Gulf Coast Division
Executive Committee Meeting
March 21, 2004

The meeting was called to order at 5:13 PM by Chairman Andrey Geva at the Rice University gymnasium, Houston. Other Officers present were Vice Chairman August Skopik, Secretary Matt Delevoryas, and Treasurer John Trojanowski.

Matt Delevoryas distributed draft minutes of the February 24, 2004 meeting of the Executive Committee. Without objection, it was agreed that the minutes would stand adopted 18 hours hence, provided no member of the Executive Committee communicated an objection to the Secretary by that time.

The Chairman expressed a desire for the upcoming annual meeting at which elections would occur, scheduled for April 3 at 8:00 AM, to be conducted quickly, within one hour, so as not to interfere with the predicted start of fencing for the first pair of events at Divisionals. Much discussion at the meeting concerned how to streamline the annual meeting as much as possible without compromising any rights of members.

Andrey Geva stated that he would run for the position of Chairman for 2004-2005, and said he would like to work with the same Officers on the Executive Committee.

Andrey proposed that the Division should change the way candidates run for the office, so names of candidates have to be made public a month prior to the election day

It was noted that there were 15 different proposed amendments for the Bylaws, although most were expected not to be controversial. The Chairman proposed that the Secretary communicate with the representatives on 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 16th 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]. The communication would inform them of the 15 proposals. It would express the idea that the Officers wished the members of their clubs to consider the proposals and, possibly, find them in advance to be sufficiently acceptable to plan not to have to debate the motions at the meeting. Specifically, it would indicate that unless they registered an objection concerning a proposal by 48 hours before the meeting for a given proposal, plans would be made for the proposal to be moved at the meeting with provision for only a negligible amount of meeting time. After some expository discussion, the idea was adopted.

The Chairman expressed concern that there would be a large number of proxies at the annual meeting, for casting election votes. But, there was no mechanism in place to minimize the possibility of fraudulent proxy forms. He suggested (without regard to permissibility) that one alternative to avoid this would be to have no proxies at all. But, given the existence of proxies, it would seem useful but unduly burdensome if the voter would have to have his proxy statement notarized. However, all proxy statements could have to be on special forms provided to the voters already bearing authenticating signatures of current Officers. There was some discussion over the extent to which the Executive Committee had any authority to constrain the acceptance by the annual meeting of a proxy form, which is simply a particular type of limited power of attorney, which is lawfully executed, and some discussion of both the liberty and the wisdom of the Executive Committee to take such action with just under two weeks remaining until the meeting. The Executive Committee agreed that the representatives on The Committee would count votes at the elections. The Chairman asked the Secretary to notify the representatives.

Matt Delevoryas spoke, refusing to endorse the idea of restricting what proxy forms should be permitted, but offering his best suggestion for the technological approach for putting individualized and verifiable proxy forms into the hands of each voter. Using the same mechanism he had already just used (in anticipation of eventual reimbursement for expenses by the Executive Committee) of arranging for the Post Office to generate identical individual postcards to each household in the Division announcing the meeting, he could generate identical individual postcards to each voter in the Division with an explanation and a proxy form on the message side, but on the reverse side would appear not just the voter's name and address but something looking like a member number or a subscriber number as part of the address. Each of these numbers would be unique, appearing on only one postcard, and with no discernible pattern for predicting the actual number on the postcard for a member even knowing his name and address. He, the Secretary, would know exactly which numbers were on which card, but divulge this information to no one else. This way, any voter fraud involving fraudulent postcards would either be revealed by the absence of the correct number (or the Secretary himself would somehow have to be a party to the fraud). There was concern raised about expected cases where the voter would not have an opportunity to cause the postcard to be delivered to the person casting the proxy vote in time for the meeting. A workaround for such cases was devised. The voter could contact the Secretary by any means, state their identity, and state the person who should be entitled to cast the vote. To prove the authenticity of the communication, the voter would have to supply the unique number included in the address on the postcard. Then, the Secretary would be responsible for arranging for the designated person, and the annual meeting, being aware of the grant of power of attorney. As with the entire system of cards which could be authenticated with information in the sole possession of the Secretary, this too would restrict the possibility of proxy fraud (except if the Secretary himself would be a party to the fraud). The Secretary himself expressed concerns over any system which was predicated on the integrity of just one person, himself. But, there was some sentiment expressed that without regard to whether the Secretary were actually liked, or whether his views were liked or respected, no members were known to have doubts about the integrity of the current Secretary. After some further discussion, a majority of the Executive Committee adopted this proposal

The Vice Chairman began to leave the meeting, to attend to transportation needs of a fencer. Just before he departed, an issue was raised of one proposed amendment to the Bylaws which he was known strongly to support, but which had opposition within the Executive Committee. The proposal, known as "Proposition 10", is one with a motion phrased, "In the Gulf Coast Division Bylaws, in Article V, Section 3, substitute 'such time and place as' for 'such time and place as such time and place as', and insert after 'written request of three (3) or more members of the Committee.' the sentence 'Any member of the Executive Committee may participate in a meeting by telephone or other electronic means unless another member of the Executive Committee participating in the meeting objects.'" After some discussion, it was realized that the displeasure with the proposal was addressed by the provision in it that any single member of the Executive Committee would have the power to prevent the acceptability of telephone attendance. At that time, the assembly unanimously resolved that it endorsed the proposal. And, the Vice Chairman departed.

The assembly discussed the practicalities of reviewing proxies at the election for obvious problems (like two proxies from the same member, or the presence as a voter of a member for whom a proxy was held). The Executive Committee resolved to request that all holders of proxies notify the Secretary more than 48 hours before the start of the meeting of the names of the members who gave the proxies. (It was agreed that failure to do so would have no effect on the admissibility of a proxy, but the annual meeting would take longer if holders of proxies do not cooperate.)

Andrey Geva then raised questions about campaigning for Division office, and what constraints there should be on what resources an incumbent could use in the process of seeking votes. The consensus reached was that there were no hard and fast specifications limiting campaigning, but that an incumbent should avoid making use of any information or resources while campaigning if the information or resources were not available freely. In particular, an incumbent could make use of the public knowledge of the names of the members of the Division (information visible to all on the Web site), but that it would be unethical to make use of the knowledge of their addresses in membership records (information known to the Officers only because of their official needs for such information).

It was noted that the whereabouts of the Division's two sets of scoring equipment were unknown since the time that August Skopik was bringing one to the Oz Parsons, and TAMUFC was bringing the other. The equipment was only being presumed to be back in their possessions respectively. The equipment next be required at the Crescent City Open. There was no information on the pair of floor cords which had earlier been noted to be missing. Continuing a debate from the previous meeting, there was additional discussion of policies for custody, loans, etc. of this equipment, but as at the previous meeting, nothing was resolved.

By general consensus, the meeting adjourned at 6:33 PM.

Matt Delevoryas,
Secretary

Approved Apr. 1, 2004