Regarding the motions:
Second hearing motions:
Motion 1: The contract for scoring machines with Blue Gauntlet next year specifies scoring/timing machines. This makes the motion mostly moot. A couple of comments. This will likely cause a few slowdowns in tournaments until the referees get used to the new functionality of the machines. Sometimes it can be difficult to get the proper angle with the remote to start/stop the clock, which I have found to be a dsitraction as a referee when down at the end of the strip (trying to make sure the clock has started while still doing one's primary job of watching the actions). These issues improve with experience with the equipment, but next year will have more problems resulting from this.
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so that coaches, parents, teammates, and spectators often have no idea what the score is, and cannot intervene when a scoring error is made.
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Given that coaches, parents, teammates, and spectators have no right to intervene (except in limited circumstances in team competition), this shouldn't actually be a consideration. All of the above named people should know what the score is at all times as it makes the sport more spectator friendly, but none of them have the right to interact with the referee during the bout. If a scoring error is made it is solely up to the fencer to raise the issue. That said, I routinely give the score after every touch in a fairly loud voice, whether on a scoring/timing box or not. I have still had questions from people who a) didn't hear what I said, and b) didn't look at the score displayed on the machine.
Motion 2: Covered later in Kallie Weeks's report. Sounds like the tournament committee doesn't have a problem with this so I expect it to pass, at least provisionally.
Motion 3: This is a good idea that was well received on first hearing in February. I expect it'll pass.
First Hearing motions:
Motion 1: This will be moved to urgent and voted on in July. Given that the FIE has dropped the 750g requirement that'll presumably be amended out of the motion.
Housekeeping note: I read this the same way that Peach does. D1 NACs will remain open to C and above fencers next year.
Secretary's Report: $4,000 in fundraising is WAY lower than the USFA should be going for. The budgeted amount was $15,000, which is way too low a target, in my opinion. In 2002-2003 the budgeted amount was $8,000 and $361,100 was raised ($350,000 as a surprise bequest, so $11,100 from normal fundraising activities). My college team fundraises at levels comparable to the USFA using things like bakesales, credit card sign-ups, etc. We should be able to do better through corporate giving, etc.
Executive Director's report:
Carla-Mae's retirement is a big hit to the USFA. She's done an amazing amount of work for a very long time.
Looking at the membership chart the first thing that struck me was the recent declines in the number of senior members. This started around 1996 and was accompanied by a sharp drop in junior membership in 1997. This, not coincidently I suspect, is also when family memberships (which have taken off) were first introduced. Still seems somewhat worrisome to me that our senior membership has continued declining however. Then again, the growth of other categories that cannibalize senior membership (vet especially, but also coach) also is a large contributing factor. I, personally, am a coach-competitive member rather than senior-competitive, so I'm contributing to the problem. :) Nice to see that we have ~1000 veteran fencers.
Actually the first thing that struck me was "WTF? membership is dropping?" Then I realized that 2004 was to the left of the chart.
Youth Committee Report:
There was a first hearing item in February from Paul Soter that I expected to see as a second hearing item for this meeting that is not on the agenda. Specifically the final first hearing item from February, specifying that only national events could award points in Y10/Y12/Y14 categories (ie SRYC events would not award points in the future). This issue was briefly touched upon in the Youth Committee Report.
Fencing Officials Committee Report:
Mmmm, hadn't realized that the long delays in getting reimbursement checks from officiated were the result of the USFA not having enough cash on hand. That said, the delays WERE rediculously long. I received payment for JO's (mid-February) in May at the earliest.
I suspect that a large part of this is due to when the USFA actually receives money from the USOC compared to when most of that money gets spent.
While it's not a surprise, the following is NOT a good thing (bolding mine):
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Despite the mandate to send referees to FIE World Cups, and the lengthy track record from which we can determine the budget necessary for that line item, we regularly and knowingly under-budget for this line.
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It's one thing to do a poor job of estimating costs or to be overly optimistic about one's ability to reduce cost overruns that have historically plagued an organization, but KNOWINGLY under-budgeting.... Mmmmmm. Bad enough when there isn't intent.
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This has the additional and unintended effect of unfairly putting the microscope directly on the FOC International Assignment Subcommittee while having the effect of magnifying the inevitable issues that arise in the hiring process.
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I suppose this is true if that subcommittee doesn't have input on the budgeted lineitem. Perhaps people responsible for the lineitem should help out the members of the subcommittee by not intentionally under-estimating the costs.
Tournament Committee Report:
Scheduling criteria B2 and B5 don't seem to work very well together... :)
High Performance Committee Report:
First item refers to the topic of discussion held here a few weeks ago regarding the selection of Olympic team coaches.
The fifth item (discipline review panel): Things like this always make me curious about what happened (or is alleged to have happened).
Other comments:
One of Paul Soter's motions from February should have resulted in a report from the Tournament Committee for this meeting. The report (regarding hotel costs, what steps the TC has taken to minimize them, and long-term plan to allieviate these costs) might still be presented, just not as part of the appendix to the agenda, I don't know. I don't see this as a huge report, primarily a restatement of already issued information about the rationale behind using THC, a summary that lists average costs this year compared to previous years (this year I've noticed hotel costs of $80-90 a night at most national events, whereas in previous years the host hotels have generally been $90-110/night. Just saying that formally would fit the requirements of the report, in my opinion.), and a brief outline of what, if any, steps or changes are planned for the next couple of years.
Whew, that's a lot of stuff....
-B :)
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