CASPA Coordinator Report- March 2002

Trevor Halsall CASPA Coordinator, 2000-2002

The Council of Australian Scrabble Players Associations (CASPA) met in Fremantle over Easter, just before the Australian Championships. Here is the final report from Trevor Halsall, Coordinator of CASPA for two full years.

Compared to last year, this year has contained almost no crises. The issue that took the most of my time and energy was however a very important one ? the future of funding from Mattel, including their two-yearly contribution to our WSC team. The result was a document called 'Mattel's Part-funding of CASPA', which gave the new contact at Mattel (Joanne Windhager) a framework for understanding why we are worth subsidising. This was important because our long-term contact at Mattel, Ian Anderson, left the company during the period. (And hence the WSC team contribution was not budgeted for at Mattel, requiring much gentle persistence.)

Contact via email again proved very gainful. Despite more scope for debate over the Net, the system worked well enough for what were very few contentious issues. One unintended consequence of my email address being listed on various sites was that I received a non-member Scrabble enquiry about once every fortnight. Each one was given sufficient information about our Scrabble world to enable them to take part in the future if they wished. There were also a number of enquiries from members, most being resolved without recourse to the committee.

As mentioned in last year's report, some of the issues that we face from time to time are very complex. Ratings, tournament pairing and options for public liability insurance come to mind. This being the case, it may be useful to appoint subcommittees (or at least a 'responsible person') as, or before, problems arise in the future.

Largely I've enjoyed my two-year tenure as coordinator. It certainly has flown by. If my time were more plentiful (and if two years were not the limit), I'd love to continue.

Coordinator report 2001