BoD meeting report

[oiuyt]

I'll throw up a link to the minutes once I have them (expecting that I'll see them some months before the USFA website does....). Meanwhile here's a brief synopsis of what went on. I wasn't there for any of the committee meetings, but here's information from the BoD meeting.

Report from the Executive Committee Meeting:
1) implementation of the tournament official fee structure.
Per diem changed to $20/day (from $40/day).
Tournament committee, bout committee, armorers, trainers, medical, etc. get an additional $75/day honoramium
Referees with a 1 or 2 get a $100/day honorarium
with a 3 get $65/day
4 or 5 get $45/day
6-10 get $20/day

Analysis: This means that referees rated 6-10 are back to the original $40/day, everyone else gets an increase. One thing that I found interesting was that even an entry level armorer gets more than a level 3 referee. Another note is that the honorariums will be reported on 1099 forms and are considered taxable income. The base $20 per diem is considered reimbursement of expenses (dinner, etc.) and is therefore non-taxable.

2) Modification to how the money from the Ray Miller gift is distibuted to athletes capping the per athlete payment at $5000.

3) FOC will publish a list of approved people, one of whom must (at the expense of the section) be present at each section's championship.

Analysis: This requirement (having an FOC at sectional championships) is not new, merely newly going to be enforced.

4) A couple of notes about some items that should have been recorded in last season's financials but were received after the books had closed

5) Appointment of a Marketing and Fundraising Task Force including Edgar House, Donald Anthony, Phil Reilly, and Michael Massik.

6) New travel/reimbursment policy approved -- basically the same form as what referees, etc. have been using with a few ambiguities clarified and the new rates from item 1 included.

Report from the BoD meeting:
(I'll use the numbering of the motions from the agenda rather than recap each motion)
All the various minutes, committee reports, budget report, etc were accepted. There was extensive discussion about the EC report (recapped above), mostly with regards to actions 1 and 6 (mostly 1).
Now for the part that people probably care about, the 11 motions in the second part of the urgent section of the decision phase....
The first 8 motions were all approved, most after extensive discussion. The following modifications were made:
for motion 1) a minimum of 3 qualifiers was added (ie the old qualifiers had 30% with a minimum of 2 people, after the change we have the top 25% with a minimum of 3 qualifying). Basically just take the table given and merge the first two boxes.
2) no modifications
3) 30% was modified to 25% and the minimum of 3 was added to make it consistent in structure to everything else.
4) no modification
5) no modification
6) no modification
7) It was added to this that in addition to a division I team event, to be held with the div I individual national championships, that in every year there would also be a senior team championships. Ie, in years (such as this season) when D1 champs are in April there is a team event in April and another at summer nationals in July, and in years (such as last year) when D1 champs are part of summer nationals there are both D1 team and senior national team events held in July (so 2 team events aimed at seniors each year regardless of when D1 champs are).
8) It was specified that the qualification path be the same as that to D1 team (the motion had required a qualification path but hadn't specified one).
Motion 9 was moved from urgent to 1st hearing. The offical minutes will include a write-up of what the format that is being proposed includes, this write-up wasn't available in hardcopy yet this weekend. There will be a format for a single weapon team and a format for a 6-weapon team. From the discussion it seemed fairly generally accepted that the implementation date, if this gets accepted, will not be until 2005 (rather than try to get people to switch over with very little notice).
Motions 10 and 11 were tabled until the February meeting to be held in conjunction with JO's. There therefore wasn't any discussion of these issues.
First hearing items:
as these aren't decision items the discussion is generally just a sort of feeling out thing and clarification of any ambiguity in intent. There was a generally very positive feeling about Mr. Masin's motion, Mr. Sullivan's motion was only briefly touched upon, if I had to guess, I would expect it to pass in February as well.

-B :)

[oiuyt]

One comment about the BoD decisions that didn't occur to me at the time, but rather later Saturday evening after I had returned home. It seems like the qualification path to D3 events is very nearly the same as the path to D2 events now. How many C's are invovled in most division's D2 NQ's? Granted they should mostly be finishing in spots that are D2 qual spots, that doesn't leave many additional spots below that level for D3 qualifiers.

My division (New England) last year in MF had 37 participants for 12 qualifiers (30%). This year that would be reduced to 10 qualifiers. We also had 7 auto quals (mostly people that had qualified to junior or cadet nationals). Of these 37 people, I believe only 4 had C's (it's possible that there were 5). This leaves 33 D and under fencers or 9 D3 qualifying spots. Granted the 4 C's don't fill these spots, and every auto D2 is still an auto D3 qualifier (qualifying for D2 already qualifies one from D3), this means that if the same tournament were run under the new rules one would need to finish in the top 17 to qualify for D2 and the top 20 to qualify for D3. Not a significant difference.

The rationale propsed for making D3 something that actually needs to be qualified for is that it's a national championship event, just showing up at a qualifier shouldn't be considered enough... the national championships should be for the best fencers in each class. Given that the USFA doesn't really have data on where the people that actually go to nationals placed in their local qualifier, it is very indetermined how these changes will affect the field sizes in Charlotte. It's possible that reducing the number of qualified people significantly will also significantly lower the number of entrants, it's alos possible that nearly everyone who bothers going to nationals is of a sufficient level that they will clear this raised bar. This year will sort of be an experiment to see what effect these changes will have.

-B :)

[kro]

Thanks for the info...

When figuring out who qualifies for Div III out of the Div II Qualifier, I take the motion to read that you exclude the C's that (should) have the upper spots. Pull the C's and take the top 25% of the rest.

Do you know if these changes will apply for this season or next?


kro

[Craig]

Thanks for the update.

[DHCJr]

Originally posted by oiuyt
Analysis: This means that referees rated 6-10 are back to the original $40/day, everyone else gets an increase. One thing that I found interesting was that even an entry level armorer gets more than a level 3 referee. Another note is that the honorariums will be reported on 1099 forms and are considered taxable income. The base $20 per diem is considered reimbursement of expenses (dinner, etc.) and is therefore non-taxable.-B

I agree that is wrong. The trouble is getting the Armorers to agree to testing for certification. Without that how do you tell an apprentice.

[oiuyt]

That was my point. We have a bunch of world-class armorers who clearly should be considered the 1's of their field. We also routinely have fairly inexperienced apprentice types that I know more than, have more experience than, and could do a better job at more of the tasks required than. There's absolutely no differentiation under the current system, in large part because it's hard to do. Referees with an established ratings system it's easy.

Here's an incentive for armorers to build (or find a good/acceptable way of actually using the framework that has already been set up and isn't used) some sort of classification system. By classifying the armorers the best, most experienced would likely end up with more of the pie while the trainees would likely lose some and end up in an equitable position with their equivalents in the refereeing ranks.

How to test for certification obviously isn't an easily answered question and one that I understand has already been a matter of some debate over the past several years.

Just as I feel that it's stupid for an entry-level armorer to get more compensation than a level 3 referee, I also feel that people like yourself, Dan, Joe, etc. should receive just as much as the best referees.

-B :)

[edew]

I think the armorers should use a modified ELO system for rating themselves. In that case, Matthew Porter would be a 210 while some schmuck with an unclean shirt and a toothpick in his (or her) mouth would be 9.7 at best.

Ratings move up (down) after every mask punch that was (in)correctly executed, after every lame that was (in)correctly scanned, and after every bodycord that was (im)properly tested.

Extra points for being friendly to people.

Lose lots of points for passing a mask that results in death or serious injury.

It's a modified ELO system because we want to have a zero-sum rating system: the armorers get a fixed amount of money from USFA (per tournament, say). It's up to the armorers to decide who gets how much. If Dan DeChaine gets $510 for the weekend, then someone gets only $16.37 (not including tips, of course). If Donald gets $780 for being so great, and they also brought in powerhouses Matt Porter and Dan DeChaine for another $1350 combined, then those poor sods from the midwest or the east coast might have to pay to be armorers. But they like the job so much, they sometimes do pay.

[edew]

On a more serious note, the honorariums are just the additional amount over the base $20, correct? The reimbursement for travel and such are all non-taxed (and will not appear on a 1099), correct?

I can live with $100 or so worth of annual honoraria. It's my first stepping stone into the world of honoraria. Next, become a disgraced congress person and go on college speaking circuit charging $20K per visit, in honoraria of course. Throw in an honorary doctor of letters or doctor of numbers (or whatever) and I'll drop the price down to $19.5K.

[Inquartata]

Grrr, Eric, you beat me to suggesting ELO for armorers!

[edew]

Go make up your own rating system. Then implement it and prove it works. Then submit it as an idea to USFA.

I'm sure you can get a $40 honorarium for your efforts.

[Wizardly]

Yes, because armorers compete against each other in these armory tournaments, where they have to wire up blades for speed and such. They have direct elimination armory tournaments, and the best armorers are those than earn national points! Armorers need Elo scores too!

[edew]

Everything's a competition. That's the nature of, er, nature. Darwinian dog-eat-dog.

I understand the telecommunications industry has an ELO-system, too. MCI is rated 14.

[DHCJr]

Originally posted by Wizardly
Yes, because armorers compete against each other in these armory tournaments, where they have to wire up blades for speed and such. They have direct elimination armory tournaments, and the best armorers are those than earn national points! Armorers need Elo scores too!

No, A true Armorers' Tournament is most often Epee and you each check each others equipment. Whatever you find 'wrong' you confiscate and whatever you don't find, you can't complain about. Then you fence. The fencing is anti-climatic, considering you just wear your street clothes and you can't leave the on-guard line and they just take seconds.

Most of the time involved is checking your opponents weapons.

[oiuyt]

Originally posted by edew
On a more serious note, the honorariums are just the additional amount over the base $20, correct? The reimbursement for travel and such are all non-taxed (and will not appear on a 1099), correct?

That should be the case. I'd save receipts anyway though.

-B :)