank you to those that went to Gizmo yesterday and to the ladies of the GrowlHER leadership team that put it together and “womaned” the bar!

Growler Crew,

Lots of KEY information in this email for Growler 2026 and some “action items” for everyone to care for… I appreciate your patience as you read through.

Online registration continues with a few participants still missing:

• EVERY player must access this registration, sign their waiver, confirm eligibility, and pay their now $100 by July 27th to play opening night.
• If you don’t register soon, we CANNOT guarantee your shirt size and color availability.

Volunteering Links are operational

This year we again have Growler, Jr. Growler, GrowlHer, and Growler Masters volunteer opportunities listed online via these links:

• Big Growler: https://signup.com/go/GcjnXXj
• GrowlHer: https://signup.com/go/rKSzUQG
• Masters: https://signup.com/go/WDTYKSz
• Jr. Growler will be out next week

• As you know, volunteering counts towards your team’s GPI.
• Please sign up only for what you intend to staff. We will be checking to make sure the roles are filled by those that sign up for them, and of course we NEED the volunteers when the events happen, so we depend on your attendance.

The 2026 Growler Schedule for Weeks 1 thru 3 is available here: https://growlervolleyball.com/2026-schedule-preview/

• Best of luck as you play across Divisions Week 1 and then fight for the 1st ever Division titles Weeks 2 and 3. Every team plays 3 weeks at Springdale and 1 week at either Greystone or Lake Park.

The next TWO fundraisers… please go out and support them and spend some time with the Growler Nation… Thanks to Greystone Swamp Setters and the GrowlHer leaders for setting these two up.

• Swamp Setter is doing their annual “Guest Bartender” fundraising night at Bottle Rev for St. Baldrick’s, and it would mean so much if you were able to drop by! Our theme this year is Toga Party, so if nothing else you can see us sloppily dressed with gold crowns on our heads, and that seems to be worth the price of admission?! July 9th Full details below.

AND come support our GrowlHer nation and join us for the GrowlHer Tap Takeover on Sunday, July 19, from 5-8 pm! All tips and a portion of all proceeds from the evening will directly benefit St Baldrick’s.

On the topic of GrowlHer, if anyone is interested and is not already on a team – there is a free agent form available for you to fill out and show your interest. Allison and team will take it from there. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScGAITYLtXVte5guDt5Sx6J94nl9ELHt9UGygO_BO8CWkEwYA/viewform

As always, thanks for all that you all do to make the Growler a success each year. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, and I can promise we’ll do what we can to make this the best event possible.

Happy 4th of July!!

Bill Speri

Growler Crew,

We are at 50% registered. Some folks are having issues locating the registration email, and in some instances we have a bad email address or maybe an email address different than what you expected. The initial email was sent June 4th from mail@signup.com with the subject “2026 Growler Player Registration.” Those variables have helped some locate their registration emails. For some, that didn’t work.

SOO, we are extending the deadline to Wednesday afternoon, and I just resent the email (today) to anyone who has not yet registered. So you should see the email in your IMMEDIATE inbox. If you don’t, maybe check another email address you might have used last year or in years past. If still no luck, contact Cristine and me.

Per my last email…

We will increase the cost by $15 after noon on June 24th. It is $85 to start. I am trying to get a report of who hasn’t paid yet for captains. I will send it if we can make that happen.

This is what the email looks like (check Spam/Junk though no one has specifically told me theirs went to either). The below is the original version; again, there should be one from today if you haven’t registered.

There is one link to register and a second link to pay once you click the above. Please only register yourself. One per email address.

Two Fundraisers!!

The first starts Wednesday!

AND the second kicks off after the holiday… JULY 9th! The original Tap Takeover :)

MORE EVENTS ARE COMING!

Bill Speri
Growler Tournament Director

Hello Growler Nation!

1. As you all know, we rely heavily on food sponsors to support OUR fantastic charity event. Providing food to Growler Nation is a must, and nearly all the delicious food we enjoy over the 4-week event is donated! We are especially grateful to our food sponsors because every dollar we do not have to spend on food goes directly to St. Baldrick’s efforts towards finding a cure for children’s cancer. Over the years, we’ve developed some strong partnerships with local restaurants, but as Growler Nation expands, the need for additional food sponsors heightens. Also, each year we tend to lose a sponsor for various reasons, and this year unfortunately is no different.
   ASK: If you have any connections within the foodservice industry (or a restaurant in mind without a connection), please reach out to Kevin Hampton at kvnhmptn09@gmail.com. Regardless of the strength of your connection, Kevin would love to explore how you can potentially help broaden our food sponsor base for this year’s Growler and beyond!
2. Thanks to Original Grills for their support… they raised $5K for St Baldricks!!  Check out the video below!

3. Reminder of the Ladies Social at Lake Park! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Allison (akkroeger1@gmail.com).

Thanks all… Growler registration is coming soon, be on the lookout :)

Bill Speri

2025 was another record-breaking year! $221,852 raised for St. Baldrick’s (UP $10K from ’24 – INCREDIBLE)! We now look forward to 2026 and see if we can top ourselves once again!

Given the above, the unofficial title/theme for this year is “Rally to 222K“

The new St. Baldrick’s site is up, and once your captain gets your team page set up, please go create your individual player page here: 2026 St Baldrick’s site – https://www.stbaldricks.org/events/growler2026

We aren’t planning any real change in 2026 related to how the tournament runs (beyond the standard promotion and relegation of teams among the divisions). Just like most years, the plan is to “Run it Back”!

• We are HOWEVER going to implement a volunteering “floor” and move up the deadline to meet the team donation/raised funds minimum and adjust who plays in the First 4 games based on these “floors”.
  • Basically, if you haven’t met the $1500 minimum by August 14 at midnight or your team does not have more than 5 hours of volunteering COMPLETED as of that date and time, then your team is automatically in the bottom 8 (playing Monday night). If more than 1 team meets this unfortunate reality, the team furthest away by combined percentage will take the 36th spot, and the next 35th, etc. Hoping this is no one.
  • WHY? We just need to make sure a few teams aren’t pulling all the volunteer weight to make this event happen and that every team is active in fundraising because if not, it might just be time to allow some new blood to start a team. Most of our new teams are EXCELLENT fundraisers. If you look at last year, we would have had teams in the bottom eight for missing both the minimum 5 hours of volunteering and less than $1500 raised as of the final weekend before the Growler finale. This change will also help administratively, as it takes extra babysitting to get the $ number in by the old date of August 30th. NOTE: This year you won’t lose your team if you can’t raise the $$ by August 15th (you will have until the end of the month). No double jeopardy. Next year we go with the revised date for both and are considering a few other changes to this area we’ll discuss at the Captain’s meeting. For those proposals, I want to get broader feedback before we implement anything. Early reminder: given these proposals, I will need the captain or a rep from every team this year at the Captains meeting. NOTE: This tweak to who makes up the bottom 8 was instigated by the GROWLeadERship Team.

All teams met their fundraising goals in 2025, so we expect to have the same 36 teams battling for the title again this year. Let me know if that isn’t the case ASAP. Registration will open June 1st. Registration cost will stay at $85 this year as long as it’s completed by June 21st. We’ll bump to $100 if completed after June 21st.

Other Tournament Items:

1. We once again will have four divisions of nine teams. Nine teams per division will allow each team to play a true round robin in its division and crown a champ.
2. We will be acknowledging Division Champs after Week 3 in addition to the Tourney Champ after Week 4. Each will get a trophy to enjoy until the next year’s Growler. We hope this will entice all divisions to drive for a title.
3. Cross division games will be held Week 1. Each team will play one team from the other three divisions. Example: Each A team will play a B, a C, and a D team; each B team will play an A, a C, and a D; etc. This will allow for Weeks 2 and 3 to be 4 games against all of the other teams in your division. The tiebreaker will be head-to-head record and then point differential within division games.
4. All teams will evenly play three weeks at Springdale and one week at a satellite location (either Lake Park or Greystone). Specific dates will be available once the schedule comes out, but e.g., Week 2 – B teams at LP, A teams at GS and Week 3 – C teams at LP and D teams at GS (swapping locations this year). All teams will play on grass for 1 game on Night 1 at SARC, like last year.
5. Assuming all teams return and stay the same from a competition perspective, this will be the division breakdown (yellow highlights are the changes in divisions related to promotion (last year’s division champs) and relegation (worst record in the division)). Again, this is done to represent the consistent strength of teams within each division.
   NOTE: We had an interesting dilemma with the Tourney Champ being a B team last year and yet not winning their division, so I am letting the captains of both the Division Champ and the Tourney Champ decide who will move to A this year. They are discussing and will make the call by June registration. Regardless, with a multi-time champ moving to B from A and either the returning champ or the defending Division Champ also in the mix, the B division’s strength continues to build!!

More information to come in the months ahead, but one last time the GROWLeadERship team wanted to thank you for your tremendous response in regard to both St. Baldrick’s fundraising and the smoothness with which the volleyball events were carried out in 2025. The template is set for continued success. Let’s get it!

Summer is Coming!

Bill Speri

If anyone wants to get more involved in event operations, please let me (wmsperi@gmail.com) know. Otherwise, there’s no time like the present to start organizing your team fundraising creativity (I heard a Seven Oaks pickle ball tourney is also scheduled) and your own individual fundraising drives to make 2026 the best yet! We have a tall mountain to climb following 2025, but I know we can do it! If anyone needs help creating an email to send to your friends and family or creating a post for social media, please reach out! We have MANY talented people doing these things, and I am sure they would share any tips or content for all of us to use.

Also, Unrelated to Growler, but since Growler helps make everyone feel at home on the SARC courts, this is a friendly reminder to ensure you have a SARC member present if you are coming to SARC to play volleyball on a non-growler date when the pool is closed. If no member is present, please play on courts 3 and 4 (I’ll have them up and running within the month – one is playable now, but I need to get some new lines). If the pool is open and you want to play on the courts, please again be with a member and pay the guest fee.