ARA Meeting Minutes
August 19th, 2024
Open Session
Board Members in Attendance: Luke, Bichen, Dave, Nima, Edwin, Claire, Max, Steve, Aldwin
Working Groups Updates
Tech Working Group:
Tamas just got back from Europe. Nothing to report at this time but the WG hopes to have another demo ready for the next meeting.
Outreach Working Group:
Lots of outreach initiatives going on but nothing specific to report.
Rules and Judging Working Group:
Still waiting for WRC to approve the lower penalties draft. Lots of additional WRC initiatives are slowing down the process.
Tamas passed the WRC ref exam while in Europe (congrats!) and shared some information about it. WRC is hoping to be able to provide this exam in the US and it has 3 sections:
General reffing questions
Scoring hands
Chinitsu hands
The WG has had some discussion on certain outlying cases and is working with WRC to get answers.
Some discussion on active vs. passive ref for events.
Education and Resources Working Group:
Luke has a google doc style guide for the tournament-in-a-box that follows a basic checklist for running a tournament including pairing using a Good Enough Golfers style system so others can run their events using it.
Request for additional information added from board members and community members about venues and hotels as part of the overall package (Claire and Dave offered to help edit)
Other Business
Professional Organizations
WRC pro test announcement soon and looking for an option for an online test thereafter
Nothing new from Saikouisen
IORMC
2nd qualifying round has been completed
Next two sessions aren’t until mid-September due to competing events
A rules clarification is needed from IORMC about kiriage mangan
Community conversation about positive tournament experience - summary of points
Unnecessary actions at the table may worsen the experience, like revealing someone’s waits at ryuukyoku
Players often do not know how to challenge a ruling or appeal to the head judge
Assurance that time will be given back for judge calls should be clearly announced
How do we address chronic slow play?
Some people when having issues, will not call a judge, nor will they give feedback to the observer or TO, but they will tell their friends and then gossiping starts
Actively judging behavior, introducing a table strike tables that are too loud, giving a strike to noticeable bad behavior which will include individuals acting out and tables that might happen to be too familiar with each other that banter too much
Suggestion for an open and reserve division as the tournament scene grows
When your game is done, go to the waiting area and do not linger and make conversation in the play area!
Bylaws Proposal
A two-tiered structure consisting of:
A council with a single voting representative from every eligible club that serves to ratify measures from the board.
An executive board that leads working groups and other projects. These board members do not get votes on the council unless they are also serving as club representative.
Yearly elections are held with 4 seats up for reelection each year. A term is 3 years in length.
Questions from the community about bylaws:
What constitutes a club? Some guidelines are being discussed:
At least 12 people affiliated with the club inside the ARA database
Meetings at least once per month in a public location
Some sort of public facing available information such as a website
Can two people in the same club be members of the board?
Yes, the executive board has no voting power, but they get to direct the organization through the closed session and working groups.
The board may internally decide on initiatives and how to carry them out, but all final proposals are ratified by the club council.
Accelerated election cycle to allow people to get on the board?
A special election is planned for seats as we expand the board
Our WRC qualification cycle has worked well this year and too much turnover may hurt that continuity
4 seats/year should be sufficient
Votes of no confidence?
Suggestion that a 75% vote of no confidence can remove a board member
Closed Session
Sparrows Nest tournament on Oct. 26-27 approved. Needs to be announced soon or it will not count for qualification. Registration will open at a time that is not overlapping with NAO or travel periods surrounding it.
Etiquette data to be sent to the rules & judging WG for recording and adding to the pertinent sections of the tourney-in-a-box documents.
Establishing the Club Council and developing a system for asynchronous voting:
Need club info: discord information, club name, number of people, location, frequency of public meetups
Outreach WG responsible for initial list of clubs, to be registered by the Tech WG when the application goes live
When the council is formed, they can be responsible for approving additional clubs
Google forms will work for voting, especially for ranked-choice
Next Meetings Sept. 16 (bylaws special meeting), Sept. 30 (general meeting)
Possibly no meeting held in October because there is a tournament every weekend, if so the general meeting will be held as early in November as possible.