The meeting was called to order at 7:50 PM by Chairman Louise Lepie at the Houston Athletic Fencing Center at 4997 West Bellfort, Houston. Other Officers present were Vice Chairman John Trojanowski and Secretary Matt Delevoryas. Treasurer Dennis Meyers was absent.

John Trojanowski moved to accept the minutes of the previous (Sep. 22) meeting as they had appeared on the Division Web site for the last month. The motion passed without objection.

The Chairman asked for a report from the office of Treasurer, and the immediate past Treasurer John Trojanowski spoke. He stated that the savings account statement just received showed a beginning balance of $2,283.17, a deposit of a check from the USFA containing the Division's share of USFA membership dues from several quarters for $1,926, and an ending balance of $4,213.79.

Matt Delevoryas spoke about protocols for the loan of the scoring equipment owned by the Division. It was noted that the Executive Committee had never delegated any authority, so legally all decisions about loans would have to wait for a meeting of the Executive Committee, although in practice Officers routinely had exceeded their authority by lending equipment after determining outside a meeting that unanimous consent of the Officers existed. There was some discussion of the possibility of formalizing what single point of contact should be used by parties seeking such loans, but Matt argued that current problems lay not in how requests were submitted but in the timeliness with which the Officers reached a decision. He indicated that requests uniformly were addressed promptly in the previous administration, but in the current administration there had been five requests made, none answered in a prompt manner, two still pending and three answered only because an Executive Committee meeting occurred at a time the three requests were still pending. A consensus was reached that the Executive Committee was unlikely to meet sufficiently frequently to answer all requests sufficiently promptly. Louise Lepie moved to delegate the authority to loan scoring equipment owned by the Division to Matt Delevoryas as long as he is an Officer of the Division, provided that priority for loan purposes be 1) to SSCC tournaments and Sectionals to satisfy obligations of the Division to those tournaments, 2) to divisional qualifier tournaments, 3) to ordinary divisional tournaments, and then 4) to unsanctioned tournaments in the Division, sanctioned tournaments not under the auspices of the Division, and non-tournament use, and provided that priority for conflicting loans be in the order the requests are received when there is insufficient difference in 1) the priority of the intended loan purpose, 2) the extent to which the conflicting requesting parties have already recently been beneficiaries of loans, and 3) the ability of the parties to cope without the loan. The motion passed without objection.

Matt Delevoryas questioned the replacement of the Division Web site home page by one of the Officers since the last meeting, in view of the consensus reached at that meeting that the Officers wished to examine a final draft before any such substantial reformatting. No action resulted from the discussion, and it was implicit that the assembly ratified the current appearance and could address any dissatisfaction by proposing to alter the new current appearance. Matt questioned two titles appearing on the page which he did not understand to be positions which exist or have any authority - "Tournament Chair" and "WebMaster" [sic]. After some discussion concerning who was doing the majority of the work to maintain the Web site but whether there ever had been any delegation of authority to make decisions concerning the Web site, Louise Lepie moved that Matt Delevoryas be the Division Webmaster, to be responsible for the work of maintaining the Division Web site, and to be authorized to decide matters of appearance, organization, and information content of the Web site other than the home page and within such restrictions as may be established by action of Division bodies with relevant authority. The motion passed without objection.

By general consent, the assembly resolved that the news item currently on the home page titled "Rule Changes Effective August 2004", which had been added in early October, be moved immediately to the "past news" page.

The assembly entertained reports of fears of profiting from collusion and favoring an opponent, and discussed multiple responses. An action taken was that the assembly resolved to issue a reminder as a news item on the Division Web site to fencers, coaches, and referees reminding of the relevant rules of fencing (t.88, t.120).

The assembly discussed the floor cords associated with the set of Division scoring equipment known as the "red set". It was noted that as the red and yellow sets were received from the vendor, both sets had two associated floor cords, four identical cords (which were not Favero cords despite the rest of the equipment order having been exclusively Favero equipment). The two cords associated with the red set had been with the set when it was brought to the November 2003 Katy Blades Invitational in Bellaire, Texas, and custody of the red set was transferred to the Texas A&M University Fencing Club at the conclusion of that tournament, but the cords were missing when the red set was next examined by Division officials, at the January/February 2004 Rose Condon in Shreveport (Texas A&M cords were found on loan in their stead). The best information available was that the cords were with the set when it went to College Station, but that in College Station nobody was aware of any cords which came with the set. In the meantime, one floor cord (not two) of the correct appearance was discovered in the possession of the Texas A&M University Fencing Club. The assembly was of the opinion that the custodian of the set at the time of the loss of the cords was responsible, but that it seemed hopeless to determine the identity of that party. This being the case, the assembly resolved by general consent to purchase two new floor cords to replace the two missing floor cords.

Matt Delevoryas raised issues dealing with the "Gulf Coast Division Circuit" (GCDC). He noted that it had been an unofficial Division enterprise invented early in the 2003-2004 fencing year, to which four division tournaments in that year belonged, and one tournament in the current fencing year had pre-announced intent to participate. He further noted that, notwithstanding it being an unofficial enterprise, it was mentioned five times in official Division calendars, as well as discussed at length in the (unofficial) electronic Gulf Coast Division discussion forum. And, lastly, he noted that, primarily due to outstanding ambiguities in the point calculation scheme, there had never been any declaration of the final placements in the 2003-2004 fencing year, and that there had been a loss of cooperation in the matter by the force behind the creation of the GCDC. After discussion, the assembly agreed by general consent that all mention of the GCDC after the 2003-2004 fencing year would be removed until and unless the GCDC reappeared with fresh life, and that to bring closure to the GCDC for the 2003-2004 fencing year, resolving point system ambiguities and announcing the resulting standings would be committed, the committee consisting of John Trojanowski and Matt Delevoryas.

Matt Delevoryas proposed that a news item be added to the home page of the Division's Web site. He noted that the USFA had discontinued sending any paper newsletters to members (unless specially arranged). Instead, they were sending electronic messages to the e-mail addresses provided by the members on their membership forms. However, this required members to supply a correct and legible e-mail address on their application forms. And, members who did not do such would not be receiving any notification from the USFA that they were unreachable. By general consent, the assembly resolved that a news item be added to the home page which describes this new policy of the USFA, and states that any current member who has not been receiving recent messages from the USFA (with mention of the description and date of at least the most recent such newsletter) probably has not given the USFA a correct legible working e-mail address, and the member should supply it promptly, with the proviso that the news item be as short as possible while satisfying the letter and the spirit of the motion.

By general consent, the assembly resolved that a news item be added to the home page of the Division's Web site concerning the referee development opportunity occurring in conjunction with the November 13-14 RYC at the Houston Athletic Fencing Center. This matter had previously been communicated in detail to all Officers, but no consensus had been reached prior to the meeting.

After some discussion on the topic, for the record John Trojanowski moved that "the Executive Committee resolves that some time this fencing year the Gulf Coast Division will sponsor an armorer's workshop or workshops for fencers caring for their equipment and armorers caring for the equipment needs of tournaments, and that an outside armorer will be brought in, and other armorers from within the Division will be involved." The motion passed by general consent.

Immediately thereafter, as part of the same general philosophy, the assembly resolved that the Division would sponsor two referee seminars in conjunction with the two divisional qualifying tournaments, pending the availability of referee instructors.

Matt Delevoryas raised the matter of "the rotation", the allocation of the "big three" tournaments to host clubs which was adopted at the April 16^th meeting. He noted that some events had occurred relating to "the rotation" which needed to be acknowledged by the Executive Committee in its role of administrator of "the rotation". Matt moved that the Executive Committee officially recognize that Brazosport College Fencing Club, Galveston Fencing Club, Trade of Blades, and United Fencing Club left the USFA on August 1st, and stayed out of the USFA for over one month, hence disappeared from "the rotation", and that later Galveston Fencing Club rejoined the USFA and hence appeared in "the rotation" just after Academy of Fencing (the immediately preceding club to join the USFA anew). The motion passed.

John Trojanowski moved to adjourn. The motion passed without objection. The meeting adjourned at 10:08 PM.