ARA Meeting 5/19/2025

ARA Meeting Minutes

Board Summaries

  • Edwin/ARML

    • Represented ARML and is planning to step down from the board

  • Luke/Education Working Group

    • Collate, research, and create Mahjong information for clubs and assembly

    • Spreading of the info to be done by Comms

  • Claire/Harrison/Communications

    • Formally Outreach Working Group, rebranded to Communications

    • Claire handles website updates and postings

    • Harrison working on reaching out and getting info from clubs

    • Rebranded from NARMA to the ARA, made a new website, and did an invitational booklet

    • With the ARA Database we have over 50 clubs listed, and even more players

    • 2024 Survey Launched

      • Responses weren’t as spread out as initially wanted, still working through the graphs and data

    • Plan to do more frequent shorter surveys, FAQ page for the database, increase club awareness, and blog post frequency

  • Dave

    • NARMA had a lot of issues then became the ARA with all its goodies

    • Partnering with WRC and EMA and the contributions to WRC via NAO and rules updates culminated in the US getting 16 seats to the 2025 WRC

    • Hopeful to get WRC to the US for 2028

    • Accounting and information availability/management, including player and event lists, was our biggest triumph for the 2025 cycle

  • Tamas/Tech

    • Created the ARA Database Portal

    • ARA ID’s, use them when registering for tournaments

    • You can set a handle or profile picture, if there are privacy concerns you can manage what is displayed. Also fill out your 2028 eligibility form!

    • Upcoming Features: Pro Orgs, tournament result uploads, calendar, APIs

    • Tech needs your help! If you are interested in volunteering, please reach out!

  • Laura/Community Engagement

    • Focused on social media and long/short form content, roundtables, and discussions

    • Activities to date are help with the Tech WG ARA database, Instagram and X accounts, ARA invitational content

    • Plan to do Youtube and maybe TikTok content, document journeys for WRC competitors

    • Have ‘Board member office hours’ for open conversations and discussion

    • Roundtable to help content organization, maybe do a podcast

  • Steve/Rules WG

    • WRC Competition Penalty Level Rules for WRC and invitational events and can be used for leagues/opens

      • WRC Open Level for most other opens as the replacement for “lower penalties”

    • Building ARA Rules Guidebook, relying on judges for tricky situations - codifying this when finished

    • Strike System (Piloted at DC Riichi Open)

      • Lots of things are warnings, but if someone does it repeatedly, there was no incentive to call a judge over without strike system

      • Adapt the penalty level to how many repeated infractions

      • From the judging side, this was great

      • Track all strikes and penalties

      • Google form that had a drop down of every WRC penalty and if it was a dead hand, warning, or chombo (plus notes)

      • Very easy to collect data on

      • 60-70% were new people for those that gave feedback, and people thought it was a nice slap on the wrist without it being too punishing.

  • Bichen/2028 WRC Cycle

    • Lots decided already.

    • Next surveys are coming soon: Curves- WRC 2028 Qualification - Phase 2 QP Functions

  • Kyuu

    • National Championship Tournament project

    • Special presentation May 29th 2025 at 8pm central

    • Projected 2026 at Twitch: KyuuMJ

  • Nathanael

    • Audit of Invitational qualification standings

    • Member of Tech, Outreach, and US Rankings WG

  • Max

    • IORMC - ran US qualifier and acted as a representative of IORMC


Other Working Group Updates

  • Charity

    • We had 2 volunteers to staff with the one project - extra life open; Working with ARA we could have more outreach.

    • Help raise more awareness to these causes. Eg. winter clothing or clothes. 

      • Maybe hosting another online charity tournament? 

        • Can make ARA more inclusive and approachable.

    • Is extra life open is going to be part of ARA in the future?

      • 467 players played in Extra Live (up from 200 something) - and had team incentives

  • USA Rankings

    • Still doing a lot of brainstorming 

    • We got hanchan results for 2024 so now it’s time to format them and testing


  • Professional Organizations

    • Saikouisen

      • USA Pro Test - Registration deadline has passed

      • If you are interested in next year’s Pro Test, talk to Luke.

      • Ryuousen USA Qualifiers - seeds into Ryuousen; Reg is still open! May 30th, 31st, and June 1st.

      • Ryuousen seeded qualifier seats; if you are a club with autotables, contact Saikouisen USA

    • WRC Pros:

      • May WRL. June nationwide WRL: OK, Vegas, NY; US rankings are available.

      • Prizing structure year over year; if you’re interested in 2028, Application and testing dates are pending and probably after WRC.

  • ARML

    • Sign ups are a bit lower; probably getting close to saturation

    • Still going on strong

Other News

  • Elections

    • Submit nominations by June; Steve & Laura & one community member for training will be running it

    • Application is between now and June. Elections two weeks after.

    • If you are a current board member whose term is expiring, please submit your nomination

  • Tournaments

    • Lots of tournaments coming up including Dallas, check them out on ARA database and enter in tournaments you are running!

Closed Session

  • Discussion about Basengo (Big Honba) and whether it is eligible for ARA certification

    • Determined rule was fair, and NYC could run it in their ruleset and be ARA certified still

  • June meeting scheduled for 16th at 6:00 pm pacific

  • Discussion on meeting with Canada’s governing Riichi body for ARA board

  • Vegas ARA certification submission lacking enough information, will reach out to resubmit