Aug. 31, 2005 Executive Committee Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 7:43 PM by Chairman Louise Lepie at the Houston Athletic Fencing Center at 4997 West Bellfort, Houston. Other Officers present were Secretary Matt Delevoryas and Treasurer Rachel El-Saleh. Vice Chairman Jerry Dunaway was absent.

The draft minutes of the previous (July 13) meeting, as they had appeared on the Division Web site, were accepted

On behalf of the office of the Treasurer, the Chairman presented a report from the office of Treasurer. She reported an outstanding $530 account payable for the meeting room used for the July 31^st meeting of the membership which had been convened at the expense of the Division by order of the USFA. A reimbursement check had just been signed. Transportation expenses for USFA representatives Donald Alperstein and Gerrie Baumgart had been incurred for that meeting too, with the cost to be charged against the Division's future rebates from member dues. In fact, the Division would not be charged for the entire cost because of USFA delays arranging flights between when tickets ought to have been bought and when they were really bought. The price increases would be absorbed by the USFA. There had been no other checking account deposits or withdrawals since the report at the previous meeting. It was noted that there still existed accounts payable to Matt Delevoryas for reimbursement for the mailing announcing the April Annual Meeting, and for the 2005-2006 year of domain name registration and Web hosting. It was also noted that the Division had yet to receive its share of the profits from the 2005 Divisionals hosted at Texas A&M.

There was some discussion of a group of people already at work assembling a Division "operations manual", but it was noted that there probably existed no currently valid delegation of authority for the group to do so. Louise Lepie moved to create an operations manual committee, consisting of Evangelina Bibb, Beau Brunson, Rachel El-Saleh, Manuel Rodriguez, Nicole Trojanowski, Louise Lepie, Suzanne Simpson, and Chris Williams, with such chairman as the committee itself may select, to assemble a Division Operations Manual to contain the existing USFA and divisional operations policies and any appropriate explanations and elaborations. The motion passed without objection.

By general consent, it was resolved that it is the sense of the assembly for the Executive Committee to meet on the first Wednesday of each month after September.

Rachel El-Saleh moved to appoint Matt Delevoryas as Chairman of the Webmaster Committee, and as Chairman of the Equipment Committee. The motion passed. As the new Bylaws required that the Executive Committee designate the storage location where the Equipment Committee would store the equipment owned by the Division, Louise Lepie moved to designate the residence of Matt Delevoryas as the storage location to be used by the Equipment Committee. The motion passed.

The assembly noted that since July 31^st, when the last delegation of authority had lapsed, the Executive Committee had not delegated authority to administer "the rotation" (the allocation of the "big three" tournaments to host clubs which was adopted at the April 16^th, 2004 meeting). It was also noted that because time had elapsed, there were events relating to "the rotation" which the Executive Committee needed to acknowledge. The rules of "the rotation" prescribed removal from the rotation order of any club which ceases to belong to the USFA. A 30-day grace period for renewing lapsed USFA memberships was provided by the rules, and the 30 days had just elapsed, with several clubs no longer in the USFA. Louise Lepie moved to amend the resolution defining the rules of "the rotation" to substitute "60" for "30" in the description of the allowed days of grace period of lapsed USFA membership, effective retroactively one week, and also to delegate to John Trojanowski the administration of the rotation through July 31, 2006. The motion passed without objection. The effect of the retroactive applicability of the grace period change was that no club had yet left the rotation due to lapsed USFA membership.

The assembly noted that on September 22, 2004, it had resolved "that $200 of the 2004-2005 fencing year budget be set aside and reserved for use for maintenance of Division-owned fencing equipment, with the intention that in each future year a like amount would also be set aside." The assembly noted that it still held $84 in that fund, with existing authorizations to purchase two floor cords and two Favero Millennium reel feet from that. After brief discussion, by general consent the assembly resolved to transfer an additional $200 into the funds set aside for equipment maintenance, bringing the total to $284.

Matt Delevoryas, who had been the person delegated to handle Division equipment loans until the new Bylaws became effective July 31^st, moving that authority to the Equipment Committee, which had become staffed only minutes earlier, reported on the state of the equipment. He reported that there had been absolutely no changes since the report made at the previous (Jun. 29) meeting. He reported:

The two main strip scoring equipment sets are in good shape with two previously reported significant exceptions.

1) The floor cords still missing for the "red set' and still being substituted for by a better floor cord set owned by Texas A&M University Fencing Club. A previous meeting has authorized purchase of replacements for the Division cords. I have not yet exhausted the final resources in attempting to locate the lost cords, but it now seems beyond the point of diminishing returns. I anticipate replacing the cords promptly and returning the substitute cords to TAMUFC shortly so they can be used as they have planned.

2) Exactly two of the 16 rubber feet of the Favero Millennium reels are missing from their mounting holes. It is not known when the feet disappeared, except that one reel was observed to be in use at the J.O. qualifiers with two feet already missing. A previous meeting authorized my purchase of replacements for the rubber feet, as long as I did not find it disturbingly expensive.

The April Executive Committee meeting required that this equipment be engraved with ownership information. This has yet to be done, but the equipment has left the possession of its custodian only once since that decision was made, shortly after the decision.

There is no change in the status of the Escrime Technologies SG21V1 box.

Since the June 29th meeting, and the July 13th meeting (when it was noted that nothing had changed in the preceding two weeks), the two main sets of equipment have been of relevance to two different tournaments.

In late July, the Fencing Club at the University of Houston requested them for the Cougar Call to Arms. Contingent on no higher priority loan request arriving in the meantime (which is now theoretically impossible), the loan was granted. That tournament has not yet been held, and the responsibility for custody of the equipment and execution of the loan policies has been transferred under the new Bylaws to an Equipment Committee which until minutes ago had not yet even had a chairman appointed. So, although the FCUH request is in accord with existing loan policies, there was nobody besides the Executive Committee itself currently holding authority actually to consummate the loan. Now there is.

In early August, the Clear Lake Fencing Club requested them for the Fête de Lune. CLFC was informed (unofficially) that the requested loan was in accord with existing loan policies, but the Equipment Committee had the authority to carry out those policies, and the Equipment Committee had not yet even had a chairman appointed. Since nobody had been appointed to the Equipment Committee before the tournament, and the Executive Committee itself did not meet and take specific action before the tournament, the requested loan did not occur.

Louise Lepie moved to adjourn. The motion passed. The meeting adjourned at 8:57 PM.