February 2008 BoD Board Meeting

[oiuyt]

Agenda (sans reports -- coming later) attached.

-B

[KD5MDK]

Very interesting topics. I am not used to seeing so many names mentioned in the Executive Committee report as in here. I look forward to attending the meeting itself.

[TBean]

Interesting agenda and I find it perfectly in character that an organization that has little systematic fundraising efforts with its membership thinks that donor advised funds and charitable remainder trusts are the place to start. The USFA would be better served committing to annual apeal campaign.

[NotIndPk]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

Very interesting topics. I am not used to seeing so many names mentioned in the Executive Committee report as in here. I look forward to attending the meeting itself.

.....I was curious: who gets to attend it?

[DJ Apostrophe]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Agenda (sans reports -- coming later) attached.

-B

Thanks for the agenda. Some good stuff in there.

A thought on your motion regarding partnership between the USFA office and FRED...

What if the file that the USFA sent to Peet contained the following info:

USFA Member Number, Classification, Points list data, Year of birth.

Then FRED can be configured to have users enter their USFA member number. Doing so would then associate their FRED user record with the USFA data record.

No personal information is being sent from the USFA (aside from year of birth), and no data can be tied from the USFA file to any individual person without knowing that person's USFA member number.

Reverse lookup on the list would get you someone's member number (i.e. look up someone at Y position on X points list), but that isn't very useful...

Thoughts?

-w

[Greg_D]

Originally Posted by NotIndPk

.....I was curious: who gets to attend it?

Anyone can attend, and many do as observers. Only those actually on the board get to vote or propose motions.

[TooLoftheDeviL]

What is the rationale in adopting the FIE's position concerning epee points?

It seems wrong to follow the FIE in decision like these that stifle innovations and improvements that products like the ziptip and estoc screwless points have attempted to bring to the sport.

Certainly, these kinds of tips have had their share of problems, but the last round of zip tips that I have been using in my epees have been nothing short of amazing compared to dealing with the tip screws in traditional tips. Elements such as the reeless system for sabre and foil have had their problems in the past as well, but with the will and the desire to see a "better" sytem come to life, these problems appear to me (one who has never fenced on said system) to be working themselves out. Why would a similar approach to the tedious and outdated methods of weapons maintenance no see similar gains from encouragement rather than preventative rule changes?

[dekko]

Some immediate thoughts:

1. Surprised the board would need to make a deicision on Barbara, this should be a no brainer and she should be given the lifetime membership.

2. I agree with the motion of the 'trickle down' qualifiers. This change did has many bad effects and hopefully the board will, essentially, reverse what had happened and make this right.

3. Askfred. This one is touchy. I would have to admit I am against this only from the perspective that Askfred, for all the great things this website has done, is still unofficial. To have the USFA load official info in a syatem that is unofficial seems odd. I would be all in favor of a motion for Askfred to become the official repository for all non-national events and have it be official, then this motion would make seem applicable. But, to add official info to a non-official system seems weird.

4. Curious where the attached report is, or are we not allowed to see that one, or is it not out yet at all?

[erik_blank]

"To make the checking of weapons easier and allow the complete observation of the tip and its base, foil fencers are requested to present their foils with bare points not covered with adhesive tape over the first 15cm."

This seems like a really annoying thing for most fencers, to have to strip off their tip tape, and then re-apply it just prior to a competition. Although it may be a real boon for the manufacturers.

[KD5MDK]

1) You think just because something is a good idea it automagically happens?

4) The reports trickle out to the BoD members, and Brad is pretty good about posting all of them. They're supposed to be public information, but the USFA has been less than efficient on that so far. Usually most (60%?) are available by meeting time and the rest never occur.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Hmmm....interesting that there were two references to disciplinary panels.

How does a disciplinary panel get formed, and how does it function? I see very little information about this in the Athlete's Handbook, unless it pertains to an infraction of a fencer at an international meet.

[dekko]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

1) You think just because something is a good idea it automagically happens?

4) The reports trickle out to the BoD members, and Brad is pretty good about posting all of them. They're supposed to be public information, but the USFA has been less than efficient on that so far. Usually most (60%?) are available by meeting time and the rest never occur.

Then I guess the last part would apply and it is not available yet. I know Brad is good with getting this out, he always has been. I hope he keeps it up, and I am sure he will.

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by dekko

{snip}
3. Askfred. This one is touchy. I would have to admit I am against this only from the perspective that Askfred, for all the great things this website has done, is still unofficial. To have the USFA load official info in a syatem that is unofficial seems odd. I would be all in favor of a motion for Askfred to become the official repository for all non-national events and have it be official, then this motion would make seem applicable. But, to add official info to a non-official system seems weird.{snip}

The motion also states: "To ensure the privacy and security of members’ information, the USFA shall work with Acetylene Solutions to establish an agreement regarding the use and safeguarding of the data transferred."

Wouldn't such agreement make askFRED "official"? If not, what else would need to be done to make it official?

--Philistine

[teacup]

The subject of strengthening US teams is great though I don't think these proposals address some other underlying issues in team participation.

These include:
1. Current team qualification path.
2. Club restrictions for entry, compilation teams not allowed. (This penalizes fencers at smaller clubs who may be strong individually but not have two other fencers at their club in which to form a team. It may tend to happen more with women than men.)
3. Scheduling of team events at national tournaments. (Two days after individual event. Many fencers have to go home, no longer being able to miss more work/school. Such will be the case for the April NAC. Or Senior teams scheduled the day before junior individual events so often the strongest junior fencers do not participate in team events.)

[Philistine]

oiuyt,

In your FRED motion, you identify a concern as:

"The threat to collegiate fencers’ NCAA eligibility that could result from their
USFA club affiliation being publicized."

I'm not sure I follow. Is the thought that FRED will change the way it shows club affiliations in the future (or just formalize a policy)? I guess what I don't understand is why a more official USFA-fed FRED would be more of a threat to eligibility then the current FRED.

Is the concern that publicizing a NCAA member's club in the results of a tournament could be construed as the fencer "representing an outside team" in the competition?

--Philistine

[dekko]

[quote=Philistine;659590]

Originally Posted by dekko

{snip}
3. Askfred. This one is touchy. I would have to admit I am against this only from the perspective that Askfred, for all the great things this website has done, is still unofficial. To have the USFA load official info in a syatem that is unofficial seems odd. I would be all in favor of a motion for Askfred to become the official repository for all non-national events and have it be official, then this motion would make seem applicable. But, to add official info to a non-official system seems weird.{snip}

The motion also states: "To ensure the privacy and security of members’ information, the USFA shall work with Acetylene Solutions to establish an agreement regarding the use and safeguarding of the data transferred."

Wouldn't such agreement make askFRED "official"? If not, what else would need to be done to make it official?

--Philistine

As I understand it right now, by Askfred not being official, the two biggest ramifications of this are ratings are not affected and qualfiers for national events are not based on anything seen in any qualifying event, divisionals/section etc, by any results seen on there right now. Is Askfred accurate in this reporting, very likely, only as good as the data supplied, but not official. I do believe it should be and would hope that it can be but until it is it should be up to the fencer to supply the info for themselves. Not sure how having the USFA upload info to an unofficial site of fencer and tournament information would be useful. Again, is it were official, this is understandable but until then.....

Does this aggrement make it official? Not on the surface. If that is the goal maybe it should be spelled out as such. Allowing Askfred to have this info, not so much. Useful, maybe. Official, no.

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by dekko

As I understand it right now, by Askfred not being official, the two biggest ramifications of this are ratings are not affected and qualfiers for national events are not based on anything seen in any qualifying event, divisionals/section etc, by any results seen on there right now. {snip}

I think I understand your point--I think we were using "official" in two different ways. You seem to be objecting that FRED's results aren't official--and thus can't be relied on by competitors/organizers as they may vary from the USFA's information (which would be "official"). Correct?

I was using "official" in the sense of being officially recognized by.

Does this aggrement make it official? Not on the surface. If that is the goal maybe it should be spelled out as such. Allowing Askfred to have this info, not so much. Useful, maybe. Official, no.

If I understand you now, I still don't see the downside. While the results would presumably still not be official (in the event of a discrepancy between FRED's results and USFA, the USFA would still win, even if this motion passed)--I don't see why this should be a problem.

AIUI, the motion is designed more to give a tool to organizers, in determining (among other things) eligibility for tournaments. In that sense, the information FRED would have would be "official"--though the posted results (which have the benefit for memebers), would not be official.

Given that--what are the potential negatives?


--Philistine

[JEC]

Originally Posted by DJ Apostrophe

Thanks for the agenda. Some good stuff in there.

A thought on your motion regarding partnership between the USFA office and FRED...

What if the file that the USFA sent to Peet contained the following info:

USFA Member Number, Classification, Points list data, Year of birth.

Then FRED can be configured to have users enter their USFA member number. Doing so would then associate their FRED user record with the USFA data record.

No personal information is being sent from the USFA (aside from year of birth), and no data can be tied from the USFA file to any individual person without knowing that person's USFA member number.

Reverse lookup on the list would get you someone's member number (i.e. look up someone at Y position on X points list), but that isn't very useful...

Thoughts?

-w

For NCAA issues, you could have a question in the tournament registration form as to whether or not to display any of their club affiliations on file with USFA. Thus, the choice gets back to the fencer as to whether and whom they are representing in a given tournament.

[dekko]

Originally Posted by Philistine

I was using "official" in the sense of being officially recognized by.

--Philistine

That's actually how I was using official in this case. Fencer X says to the national office I have new rating check Askfred under tournament Y, the national office doesn't care, they want to hear from the people who ran the event. Fencer X try's the same thing with a national event qualifier, national office says they don't care they want to hear from the tournament organizer.

I am all for Askfred and wish it were official and if that's the jist of the motion then seems a step has been skipped. Seems as though it would need to be recognized as the official warehousing of non-national tournament information, then a tie of information could happen, not the other way around.

Unfortunately it is too easy to make any kind of event results you want and Askfred would have no balance for that check. The division I am a part of just went through that very thing. I believe a balance could be found but until then, I could make up an event that showed any kind of result I wanted and give anyone any kind of rating I wanted. Until there is a system and/or procedure to prevent this kind of fraud and abuse, situation we are all in now, Askfred is not official. I agree it's rare but it's still out there.

I would hope it would become official then dump this info, not the other way around.