Annual General Meeting of the Council of Australian Scrabble® Players Association Friday 22nd April, 2011 Page 1 Venue: Treasury Building E Block, King Edward Terrace, Canberra Meeting opened at 2pm. 1. Attendance and apologies Present: Glenys Lawrie President WA. Chair, Coordinator Mark Smith President NSW Carol Johnsen President VIC Olga Visser President QLD Tim Reddan President ACT Alan Mathews President TAS Edward Okulicz NSW Katie Rowe VIC. Treasurer, ATB Editor Wayne Willis QLD. Rules Coordinator Richard Birch NSW. ATB Norma Fisher VIC Martin Waterworth QLD. Web site, records, ratings. Frances Adams TAS Christine Foot ACT minutes secretary Apologies: Joyce Browett President SA Chris May NSW Rules Coordinator (Retiring) Adam Kretschmer SA Mattel Liaison Officer 2. Minutes of the 2010 AGM taken as read. Moved: Olga Visser Seconded: Martin Waterworth. Carried. 3. Coordinators Report: taken as read. Glenys will provide an explanation of the ratings management structure. Moved: Alan Mathews Seconded: Katie Rowe. Carried Treasurers Report: Mattel has approved funding of $11,000 to CASPA for 2011. CASPA is to fund 7 entrants in the World Championship in Poland providing $1000 each. Moved: Katie Rowe Seconded: Carol Johnsen Carried Motion to increase the quarterly levy by 50 cents from $2.50 to $3.00. The increase will increase funds by $1800, which will help cover the increased costs of the magazine and insurance. Increase effective from 1st July 2011. - Passed unanimously. A discussion was held about approaching companies for sponsorship. It was decided that CASPA should obtain an ABN before this could be considered. Katie will investigate this. State ASPAs do not have to be incorporated to obtain an ABN, but it would be prudent for them to become incorporated. ATB Editors Report: More people are contributing, and sending photos. Although the ATB is available electronically, this has not seen a reduction in the paper version. Katie and Richard are planning to retire next year, although Richard advised that he may be prepared to edit and publish the ATB. CASPA will need to look for a new editor and possibly a publisher next year. Katie would like more annotated games to be included in the ATB. Moved: Tim Reddan Seconded: Martin Waterworth Carried Annual General Meeting of the Council of Australian Scrabble® Players Association Friday 22nd April, 2011 Page 2 Mattel Liaison Officer Report: A brief email report advised that WA, VIC and QLD have been reporting youth activity to Adam. Glenys stressed that if any state was doing anything with youth/schools to keep Adam informed. ASPA VIC will endeavour to find a young Victorian member to develop a personal relationship with Mattel staff. Ratings Officer Report: There are currently 81 active people with a rating of 500. Edward was asked to send to the ATB an explanation of how a top rated player in a division does not necessarily inevitably lose rating points. Moved: Alan Mathews Seconded: Mark Smith Carried Rules Coordinator Report: Wayne Willis was welcomed to this position as Chris May has stepped down from the role. There have been no rule changes since Easter 2010. There was some discussion about WESPA rules. Version 1 is now being used in the UK. There was a comparison done by Jenny Brysha and Carol will email this to the presidents. Moved: Katie Rowe Seconded: Tim Reddan Carried Web Site Coordinators Report: It was suggested that if the number of hits per year was monitored this could be used in an argument for sponsorship. The tournament file is updated each week. Martin will set up default email alias for the editor, so the email address will not change with a change of occupant and he will redirect emails to the current address. Moved: Mark Smith Seconded: Richard Birch Carried Youth Coordinators Report: Olga stated that 9 Australian youth players represented Australia in the 2010 World Youth Championship. Most of them do their own fund raising. Queensland raised funds for a WA girl and WA also contributed. NSW ran tournaments to raise money for their representatives. 4. Constitution The cosmetic amendments to the Constitution agreed in November 2010 were put to this AGM in accordance with the Constitution for a formal vote. Further, it was agreed to change Section 3.5 - replace Championships with Championship. Section 5.1 - include Scrabble after Australian and replace Championships with Championship. Section 6.1 - replace Ratings Coordinator with Ratings Officer Moved: Tim Reddan Seconded: Katie Rowe Carried The updated constitution will be published in the June ATB and be available on the web site. The web site should include the date to ensure the version is current. Annual General Meeting of the Council of Australian Scrabble® Players Association Friday 22nd April, 2011 Page 3 5. Representative Events Causeway Challenge: 30th November to 4th December, 2011. This will no longer be a representative event and there will be no further CASPA involvement. The first Grand Slam Causeway Challenge: will be held in Melbourne 9th – 12th March, 2012. This event will be included in the Australian rating system as well as WESPA’s. World Championship: will be held in Poland 2011. Australia has 7 places. Mattel Melbourne did not support the Sydney bid for this event due to budgetary constraints World Youth Championship: To be held in December 2011. Trans Tasman Challenge: Will be hosted by Melbourne in 2012. Victoria will set the date in consultation with New Zealand. CASPA will provide $500 for uniforms. 6. Australian Masters/State Challenge Trophy Will be hosted by Adelaide 10/11 Sept 2011 and Sydney 8/9 Sept 2012. It was suggested that the ‘State Challenge Trophy’ be retitled as the ‘State Team Challenge’. Glenys will discuss this with Andrew Fisher as he established and named the event. 7. Australian Scrabble Championship Hosts will be: 2012 Tasmania 2013 Queensland 2014 New South Wales 2015 Victoria There was some discussion about whether there should be 1, 2 or 3 divisions. This will be an item for discussion on the May agenda. It was discussed that if a person has been over 1250 rating points during the 6 months leading up to Easter then they are eligible to play in the Australian Championship. The onus would be on the entrant to provide evidence of this when they submit their entry. 8. Election/Confirmation of Office Bearers CASPA Coordinator Carol Johnsen VIC Treasurer Katie Rowe VIC Editor Katie Rowe VIC Mattel Liaison Officer Adam Kretschmer SA Ratings Officer, Records Martin Waterworth QLD Web site Coordinator Martin Waterworth QLD Rules Coordinator Wayne Willis QLD Youth Coordinator Olga Visser QLD Glenys will act as coordinator until 1st July 2011 when Carol returns from overseas. The chair thanked the office bearers for their continued and sustained volunteer work for Australian Scrabble and welcomed Wayne Willis to the Board. Appreciation was noted for two officers who have resigned during the past year – Mike Clarke as Treasurer and Barry Harridge as Ratings Officer and also for Chris May who retired as Rules Coordinator. The committee thanked Glenys for all the help she has provided over many years. Nomenclature for officers – it was agreed that in future office bearer titles would be prefixed by “CASPA” rather than “National ”; thus CASPA Rules Coordinator, not National Rules Coordinator. Annual General Meeting of the Council of Australian Scrabble® Players Association Friday 22nd April, 2011 Page 4 9. Other Business Collins Word List: The WESPA dictionary committee has proof read the new word list, and it is believed that it is at the printers. It was proposed that the new word list is adopted on the 1st January 2012. There are issues with the word list that will be referred to WESPA and Phil Nelkon. o The font is hard to read o The paper is of low quality o Words 10 – 15 characters are not required o The binding splits easily o Preference for a separate 2, 3 and 4 letter words and Q’s without U’s. An addendum should be available listing all added and deleted words. David Sutton (UK) is producing an “initiation kit”. A new dictionary will not be printed. AU PAIR Software: The current software will run on Windows 7 – 32 Bit version only. It will not run on Windows 7 64 Bit version. Edward Okulicz is writing specifications for a Window program to run tournaments with the same functionality as AU PAIR. Once complete this will go to tender and Expressions of Interest will be called for. CASPA have committed $500 to the new software. WESPA will cover the majority of the cost TSH software is not a satisfactory replacement as it is difficult to use and unpopular. “Classic” event (Darren Browning): Darren Browning has proposed a youth and an open tournament with a minimum of $5000 prize money to be held in country Victoria the weekend before Easter. There are few details at the moment and more information is required. WESPA approval is being requested. WESPA require 20% of entrants be international. Any non-standard tournament needs to go to the State president and then to CASPA for approval to be rated. Meeting closed at 4:35 pm. Next AGM to be held Good Friday 6th April 2012, Tasmania.