The Word Game Players’ Organization boards met Sunday, February 17, at 1 PM at the Hilton Garden Inn in Tempe, Arizona.
Present:
Executive Committee – Deborah Baggett, Mike Johnson, Steve Pellinen
Board of Player Representatives – Laurie Cohen, Helen Flores, Bennett Jacobstein, Maurice Ross
Acting Secretary – Ruth Hamilton
Absent: Susi Tiekert of the Board of Player Representatives
Mike Johnson led the meeting.
There was no financial report.
Helen Flores reported for the Conduct Committee. Susi Tiekert is the other member. Four drafts of a “Tournament Expectations” document have been circulated. There has been good feedback from the last draft. A fifth draft will be coming soon. This should pretty well wind it up.
The Rules Committee consists of Steve Pellinen, Laurie Cohen, and Mike Johnson. Steve has been the principal architect of a rules document. He had hoped to put it all on one page, but found that that wasn’t enough. The first iteration is about ready to circulate for comment – first to WGPO directors, then to the membership as a whole. The goal of the document is to provide rules for the issues that most commonly arise in tournaments, leaving the oddball situations to the discretion of the director. There was some discussion among those present regarding how blanks should be designated, with the majority feeling that it should be both verbal and written.
Mike Johnson and Winter are the main Rating Administrators for WGPO (day-to-day operations) with other more technical Ratings and Technology support from Henry Yeung and Marc Levesque. There were no status updates.
There was no report from the Tournament Committee.
Helen Flores proposed a Records and Archives committee to preserve our history. She will chair this. Ruth Hamilton will be a member.
There was some discussion about how to preserve the history of disciplines meted to unruly members (such as banning from tournaments). Current directors are informed as needed. Future Board of Player Representatives would be helped by knowing how issues have been handled in the past. But it is felt that the information shouldn’t be publicly available.
Deborah Baggett will document the duties of the Member Liaison. She is serving in the post temporarily, but would like for someone else to volunteer. Susi Tiekert has expressed some interest.
The boards hope to announce the location for 2020 Word Cup 10 at the 2019 Word Cup 9. It is expected that it will be somewhere in the upper Midwest.
The meeting ended at 2:20.
Ruth Hamilton