Our Lexicon Committee is up and running.

Committee members are Steven Alexander, Christine Economos, Fran Galt, Jim Sherrill, Samuel Smith, and Carl Voss.   They are charged with developing an official WGPO tournament word list.  We thank them for rising to this challenge.

The WGPO Board of Player Representatives (BPR) is pleased to announce the appointment of Nancee Mancel to the WGPO Executive Committee (EC).  Nancee fills the position previously held by Mike Johnson who recently announced his resignation from the EC.

Nancee is a longtime player and director from New Mexico.  She ran the popular Albuquerque tournament for over a dozen years and recently co-directed and co-hosted the innovative 100-games WGPO tournament at her home in Santa Fe. Additionally, for many years, Nancee supplied name buttons to tourney directors all over the US.  Nancee is a retired math professor who taught at Central New Mexico Community College.

We welcome Nancee to the EC and look forward to working with her on the many projects WGPO is planning for the new year.

The Board also thanks Mike Johnson for his service to WGPO during his seven years on both the BPR and the EC.   The organization would not be where it is today without his many contributions and leadership.

The 2020 WGPO General Election and Referendum has concluded, and here are the results.

Congratulations to Keith Hagel for being elected to the Executive Committee, and to Kirsten Gwilliam and Susi Tiekert for being elected to the Board of Player Representatives. Thank you to all candidates who took the time to run.

Results of the referendum are below:

Question 1: Shall WGPO establish, maintain, and make available its own WGPO official
word list to be used for North American club and tournament play.

__x__ Yes, Establish a Independent WGPO Official Word List (64%)
____ No, Do Not Establish an Independent WGPO Official Word List (36%)

Question 2: If the membership votes to establish a WGPO official word list, the following referendum will guide future WGPO committees tasked with the creation and update of this word list regarding the inclusion of slurs. Choose one of the following:

__x__ All words: WGPO’s official word list should contain all appropriately identified words including slurs and other offensive words. (69%)
____ All but a few words: WGPO’s official word list should contain all appropriately identified words except a short list of the most offensive slurs (approximately 10 or fewer). (31%)

The full election results are available at:

Full Election Results

Thanks to everyone who took the time to make your voice heard.

The WGPO Election Committee
Lynda Finn (Chair)
Michael Johnson
Doug Shaw

We want to personally thank the Elections Committee for their dedicated work in running this election, and our general membership for voting in this important referendum and leadership election. The choice of word list is a fundamental part of our game, and we are proud that this decision was made by our membership. The Executive Committee hears your voice and is committed to implementing the results of this referendum.

In light of the YES vote to create an independent WGPO tournament word list, we would like to announce the formation of an official WGPO Lexicon Committee, and will be selecting members for this committee to start in January 2021. If you are interested in volunteering for this important new committee, send contact information (email, phone, address) to ec@wordgameplayers.org by December 28th.

Best,

Deborah Baggett
Keith Hagel (EC-Elect)
Mike Johnson
Steve Pellinen