September 2008 BoD Meeting

[oiuyt]

*EDIT*: An updated agenda (with reports) has been uploaded. The appendix with FOC recommended rules changes is a separate file.

edit: Two more committee reports attached to this message.

The Board meeting is September 20-21 in Chicago.

-B

[Peach]

Very clear.

[tchwojko]

Will this:
http://www.usfencing.org/usfa/content/view/2145/109/
continue to be the official home for the Agendas and Minutes?

Can/Should I assume that anything on fencing.net is NOT official, but a draft?

[keith]

I am curious as to what the rational is for the USFA receiving $5 per entry for 'national open' events? Motion 5 first hearing.

Obviously it would generate revenue, in the thousands of dollars, but there seems to be no benefit to the already established regional competitions to apply for this designation.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by tchwojko

Will this:
http://www.usfencing.org/usfa/content/view/2145/109/
continue to be the official home for the Agendas and Minutes?

Can/Should I assume that anything on fencing.net is NOT official, but a draft?

That will continue to be the official home (although notice that it doesn't include the July agenda, which DOES appear in the downloads section of usfencing.org).

The agenda was sent to the National Office late last night and I expect it will make its way onto that page shortly. Meanwhile, what's attached here is the same file that was sent out to members of the Board.

-B

[teacup]

Are the newly imposed and existing squad management fees considered donations and therefore tax deductible? And if not, could they be?

"3. Motion (Mr. Dilworth):Effective immediately, the US Fencing Association will create and maintain the following special accounts to accept donations; Veteran Fencing, Men’s Epee, Women’s Epee, Men’s Foil, Women’s Foil, Men’s Sabre, Women’s Sabre, and Wheelchair Fencing. Any donation made into one of these special accounts will be used ONLY for the purposes of those programs. The Director of High Performance and the Executive Director of the US Fencing Association will report at each US Fencing Board meeting on any donations taken and disbursements made from each account. Any amounts that remain in a special account at the end of a particular fiscal year will be rolled over into the budget of that program for the next year. Under no circumstances may monies be disbursed from any of these accounts for general purposes without the express permission of the full US Fencing Board of Directors."

[oiuyt]

I'm going to leave the thread alone for a bit and then see if there are questions that I can answer in bulk, rather than keep posting continuously for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile, for these two:

Originally Posted by keith

I am curious as to what the rational is for the USFA receiving $5 per entry for 'national open' events? Motion 5 first hearing.

Obviously it would generate revenue, in the thousands of dollars, but there seems to be no benefit to the already established regional competitions to apply for this designation.

It's envisioned that a more complete program would be built up using the funding of those Program Support Fees that would lend value to both the organizers and participants. As mentioned in the motion, this is expected to be similar to the Youth system in concept, but taken to the senior level.

Originally Posted by teacup

Are the newly imposed and existing squad management fees considered donations and therefore tax deductible? And if not, could they be?

I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant, but I would guess that the answer is the same as if your question had been "Are entry fees considered donations and therefore tax deductible." With that edit the answer is almost certainly not, although I know of some tournaments/organizers that claim the answer is yes.

-B

[tchwojko]

Seems like a decent start to the year.

V.B.15 is interesting.
Item V.C seems a bit open ended.
Not sure what VI.1 is.

It'll be interesting to see the minutes.

An in an aesthetic aside, I find the pair of fonts jarring. (Unless it's just because I don't have the appropriate fonts installed.)

The Times New Roman mixed in with the sans serif condensed font is just not right.

Thanks!

[Mo]

Brad,
If there was an issue that a fencer wanted brought up before the board, who is the right person to contact to have the issue presented?

The Momster

[keith]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

It's envisioned that a more complete program would be built up using the funding of those Program Support Fees that would lend value to both the organizers and participants. As mentioned in the motion, this is expected to be similar to the Youth system in concept, but taken to the senior level.

So the funds generated would be partitioned to support the development of the 'open circuit' in a similar way to the proposal in motion 3?

Also is there an agreement with existing large regional events to either designate them or prevent mutual cannibalization of entries? I know I am put of the pomme by the cost, but that is probably just me, and I doubt it would get any more appealing if it's entry field was split with another pricey local 'national open'.

Or is the intention to target regions with sufficient fencing bodies but insufficient resources (refs/BC etc) to run a large event?

Just curious.

[seak]

I am guessing that this may be a prelude to having some large tournaments award a small number of senior points. This is only a guess.

For obvious reasons I am curious about the senior regional circuit thing. However, unless the USFA is going to help with ref hiring/bc/tournament expenses, I'm worried that the fee will get passed on to the fencers, making these already expensive tournaments even more prohibitively expensive.

[peet]

Originally Posted by keith

I am curious as to what the rational is for the USFA receiving $5 per entry for 'national open' events? Motion 5 first hearing.

Obviously it would generate revenue, in the thousands of dollars, but there seems to be no benefit to the already established regional competitions to apply for this designation.

Given that the proposed circuit is to be modeled on the S/RYCs, perhaps another way to ask this question would be "does the S/RYC program have a similar fee in it, and if so, what are those funds used for?"

I imagine that the funds provide for organizational services and support of some kind from the national organization, but that's a vague idea. I'm also interested to know what the real answer is.

Maybe one of the things it could pay for would be an online system for registration, fee collection, results reporting, and automated calculation of points standings for the circuit?

-p

[keith]

Originally Posted by peet

Given that the proposed circuit is to be modeled on the S/RYCs, perhaps another way to ask this question would be "does the S/RYC program have a similar fee in it, and if so, what are those funds used for?"

.... although is that a slightly different model (?). There seem to be a good number of large regional open events, were there an equivalent number of large youth events prior to the establishment of the S/RYCs?

This seems like something which should be an entire proposal rather than a "guess the consequences of the motions" kind of thing.

Originally Posted by peet

Maybe one of the things it could pay for would be an online system for registration, fee collection, results reporting, and automated calculation of points standings for the circuit?

Isn't that already available?

[peet]

Originally Posted by keith

.... although is that a slightly different model (?). There seem to be a good number of large regional open events, were there an equivalent number of large youth events prior to the establishment of the S/RYCs?

I dunno. I'm just taking the motion as written, since it mentions following the S/RYC model.

Originally Posted by keith

This seems like something which should be an entire proposal rather than a "guess the consequences of the motions" kind of thing.

It does seem to bring up a lot of questions. I think the idea could be really great, so I'll be very interested to hear what comes of it. The gap between div2 competition and div1 competition has long needed filling, and building on the good work done by the organizers of the big regional tournaments is a great way to do it.

Originally Posted by keith

Isn't that already available?

SHHHHHH!
Don't tell them that, then I won't be able to charge them for it!

-p

[qatet]

Sooo... I'm having a bit of trouble here. How do people _really_ feel about the 2006 qualification path changes? Cuz I feel like there just might be some strong opinions, but I'm having trouble sussing out the gist of it.

Lemme see... I think I'm looking for something else. Ah yes, here it is:

[noodle]

Motion (Mr. Sobalvarro): That US Fencing establish a ―National Open Circuit‖ using established senior events and modeled after the SYC system.

ahh, wonder it that will make my earlier idea of a circuit type of series obsolete.


also, this agenda needs more tech stuff. is that type of stuff on the backburner, or did i just not give you enough fodder to run with, brad?

[edew]

I am guessing that some well known sectional events, such as the reincarnated Duel In The Desert, the Pomme de Terre, and several others whose names escapes me, will have this national circuit status.

The benefit I see is having USFA move away from running events (and losing money) and run only the necessary Div I/Jr/Cdt (maybe Vet) events and let private enterprise run Div IIs, Div IAs (the national opens), Div IIIs, youths and so forth.

It is beginning to take on a more PGA or WTA format. (Yet another bow to the ever prescient Alan Blakeborough, who brought up this concept yea 10 years ago.)

In the PGA or WTA (or whatever is the professional tennis association acronym), there are several special tournaments like the US Open (golf or tennis), PGA Championships, British Open, Wimbledon, etc. Then there are the not so famous one the like Buick Open or the Bank of the West Open (tennis). These latter ones would be akin to the National Opens.

They live and die based on how well they're run and whether they make money. USFA will make money no matter what, due to the $5/entry fee.

It's possible to envision twenty to fifty such national opens (and they don't necessarily have to be all M/W F,S,E too; they could just be MF, WF or ME MS, WS or whatever combination). USFA does the administrating and publicizing and whatever blessing (perhaps national points or something).

This of course begs to revamp the points system to allow for points earned at all levels and all events. The more events one goes to and the stronger the events are, the more possible points one can get. Again, follow the golfing paradigm and change "money earners" to "point earners".

I can also envision getting local sponsorships for these events. Can OFA and NWFC tap onto Nike for the Nike Fencing Classic? (Better than I can, I'll bet.)

[KD5MDK]

Originally Posted by teacup

Are the newly imposed and existing squad management fees considered donations and therefore tax deductible? And if not, could they be?

I don't see how you can justify calling a mandatory fee a donation.

Originally Posted by keith

I am curious as to what the rational is for the USFA receiving $5 per entry for 'national open' events? Motion 5 first hearing.

Obviously it would generate revenue, in the thousands of dollars, but there seems to be no benefit to the already established regional competitions to apply for this designation.

Later on there is a motion to allow the top four finishers from National Open events to qualify for Div IA. That might attract more people to attend (or more top people, who draw more people), and could also provide an advertising benefit to tournaments.

Originally Posted by Mo

Brad,
If there was an issue that a fencer wanted brought up before the board, who is the right person to contact to have the issue presented?

The Momster

I would contact your Section representative to the board or anyone else on there you know. For Pacific NW, the representative is Dan Berke.

Originally Posted by keith

Also is there an agreement with existing large regional events to either designate them or prevent mutual cannibalization of entries? I know I am put of the pomme by the cost, but that is probably just me, and I doubt it would get any more appealing if it's entry field was split with another pricey local 'national open'.

I suspect there are no agreements yet, since nothing has been passed or established. That said, I expect that existing events will be designated because they have a track record of performance to rely on.

Originally Posted by noodle

also, this agenda needs more tech stuff. is that type of stuff on the backburner, or did i just not give you enough fodder to run with, brad?

I think it's intended to be developed into a comprehensive plan and then approved at once.