Post by katyblades on Jul 25, 2006 11:36:17 GMT -6
Dear Fencers,
Many of you are asking why there was such a sparse tournament schedule, and some of you have been hammering for more tournaments both here and in person. Here is an email from the Gulf Coast Division Executive Committtee, and it is very clear that there will not be any GCD sanctioned tournaments except for the Call to Arms and the Fete De Lune in the Houston area in August or September. That is a shame. This email was distributed by Matt but all officers were involved if you look at the minutes.
To: Club heads
CC: Gulf Coast Texas Division Officers and Officers-Elect
This message is a reminder of many new and old procedural, logistical, or rules matters.
RENEW YOUR CLUB'S USFA MEMBERSHIP
RENEW YOUR OWNER(S)/OFFICERS AND COACHING STAFF USFA MEMBERSHIPS
MEETING OF THE DIVISION TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE
QUALIFIER TOURNAMENT PROFIT SPLIT
WAIVERS
TOURNAMENT CHECKLIST
TRAINERS AT QUALIFIERS
FEES FOR QUALIFIERS
SCHEDULING TOURNAMENTS IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
BORROWING EQUIPMENT IN AUGUST
NEW EQUIPMENT BORROWING POLICY
WEB SITE CLUB PAGE LISTINGS
RENEW YOUR CLUB'S USFA MEMBERSHIP
As of July 13th, there were 16 clubs in the Gulf Coast Texas Division. All but one of these clubs had a USFA membership which would expire at the end of July 31, 2006. (Spindletop Cavaliers will expire July 31, 2007.) Please remember to renew your USFA membership. The last time I looked, the USFA Web site still did not have the form, but the USFA claims to have mailed a copy to the street address in their records for every existing club weeks ago. In any case, the form is available on the Southwest Section Web site (at www.southwestfencing.org/USFA/Club%20Membership%202006-2007.pdf).
If you leave the USFA, your club no longer participates in the activities of the Division Tournament Committee. You cannot have the Tournament Committee (TC) schedule any division-sanctioned tournaments. There will be a brief period at the beginning of the new membership year before the TC meets, during which time it wouldn't matter if your club did or did not belong to the USFA, but once the TC meets, it's too late to say that you plan to join the USFA.
If you leave the USFA, and exceed the 60-day grace period in the rules of "the rotation" (see www.gulfcoastfencing.org/rotation.htm), your club loses its spot in the current rotational order for allocating hosting of the "big three" tournaments. If and when your club rejoins after exceeding the 60-day grace period, you go to the bottom of the order, not where you used to be. (The "rotating" for the 2006-2007 "big three" tournaments already occurred, but losing your place in the order would mean that you would reach the top one or more years later than if you don't leave the USFA.)
If you get USFA insurance (and 12 out of the 16 clubs do), the insurance lapses after July 31, 2006 unless you have rejoined the USFA specifying that you are getting (and paying for) the insurance.
And, if your club was one of the three selected to host a "big three" tournament (Alliance, Salle Mauro, UST), please, please, please do not let your USFA membership lapse! You could fall into a legal black hole where it is not clear that you have any right to hold a sanctioned tournament any more, even though you had been selected to host a particular one. Let's not have to do any legal research!
RENEW YOUR OWNER(S)/OFFICERS AND COACHING STAFF USFA MEMBERSHIPS
Remember that the club membership for this coming year requires you to sign a statement that your owner(s)/officers and coaching staff belong to the USFA. Remember also that the USFA Operations Manual specifies that a member of a bout committee must belong to the USFA.
The membership form for the new year is on the USFA Web site, but, since the USFA Web site is currently down as it often is, I cannot give you the URL. However, the "international" USFA Web site (http://international.usfencing.org/) is almost always alive, and it does have the membership form (at international.usfencing.org/docs/2006-2007%20Membership%20Application.pdf).
MEETING OF THE DIVISION TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE
Expect soon to receive an announcement about a meeting of the Division Tournament Committee (TC), a meeting in late August. The Bylaws specify that the TC will put together a calendar for the year by following certain procedures, then give the calendar to the Executive Committee (EC) for review. Each club is entitled to send one representative to the TC. But, if your club doesn't belong to the USFA, your club doesn't exist for these purposes.
QUALIFIER TOURNAMENT PROFIT SPLIT
The Executive Committee (EC) revised the ratio for dividing the profit or loss of a divisional qualifier tournament between the host club and the Division. Formerly, a 50%/50% split, the revised ratio is now 70% for the host club and 30% for the Division. (See the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
WAIVERS
This spring, effective immediately, the Executive Committee resolved that all sanctioned divisional tournaments would use a single standardized Division waiver and consent for medical treatment which is available on the Division's Web site (at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/GCwaiverconsent.pdf). Tournament organizers are to collect signed forms from all fencers, and retain the forms for one year. Any tournament which does not do this is not a tournament of our division, just as surely as any tournament which does not inspect masks is not a tournament of our division. For details, see the message sent to all club heads in May, or a news item on the Division Web site (http://www.gulfcoastfencing.org/news.htm#20060520) or the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
TOURNAMENT CHECKLIST
This spring, the Executive Committee published a checklist of four (as of March), shortly thereafter increased to five (in June) mandatory quality standards for all tournaments of this division. (Non-USFA tournaments can do as they wish. All sanctioned tournaments of this division comply with the checklist, or they aren't sanctioned tournaments of this division.) The Tournament Committee representative ("TC rep") to a tournament is requested to fill out (physically, or just mentally) a checklist for every competition in the tournament, and failure to satisfy one of the standards is sufficient grounds for the TC rep to deny USFA sanction to that competition. The requirements are binding without regard to whether the TC rep notices a transgression, or even whether a TC rep is present. However, since the checklist was adopted, there have been no reports of transgressions. The items on the checklist are all relatively simple and, in the eyes of most but not all, reasonable things. (However, they are things not clearly spelled out in any rulebook, so action of the Executive Committee was required.) The items on the checklist are 1) mask inspection, 2) weapon-testing at strip, 3) piste dimensions, 4) event mergers and splits only if possibility publicized adequately in advance, and 5) waivers (see previous item, "WAIVERS"). For details, see the minutes of the March 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060308.doc June 5 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060605.doc)
TRAINERS AT QUALIFIERS
Starting with this coming fencing season (2006-2007) fencing season, a trained medical person must be arranged for every qualifier tournament held under the authority of the Division. If we continue our tradition of holding all JO qualifier competitions in one tournament, and all Summer Nationals qualifier competitions in one tournament, this requirement applies to only two tournaments in the entire fencing year. Suggestions have been made that this is a desirable thing for any tournament, but the Executive Committee has not enacted any actual requirements or recommendations for other tournaments. (See the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
FEES FOR QUALIFIERS
The Bylaws prescribe that qualifier tournaments must not charge entry fees in excess of the blanket regulations for such entry fees, or, if such exists, in excess of any special regulations adopted for entry fees for that particular qualifier tournament. Since these Bylaws were adopted, there have been two qualifier tournaments. In both cases, the Executive Committee (EC) had not, and did not, enacted any blanket regulations for entry fees, and did adopt special regulations for the tournaments. The EC considered adopting blanket regulations in time for this December's JO qualifiers, but rejected the idea, opting instead to adopt special regulations at a future time, based on information from the local organizing committee (LOC; the host club) about what it would be likely to have to charge based on what expenses seemed to be needing to be paid. Until there is some change in the climate of the EC, you can expect that this will continue. So, any LOC should plan to stay in contact with the EC as the time approaches when it will need to publicize prices.
With the two LOCs so far, and apparently with the LOC for the next qualifier, each LOC didn't want to lose money, but wanted to keep prices reasonable for the fencers, so the EC was more than happy to authorize what the LOC suggested. One can only hope that this tradition will continue.
SCHEDULING TOURNAMENTS IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
The Executive Committee (EC) recently noted that the rules in the Bylaws for how the Tournament Committee (TC) places tournaments make it practically impossible to add any August or September tournaments to the calendar. Further, it was noted that there are two traditional tournaments which tend to be on the last August weekend and first September weekend which were very difficult or impossible to hold if they have to wait for the TC to meet and the EC to review the schedule before the tournaments are sanctioned. Because of this situation, the EC resolved "... that the 2006 FĂȘte de Lune and the 2006 Cougar Call to Arms be sanctioned divisional tournaments on the schedule of the Division, unless, for each of these tournaments, the Division Tournament Committee meets to schedule fencing year 2006-2007 adequately long before the tournament, and chooses not to schedule the tournament as a sanctioned divisional tournament, and if any additional host club wishes to have a fencing year 2006-2007 sanctioned divisional tournament scheduled with more advance notice than the meeting of the Division Tournament Committee can provide, then the Chairman of the Division, in consultation with the other Officers, is delegated the authority to add such a tournament to the schedule of sanctioned division tournaments." This will be in the draft minutes of the July 17th meeting as soon as they are available (which they aren't yet).
What this means for CLFC and FCUH is that they can prepare to hold their traditional tournaments, subject only to the possibility of being left off the schedule by the TC, only if the TC meets long enough before the tournament.
What this means for any club other than CLFC or FCUH is that if some date in August or most of September is of great importance, and a meeting of the TC in late August would be too late to first know that a proposed tournament would be sanctioned, then that club can contact the Chairman of the Division, and offer a reason why the Chairman, in consultation with the other Officers, should sanction the tournament and add it to the divisional schedule.
BORROWING EQUIPMENT IN AUGUST
You are reminded that the Equipment Committee already notified every club that requests to borrow equipment in August should be made now, not in August, unless you want to risk having a perfectly good request to borrow equipment not be granted. As mentioned in that separate notice, this represents logistical considerations unique to this August, not any change of policy.
NEW EQUIPMENT BORROWING POLICY
There were some minor changes of policy enacted at the July meeting of the Executive Committee (EC), which will be described in detail in the minutes of the meeting. But, with one exception, the changes are either so small or apply to such rare occurrences that they do not deserve further discussion in this message.
The one significant change is that all equipment loans require that the borrower sign an agreement which the Equipment Committee will provide, which describes general information about the loan (including that the equipment is supposed to be returned as it was received, or the borrower is responsible for the repair having to be done), and lists any known existing problems with the equipment. In practice, this will affect only a tiny fraction of the loans, as in the past year only two loans (one not even inside the Division) required new parts to be procured and none required hiring any labor.
WEB SITE CLUB PAGE LISTINGS
Please review the "Clubs" page (http://www.gulfcoastfencing.org/clubs.htm) on the Division's Web site. Please be sure the information listed about your club is sufficiently accurate. This may be of more importance to your club and your fencers than you realize.
Note that the USFA requires "adequate notice" of any competition to the fencers of the division before any classifications are allowed to be awarded at that competition. The USFA does not give specific numbers for what is and is not "adequate notice", although they do mention means of communication which could be used for the notice. (The Executive Committee has specified how many days, using what medium, is "adequate notice", so you can know in advance whether you have done something which will be recognized to have been adequate.) One of the means of communications is notifying all the clubs in the Division. (Incidentally, this means that any time you receive notice of the details of an upcoming tournament, your fencers are depending on you to pass the information on to them. Because you received it, the USFA is satisfied, even if you never let your fencers hear about the competition.)
But, what does it mean to notify all the clubs in the Division? It is NOT practical for someone distributing notice of a competition to use a crystal ball to know what clubs exist, and to know how to contact them. In practice, people rely on the "Clubs" page of the Division's Web site to know what clubs exist, and know how to contact them. If you have a bad address, and notification of a competition is mailed to that address, it's your own fault that you, and your fencers, never get the information. If you have a bad e-mail address, and notification of a competition is e-mailed to that e-mail address, it's your own fault that you, and your fencers, never get the information.
Please advise the Chairman of the Webmaster Committee (Matt Delevoryas at MDelevorya@AOL.com) of any changes you would like in your club contact information. If appropriate or necessary, consider listing two different e-mail addresses if that's what it takes to be able to receive official information and pass it on to your fencers on a timely basis.
Many of you are asking why there was such a sparse tournament schedule, and some of you have been hammering for more tournaments both here and in person. Here is an email from the Gulf Coast Division Executive Committtee, and it is very clear that there will not be any GCD sanctioned tournaments except for the Call to Arms and the Fete De Lune in the Houston area in August or September. That is a shame. This email was distributed by Matt but all officers were involved if you look at the minutes.
To: Club heads
CC: Gulf Coast Texas Division Officers and Officers-Elect
This message is a reminder of many new and old procedural, logistical, or rules matters.
RENEW YOUR CLUB'S USFA MEMBERSHIP
RENEW YOUR OWNER(S)/OFFICERS AND COACHING STAFF USFA MEMBERSHIPS
MEETING OF THE DIVISION TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE
QUALIFIER TOURNAMENT PROFIT SPLIT
WAIVERS
TOURNAMENT CHECKLIST
TRAINERS AT QUALIFIERS
FEES FOR QUALIFIERS
SCHEDULING TOURNAMENTS IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
BORROWING EQUIPMENT IN AUGUST
NEW EQUIPMENT BORROWING POLICY
WEB SITE CLUB PAGE LISTINGS
RENEW YOUR CLUB'S USFA MEMBERSHIP
As of July 13th, there were 16 clubs in the Gulf Coast Texas Division. All but one of these clubs had a USFA membership which would expire at the end of July 31, 2006. (Spindletop Cavaliers will expire July 31, 2007.) Please remember to renew your USFA membership. The last time I looked, the USFA Web site still did not have the form, but the USFA claims to have mailed a copy to the street address in their records for every existing club weeks ago. In any case, the form is available on the Southwest Section Web site (at www.southwestfencing.org/USFA/Club%20Membership%202006-2007.pdf).
If you leave the USFA, your club no longer participates in the activities of the Division Tournament Committee. You cannot have the Tournament Committee (TC) schedule any division-sanctioned tournaments. There will be a brief period at the beginning of the new membership year before the TC meets, during which time it wouldn't matter if your club did or did not belong to the USFA, but once the TC meets, it's too late to say that you plan to join the USFA.
If you leave the USFA, and exceed the 60-day grace period in the rules of "the rotation" (see www.gulfcoastfencing.org/rotation.htm), your club loses its spot in the current rotational order for allocating hosting of the "big three" tournaments. If and when your club rejoins after exceeding the 60-day grace period, you go to the bottom of the order, not where you used to be. (The "rotating" for the 2006-2007 "big three" tournaments already occurred, but losing your place in the order would mean that you would reach the top one or more years later than if you don't leave the USFA.)
If you get USFA insurance (and 12 out of the 16 clubs do), the insurance lapses after July 31, 2006 unless you have rejoined the USFA specifying that you are getting (and paying for) the insurance.
And, if your club was one of the three selected to host a "big three" tournament (Alliance, Salle Mauro, UST), please, please, please do not let your USFA membership lapse! You could fall into a legal black hole where it is not clear that you have any right to hold a sanctioned tournament any more, even though you had been selected to host a particular one. Let's not have to do any legal research!
RENEW YOUR OWNER(S)/OFFICERS AND COACHING STAFF USFA MEMBERSHIPS
Remember that the club membership for this coming year requires you to sign a statement that your owner(s)/officers and coaching staff belong to the USFA. Remember also that the USFA Operations Manual specifies that a member of a bout committee must belong to the USFA.
The membership form for the new year is on the USFA Web site, but, since the USFA Web site is currently down as it often is, I cannot give you the URL. However, the "international" USFA Web site (http://international.usfencing.org/) is almost always alive, and it does have the membership form (at international.usfencing.org/docs/2006-2007%20Membership%20Application.pdf).
MEETING OF THE DIVISION TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE
Expect soon to receive an announcement about a meeting of the Division Tournament Committee (TC), a meeting in late August. The Bylaws specify that the TC will put together a calendar for the year by following certain procedures, then give the calendar to the Executive Committee (EC) for review. Each club is entitled to send one representative to the TC. But, if your club doesn't belong to the USFA, your club doesn't exist for these purposes.
QUALIFIER TOURNAMENT PROFIT SPLIT
The Executive Committee (EC) revised the ratio for dividing the profit or loss of a divisional qualifier tournament between the host club and the Division. Formerly, a 50%/50% split, the revised ratio is now 70% for the host club and 30% for the Division. (See the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
WAIVERS
This spring, effective immediately, the Executive Committee resolved that all sanctioned divisional tournaments would use a single standardized Division waiver and consent for medical treatment which is available on the Division's Web site (at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/GCwaiverconsent.pdf). Tournament organizers are to collect signed forms from all fencers, and retain the forms for one year. Any tournament which does not do this is not a tournament of our division, just as surely as any tournament which does not inspect masks is not a tournament of our division. For details, see the message sent to all club heads in May, or a news item on the Division Web site (http://www.gulfcoastfencing.org/news.htm#20060520) or the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
TOURNAMENT CHECKLIST
This spring, the Executive Committee published a checklist of four (as of March), shortly thereafter increased to five (in June) mandatory quality standards for all tournaments of this division. (Non-USFA tournaments can do as they wish. All sanctioned tournaments of this division comply with the checklist, or they aren't sanctioned tournaments of this division.) The Tournament Committee representative ("TC rep") to a tournament is requested to fill out (physically, or just mentally) a checklist for every competition in the tournament, and failure to satisfy one of the standards is sufficient grounds for the TC rep to deny USFA sanction to that competition. The requirements are binding without regard to whether the TC rep notices a transgression, or even whether a TC rep is present. However, since the checklist was adopted, there have been no reports of transgressions. The items on the checklist are all relatively simple and, in the eyes of most but not all, reasonable things. (However, they are things not clearly spelled out in any rulebook, so action of the Executive Committee was required.) The items on the checklist are 1) mask inspection, 2) weapon-testing at strip, 3) piste dimensions, 4) event mergers and splits only if possibility publicized adequately in advance, and 5) waivers (see previous item, "WAIVERS"). For details, see the minutes of the March 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060308.doc June 5 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060605.doc)
TRAINERS AT QUALIFIERS
Starting with this coming fencing season (2006-2007) fencing season, a trained medical person must be arranged for every qualifier tournament held under the authority of the Division. If we continue our tradition of holding all JO qualifier competitions in one tournament, and all Summer Nationals qualifier competitions in one tournament, this requirement applies to only two tournaments in the entire fencing year. Suggestions have been made that this is a desirable thing for any tournament, but the Executive Committee has not enacted any actual requirements or recommendations for other tournaments. (See the minutes of the May 8 EC meeting at www.gulfcoastfencing.org/minutes/EC20060508.doc)
FEES FOR QUALIFIERS
The Bylaws prescribe that qualifier tournaments must not charge entry fees in excess of the blanket regulations for such entry fees, or, if such exists, in excess of any special regulations adopted for entry fees for that particular qualifier tournament. Since these Bylaws were adopted, there have been two qualifier tournaments. In both cases, the Executive Committee (EC) had not, and did not, enacted any blanket regulations for entry fees, and did adopt special regulations for the tournaments. The EC considered adopting blanket regulations in time for this December's JO qualifiers, but rejected the idea, opting instead to adopt special regulations at a future time, based on information from the local organizing committee (LOC; the host club) about what it would be likely to have to charge based on what expenses seemed to be needing to be paid. Until there is some change in the climate of the EC, you can expect that this will continue. So, any LOC should plan to stay in contact with the EC as the time approaches when it will need to publicize prices.
With the two LOCs so far, and apparently with the LOC for the next qualifier, each LOC didn't want to lose money, but wanted to keep prices reasonable for the fencers, so the EC was more than happy to authorize what the LOC suggested. One can only hope that this tradition will continue.
SCHEDULING TOURNAMENTS IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
The Executive Committee (EC) recently noted that the rules in the Bylaws for how the Tournament Committee (TC) places tournaments make it practically impossible to add any August or September tournaments to the calendar. Further, it was noted that there are two traditional tournaments which tend to be on the last August weekend and first September weekend which were very difficult or impossible to hold if they have to wait for the TC to meet and the EC to review the schedule before the tournaments are sanctioned. Because of this situation, the EC resolved "... that the 2006 FĂȘte de Lune and the 2006 Cougar Call to Arms be sanctioned divisional tournaments on the schedule of the Division, unless, for each of these tournaments, the Division Tournament Committee meets to schedule fencing year 2006-2007 adequately long before the tournament, and chooses not to schedule the tournament as a sanctioned divisional tournament, and if any additional host club wishes to have a fencing year 2006-2007 sanctioned divisional tournament scheduled with more advance notice than the meeting of the Division Tournament Committee can provide, then the Chairman of the Division, in consultation with the other Officers, is delegated the authority to add such a tournament to the schedule of sanctioned division tournaments." This will be in the draft minutes of the July 17th meeting as soon as they are available (which they aren't yet).
What this means for CLFC and FCUH is that they can prepare to hold their traditional tournaments, subject only to the possibility of being left off the schedule by the TC, only if the TC meets long enough before the tournament.
What this means for any club other than CLFC or FCUH is that if some date in August or most of September is of great importance, and a meeting of the TC in late August would be too late to first know that a proposed tournament would be sanctioned, then that club can contact the Chairman of the Division, and offer a reason why the Chairman, in consultation with the other Officers, should sanction the tournament and add it to the divisional schedule.
BORROWING EQUIPMENT IN AUGUST
You are reminded that the Equipment Committee already notified every club that requests to borrow equipment in August should be made now, not in August, unless you want to risk having a perfectly good request to borrow equipment not be granted. As mentioned in that separate notice, this represents logistical considerations unique to this August, not any change of policy.
NEW EQUIPMENT BORROWING POLICY
There were some minor changes of policy enacted at the July meeting of the Executive Committee (EC), which will be described in detail in the minutes of the meeting. But, with one exception, the changes are either so small or apply to such rare occurrences that they do not deserve further discussion in this message.
The one significant change is that all equipment loans require that the borrower sign an agreement which the Equipment Committee will provide, which describes general information about the loan (including that the equipment is supposed to be returned as it was received, or the borrower is responsible for the repair having to be done), and lists any known existing problems with the equipment. In practice, this will affect only a tiny fraction of the loans, as in the past year only two loans (one not even inside the Division) required new parts to be procured and none required hiring any labor.
WEB SITE CLUB PAGE LISTINGS
Please review the "Clubs" page (http://www.gulfcoastfencing.org/clubs.htm) on the Division's Web site. Please be sure the information listed about your club is sufficiently accurate. This may be of more importance to your club and your fencers than you realize.
Note that the USFA requires "adequate notice" of any competition to the fencers of the division before any classifications are allowed to be awarded at that competition. The USFA does not give specific numbers for what is and is not "adequate notice", although they do mention means of communication which could be used for the notice. (The Executive Committee has specified how many days, using what medium, is "adequate notice", so you can know in advance whether you have done something which will be recognized to have been adequate.) One of the means of communications is notifying all the clubs in the Division. (Incidentally, this means that any time you receive notice of the details of an upcoming tournament, your fencers are depending on you to pass the information on to them. Because you received it, the USFA is satisfied, even if you never let your fencers hear about the competition.)
But, what does it mean to notify all the clubs in the Division? It is NOT practical for someone distributing notice of a competition to use a crystal ball to know what clubs exist, and to know how to contact them. In practice, people rely on the "Clubs" page of the Division's Web site to know what clubs exist, and know how to contact them. If you have a bad address, and notification of a competition is mailed to that address, it's your own fault that you, and your fencers, never get the information. If you have a bad e-mail address, and notification of a competition is e-mailed to that e-mail address, it's your own fault that you, and your fencers, never get the information.
Please advise the Chairman of the Webmaster Committee (Matt Delevoryas at MDelevorya@AOL.com) of any changes you would like in your club contact information. If appropriate or necessary, consider listing two different e-mail addresses if that's what it takes to be able to receive official information and pass it on to your fencers on a timely basis.