This guide will help those who are going to referee games in Melrose Youth Soccer games in only the City Program.  This guide is not for referees in the Travel Program as those referees are managed and paid through Middlesex Youth Soccer. 

Getting Started

If you are going to be refereeing with Melrose Youth Soccer, you will need to setup an account in the new system called StackOfficials.  To get started, you will need to request an invitation to the system by contacting our referee coordinator, if you have not already.  You will need to let him know the ref's first name, the ref's last name, and the e-mail address to use for the ref.  If the ref is a minor, the e-mail address can be that of a parent or it can be the minor's e-mail address but make sure that it is not a "melroseschools" address. 

Setting Up New StackOfficials account

Once you receive the invitation from StackOfficials, follow the instructions below.  For refs who are minors, a parent and the child ref will want to do the following together. 

• in the invitation e-mail, click the “here” to get started
• in the window that opens, click on the “LOG IN” button in the upper right
• use the same e-mail address that the invitation had been sent to
• If you already have a Stack account with that e-mail address, just enter your password; if you don’t already have a Stack account with that e-mail address, follow the prompts to create a new account
• once logged in, you’ll see a page asking for information and the first and last name should already be filled in
• enter a birth date, gender (as the ref identifies), Emergency Info, and Primary Address
• in the Primary Contact section, leave the e-mail address unchanged but enter the primary phone - if the ref is a child and has a cell phone, you can use their phone here; otherwise, use a parent phone number
• enter the parent info; click Next
• we recommend that you do the Setup Payment Profile to be paid so click the button to do that; then click Continue
• follow the prompts to set up Stripe to get paid:  type of business will be “individual”; choose appropriate bank account or debit card to use or manually enter the bank info; finish up and submit
• you should be returned to the StackOfficials window where you can click “Next”
• enter the ref’s full legal name and their social security number then click Next

You are now back to your dashboard and the setup is complete!  

Adding Payment Info

To receive payment for your refereeing, you'll need to set up the ability to receive payments.  You can use whatever bank information you like - parent or child.  You may have done that as part of the setup above but if you had not done that yet, do the following. 

• if you are not already logged in, go to stackofficials.com and login
• click on the first name on the upper right and select Profile
• select Payment Profile on the left and click to “ADD” a payment method
• follow the prompts to set up Stripe to get payments: type of business will be “individual”; choose appropriate bank account or debit card to use or manually enter the bank info; finish up and submit
• you should be returned to the StackOfficials window where you can click “Next”
• enter the ref’s full legal name and their social security number then click Next

 

Setting Your Availability

After you have set up your ref account, please set your calendar of availability.  Please enter blocks that you are not available into the calendar. 

• click on the calendar icon a few icons to the left of your name in the top bar to begin the process
• once the calendar loads, click on the "+" above the calendar grid
• once the form loads, click on a day to enter availability - you probably only need to worry about Saturdays so start with the next Saturday
  
• select the time that your non-availability starts and the time that your non-availability ends and click "I'm Busy"
• repeat for any additional windows for that day when you are not available
  
• for example, if you are playing a game with a 11:00am start time and you need to be there 30 minutes early and allow for 30 minutes to travel to and from the game and the game will last until 12:30pm and you are available to ref the rest of the day, set the non-available block as starting at 10:00am and ending at 1:00pm
  
• repeat for subsequent Saturdays as far out as you can - for Fall seasons, you can enter Saturdays after Labor Day and going through and including the first weekend of November; for Spring seasons, you can enter Saturdays starting in the beginning of April and going through and including the third weekend in June; see the home page for specific season dates
  

Note that the availability tool allows you to set slots where you are available using "I'm available" but that doesn't help the assignor when assigning games since specifying an "available" slot is the same as not entering anything.  So you should only use the "I'm Busy" feature. 

Receiving Referee Assignments

When a referee receives an assignment, it will be sent to the e-mail address you used during setup.  The e-mail will show the date, time, and location but the ref needs to accept or decline each assignment.  Please get in the habit of accepting or decline as soon as you receive the invitation so you don't forget to act on it! 

• click the “Log in” link in the assignment e-mail or just go to StackOfficials site
• click the “LOG IN” button in the top right
• select your username and enter your password
• on the Dashboard, you’ll see assignments that need attention highlighted in yellow in the calendar
• click on the day in the calendar to show the assignments for that day
• click the “+” to open up the assignment and then click to either Accept or Decline the assignment