Gulf Coast Division
Executive Committee Meeting
February 24, 2004

The meeting was called to order at 2:17 PM by Chairman Andrey Geva at the Starbucks at 5000 Westheimer Road, Houston. Other Officers present were Vice Chairman August Skopik, Secretary Matt Delevoryas, and Treasurer John Trojanowski.

The Chairman immediately began to address what he considered the most pressing single topic, the 2004 Divisionals, previously announced to be April 3-4. There was no practical alternative date available. A report recently received from The Committee [Secretary's note: The phrase "The Committee" herein is meant to refer to the committee with no known official name which was constituted by agreement at the November 16^th meeting of the membership of the Division, composed of a representative of each club, to recommend a policy for awarding certain key tournaments including Divisionals to host clubs] had called for the 2004 Divisionals to be hosted by a USFA club in the Division, with relative priority for clubs being determined by lot. (This same report covered much broader topics, which were not addressed.) The Chairman spoke of this being in general a good idea, but the details being complicated and sensitive, making it not necessarily in the best interest of the Division to follow the recommendation of The Committee. John Trojanowski and Matt Delevoryas spoke of the members and clubs of the Division expecting allocating Divisionals by lot, specifically including the 2004 Divisionals.

The Chairman suggested handling selection of a host by sending an invitation letter to each club mentioning that Salle Mauro would definitely not host Divisionals because of conflicts Mauro Hamza had communicated, that Divisionals would be allocated by lot, apologizing for the extremely short time available due to delays receiving any report from The Committee, requiring each club to express within three days whether it wished to be in or out of priority determination for Divisionals, and advising of a 48-hour opportunity to respond to the outcome of priority determination by lot.

Matt Delevoryas countersuggested instead including all clubs in the lottery (including any which had already denied interest, in view of clubs being seen to be vacillating on the issue), draw immediately, and then proceed contacting clubs in the order drawn using whatever personnel and whatever means of contact would be likely to result in the club accepting or rejecting the hosting opportunity as soon as possible.

Despite some past and present reservations, the assembly accepted Matt's suggestion without objection.

Immediately, Matt Delevoryas then produced a list of the 17 USFA clubs in the Division and handed it to another Officer to put the letters "A" through "Q" next to the club names in any order. He also produced 17 quarters and handed them to another Officer to mark the letters "A" through "Q" on the quarters independently from the placing of the letters next to club names on the list. As the quarters were labeled, they were tossed into a deep bowl. As soon as the 17^th quarter was labeled and placed in the bowl, the bowl was covered, violently agitated, and then offered to the remaining Officer to draw the quarters out of the bowl without being able to see the inside of the bowl. As each quarter was drawn, the letter on the quarter was used to find the corresponding club on the list and mark the order of the draw. Then, the order was immediately transcribed to the Secretary's notes and the original paper kept separate, out of the possession of the Secretary, to allow any later alteration in either record of the draw to be detected. The order of the draw was: 1) Katy Blades. 2) Fencing Club at the University of Houston. 3) Clear Lake Fencing Club. 4) United Fencing Club (formerly the Clear Lake High School Fencing Club). 5) Galveston Fencing Club. 6) Texas A&M University Fencing Club. 7) Alliance Fencing Academy. 8) Westchester Fencing Club. 9) Bayou City Fencing Academy. 10) South Houston High School Fencing Team. 11) Trade of Blades. 12) Knights of Trapani Fencing Academy. 13) University of St. Thomas. 14) Rice Fencing Club. 15) Brazosport College Fencing Club. 16) Spindletop Cavaliers. 17) Salle Mauro. By agreement, the Secretary would promptly disseminate information to the clubs about the lottery, its outcome, and the resulting forthcoming offer(s) to host Divisionals.

Andrey Geva proposed that there exist a Divisional summer camp intended for preparation for Summer Nationals. He explained that the status quo, involving multiple clubs having independent preparatory summer camps seemed to serve the Division less than ideally. He suggested that a combined camp could achieve economies of scale including bringing in prominent outside coaches, sharing strengths of coaches already in the Division, and possibly benefits of venues not available to a camp for a single club, but without disrupting where the financial benefits occur in the status quo (with club and coach income still being associated with how many participants they bring into the combined camp). He described a model of summer camp which seems to be the norm in Europe but relatively unknown in the United States. The idea was generally well received in a general sense, but there was a feeling that it could become a political minefield in the current, or more likely, in a future year if the Division were to use the clout associated with running the official Divisional summer camp in a way which was inappropriately unfair to a specific local coach, club, or venue. It was suggested that if the Division were to get involved in yearly Divisional summer camps, the ground rules should be spelled out at the start quite clearly, prescribing rules which would prevent such potential abuses as were being envisioned.

A question arose about the current whereabouts of the Division's two sets of scoring equipment. The one set which had of late been stored by Katy Blades was still in the possession of Katy Blades. But, the set which had been stored by Texas A&M University Fencing Club since mid-November was no longer in their possession. Matt Delevoryas reported that, apparently, TAMUFC had transported it to The Pouj for unknown reasons, but had not provided for its transportation afterward. Gary van der Wege transported it to the Rose Condon soon thereafter, where it contributed to the obligation of the Division to provide two sets of equipment to the Rose (as an SSCC event). When the Rose was over, TAMUFC was gone and nobody remaining was party to any plan for the transportation of the equipment, so by agreement between Gary van der Wege, Matt Delevoryas, and the organizers of the Rose, Matt took the equipment back to Houston.

The Treasurer spoke of the current state of submitting financial forms required by the USFA. The 2002-2003 financial report was requiring the Division to specify its federal Employee Identification Number (the equivalent of a Social Security Number on tax forms prepared by an entity like a corporation). But, the Division did not yet have an EIN, although the USFA had previously attempted to communicate with the Chairman of the Division about such financial matters (the mail is believed to have been sent to an old address for Andrey Geva at which he no longer lived). The Treasurer was in the process of requesting an EIN from the Internal Revenue Service, but was at that time stymied by a need to answer a question from the IRS about the date when the Gulf Coast Division was founded! By agreement, he would make up an answer of approximately 1947 - 1948.

The discussion then returned for a while to details about a Divisional summer camp.

Matt Delevoryas moved to adopt the previously distributed draft minutes of the February 8, 2004 meeting of the Executive Committee, with the replacement of a confusing sentence describing a $90 check with the sentence: "It was mentioned that there existed a $90 check written by the USFA to the Division, which through some confusion was still undeposited when the check became stale." The motion was adopted without objection.

As Andrey Geva had to depart the meeting before adjournment, he yielded the chair to Vice Chairman August Skopik as he left.

There was additional discussion of the Division's two sets of scoring equipment, both in terms of where it should be stored and how best to use, or not use, the equipment in between uses at tournaments. No consensus was reached.

John Trojanowski pointed out that there exits the USFA's Operations Manual, and that analogously the Division could be well served to have its own divisional operations manual with written information to help the collective knowledge and memory of the Division about how to conduct its affairs. The idea, at only a formative stage, was generally well received.

By general consensus, the meeting adjourned at 3:42 PM.

Matt Delevoryas,
Secretary

Automatically approved Mar. 22, 2004 by action taken Mar. 21, 2004