Oct. 5, 2005 Executive Committee Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 7:44 PM by Chairman Louise Lepie at the Houston Athletic Fencing Center at 4997 West Bellfort, Houston. Other Officers present were Vice Chairman Jerry Dunaway and Secretary Matt Delevoryas. Treasurer Rachel El-Saleh was absent.

Louise Lepie moved to accept the minutes of the August 31^st, 2005 (third previous) meeting as appearing on the Division Web site. The motion passed.

Louise Lepie moved to accept the minutes of the September 9^th, 2005 (second previous) meeting as appearing on the Division Web site. The motion passed.

Louise Lepie moved to accept the minutes of the September 16^th, 2005 (previous) meeting as appearing on the Division Web site. The motion passed.

The Treasurer was not present, and there was no report from the office of Treasurer, save a brief comment from the Chairman that there had been no known financial activity postdating the report given at the August 31^st meeting.

Matt Delevoryas, Chairman of the Equipment Committee, reported on the state of the equipment. He reported:

The two main strip scoring equipment sets are in good shape with two previously reported significant exceptions, and one new exception.

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. I had expected dealing with this during September, but unusual events intervened.

2) Exactly two of the 16 rubber feet of the Favero Millennium reels are missing from their mounting holes. I have no reason any more to believe that the original feet will be found. 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. I had expected dealing with this during September, but unusual events intervened.

3) When the Favero scoring box of the "red set" was unpacked at the Cougar Call to Arms, the adapter to plug the European plug style power supply into an American style socket was missing. This adapter was formerly semi-permanently connected to the power supply with a strap of duct tape. The equipment had never been unpacked since its last use, when it was lent to Salle Mauro for use at its RYC April 30-May 1. I am quite certain that the equipment was returned by Salle Mauro with the adapter missing. When I inventoried the equipment before receiving it back into my custody, I verified that the power supply was present, but I did not think to verify that the adapter was still attached to it. I have not contacted Salle Mauro about this. If Salle Mauro agrees that it used both scoring boxes, then they would have noticed a missing adapter if they weren't lent it. If they didn't notice a missing adapter, they used the adapter and failed to return it. On the other hand, if Salle Mauro denies having used the scoring box at all, then the adapter might have been missing when the scoring box was lent. The equipment was lent to Salle Mauro in exactly the condition that it was returned by Texas A&M University Fencing Club after being used at three consecutive tournaments. The last of them was Divisionals, and I am pretty confident that the box was used, with the adapter still present, at Divisionals. I received the equipment from TAMUFC at the end of Divisionals, and inventoried it at the time. I verified that the power supply was present, but I did not not think to verify that the adapter was still attached to it.

The April Executive Committee meeting required that this equipment be engraved with ownership information. I am assuming, notwithstanding allegations to the contrary, that that resolution did not become null and void on July 31st as a deliberate or indirect consequence of the adoption of new Bylaws. 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. I had plans to do the engraving during spare moments while it was unpacked at the Cougar Call to Arms, but the spare moments did not occur. I intend not to allow the equipment back out of my possession until the requirement is satisfied.

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

Since the August 31st Executive Committee meeting (the last at which a report was presented), the two main sets of equipment have been lent to the Fencing Club at the University of Houston for the Cougar Call to Arms. They have yet to be requested for use for any other tournament. However, they are on call for, and probably will be requested for, the next SSCC tournament, the Longhorn Open November 29-30 in Austin. There is some reason to believe they will be requested for the Battle on the Bayou October 15-16, and the Gobbler's Revenge November 26, but no formal requests have yet to be received.

Louise Lepie reported that she had very recently received communication from B. J. Goins requesting strip equipment from the Division for use at the Longhorn Open.

The assembly discussed the tournaments which had just been held the weekend of October 1-2, 2005, and the seven competitions comprising them. It had previously been stated to have been the opinions of the Officers that none of the competitions had had the adequate notice to the fencers of the Division which the USFA has as a prerequisite to the awarding of classifications, hence the Secretary was absolved of any requirement in the Bylaws to report earned classifications to the National Office, and such reporting would actually be illegal. However, there existed a possibility that the Officers had been misrepresented, and a possibility that the Officers did not all have relevant facts. The assembly briefly mentioned, but declined to entertain, any idea that any of the competitions was not a USFA-sanctioned divisional competition. The assembly only discussed eligibility to award classifications. After much discussion, the assembly resolved by general consent: "It is the sense of the assembly that none of the seven competitions conducted during the tournaments in the Gulf Coast Texas Division during October 1-2 had adequate notice to the fencers of the Division, hence classifications cannot be awarded. For none of the seven competitions was there notice of the competition prior to Monday, September 26^th."

The assembly discussed the upcoming December 2005 Division qualifier tournament for the 2006 Junior Olympics. It noted that the new Bylaws specified that the fees charged to the fencers needed to be in accord with the prevailing rules concerning fees for the Division's qualifiers, or else specifically permitted by the Executive Committee. The Bylaw had existed for only two months, and no rules about qualifier entry fees had been adopted in the meantime, or prior to the new Bylaws. The assembly discussed the situation for a while, noted how the finances for the qualifier one year beforehand had worked, made best guesses possible in the absence of the local organizing committee about expenses this year, noted that very little time remained before the local organizing committee would be expected to mention entry fees, and then resolved by general consent: "The Gulf Coast Texas Division qualifier tournament for the 2006 Junior Olympic Championships shall be permitted to charge up to $10 per fencer, $10 per event, and $10 for failure to pre-register."

The division discussed underwriting referee development in the Division this year. There was considerable discussion of exact details of a program to offer $200 grants, but ultimately it became apparent that the assembly was not ready to enact anything which would result in an automatic disbursement for any specific opportunity which did not get reviewed and approved by the assembly in the future. So, without deciding all implementation details, it was resolved by general consent that the Division would give a limited number of $200 grants during the 2005-2006 fencing year, no more than one per club, for clubs arranging and holding referee development opportunities. No fee would be allowed to be charged to any Gulf Coast Texas Division member partaking of the opportunity, and anyone else partaking of the opportunity would be required to pay the Division $40. Interested parties should forward proposals to the Secretary.

The assembly noted that at its August meeting, it had changed the rules of "the rotation" (the allocation of the "big three" tournaments to host clubs which was adopted at the April 16th, 2004 meeting) to increase the grace period for lapsed USFA club memberships from 30 to 60 days. After expiration of the grace period, any club not belonging to the USFA would be removed from the rotation order. The assembly also noted that the 60-day period had already lapsed but four clubs in the rotation order the previous year still had not renewed their USFA membership. After some discussion, the assembly resolved by general consent: "Although 'the rotation' requires all clubs to rectify expired USFA memberships within 60 days or be dropped from the rotational order, any club still not a member of the USFA may renew its membership on or before October 11, 2005 without being removed from the rotational order."

It was noted that the Webmaster Committee was constrained by existing resolutions of the Executive Committee. These constraints prohibited changing all but certain portions of the Division Web site home page without explicit action by the Executive Committee itself, with the exception of making alterations to it to make correct facts which had become incorrect. But, there were three short paragraphs near the bottom of the home page which the Webmaster Committee desired to remove. After brief discussion of whether to extend the authority of the Webmaster Committee or address this isolated matter, by general consent it was resolved that the Executive Committee permitted the removal from near the bottom of the home page of these three paragraphs

"News items formerly appearing above, but removed can be found here."

"The results from Super RYC (Houston, TX) are available by clicking here."

"Updated (Jun. 4) classification of all fencers with classifications in the Division is available now by clicking here. Please, check your information to make sure it's correct."

By general consent, the meeting adjourned at 10:12 PM.