Massachusetts Chess Association
Board of Director Meeting Minutes
Sunday, June 11, 2017, 12:00pm
Panera Bread, Cambridge, MA
ATTENDEES: Nathan Smolensky (President), Bob Messenger (Treasurer), Andrew Hoy (Clerk), Paul Arond, Dmitry Barash, Larry Gladding, Steve Winer, and Steve Frymer.
NEXT BOARD MEETING: Monday, July 24, 7:00pm at Panera Bread, Cambridge, MA
1. Meeting Minutes
MOTION: Approval of minutes from the April 2, 2017 board meeting (NS/BM).
VOTE: Passed, 6-0
MOTION: Approval of minutes from Annual Meeting during the Mass Open on May 29, 2017 (NS/BM).
VOTE: Passed, 6-0
2. Board of Directors Vacancy
12 MACA members were elected to the Board of Directors (4 officers and 8 directors). One of the directors declined his position, so a vacancy was created. Lawrence Gladding was the candidate receiving the most votes who was not elected to the Board, so he was nominated to fill the vacancy.
MOTION: Appoint Lawrence Gladding to the MACA Board of Directors (NS/BM).
VOTE: Passed, 6-0
3. Election Results and Destruction of Ballots
The paper ballots from the recently concluded election will be saved until the Board authorizes their destruction. The paper ballots will be saved for approximately 3 months and the record of electronic votes will be saved as long as is feasible.
4. Committees and Chairs
Committee chairs and Coordinators were nominated and selected for the various MACA committees. Please see Appendix A for a complete list of positions and descriptions.
Committee chairs appoint and remove committee members as needed and schedule committee meetings. The chairs are also responsible for submitting reports to the full Board of Directors at each board meeting. The MACA President serves on all committees ex officio.
MACA does not have a formal list of positions but instead creates appropriate committees and appoints chairs as needed.
It was noted that committee reports should be submitted to the entire Board ahead of each meeting via email so that the directors can review the reports and prepare questions.
Since the meeting was running long, formal committee reports were not presented at the June 11th meeting and instead will be distributed via email at a later date.
5. Posting Meeting Minutes Online
In order to keep the membership up to date on what is happening at board meetings, the Board will strive to approve and post minutes online as soon as possible. The minutes must be approved before they can be posted online. Going forward, the Clerk will submit the proposed minutes to the Board via email and an email approval of the minutes will be requested. After the Board has approved the minutes, they will be posted on the MACA website.
ACTION ITEM: Andrew will work with Tiffany Wang in order to get access to post minutes online.
6. TD Identification at Tournaments
At some MACA tournaments it can be difficult to identify tournament directors and official assistants. This is mostly the case at scholastic tournaments and especially when parents help direct tournaments on an ad hoc basis. In order to make it easier for players to recognize officials, the Board discussed several options for wearable paraphernalia. These options included lanyards, hats, shirts, and armbands. Lanyards were favored because they can be loaned to helpers for a single day and wearing a lanyard is not considerably difficult.
When lanyards were researched in the past, there was a concern that the minimum quantity for a customized order would be cost prohibitive. Larry offered to research purchasing options for lanyards. The ideal lanyard will have text (for example, Tournament Director or Tournament Assistant) and the space to add a business card or other insert with the director’s name on it.
ACTION ITEM: Larry will research lanyard options and the associated costs and present his findings to the Board.
7. Travel Request
Tianna Wang requested a stipend to travel and compete in the World Cadet. In the past, MACA has offered $500 per player in order to offset expenses associated with travel to chess tournaments including airfare, food, and lodging. MACA does not have an official policy for awarding these stipends with the exception of offering the $500 stipend to players that win the state championship and represent MA at the Denker, Barber, and NGTOC. MACA needs to clarify its policy for these stipends, and also clarify its own position about supporting top local players. For example, there was a desire to pay masters and state champions like Lawyer Times to teach in city libraries, however this program could not get off the ground. There are concerns that the current policy simply rewards players that know about the stipend without supporting all of our players. In order to clarify the MACA policy, we will create a committee to examine options for player support and present a recommendation to the Board.
MOTION: Create a committee to examine MACA support for top young players in a sustainable and complementary manner to be chaired by Steve Winer. (NS/AH)
VOTE: Passed, 7-0-1
MOTION: (Re: Tianna Wang financial support) Inform Tianna Wang that funds are currently frozen and MACA is assessing future plans for the player support budget. (NS/BM)
VOTE: Passed, 8-0
8. Next Meeting
Next meeting set to be 7pm on Monday, July 24th at Panera in Cambridge. This meeting was later cancelled.
MOTION TO ADJOURN
VOTE: Passed, 6-0-2 |