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2010 General MeetingApril 15, 2010

Marriott Hotel, Birmingham, Alabama

Ed Hooper called the meeting to order:

ED HOOPER: Welcome to the 2010 USQRA Annual General Meeting. There are a few thank you's. The first thank you is to Lakeshore Foundation and Patty Cornelius and Ashley Collier, who have put in a lot of work in getting us prepared with the meeting room set up, and getting our reports printed and so forth. We thank them for all their efforts this weekend. Thank you. Also the Marriott and what they have done.

Brief description of AGM procedures.

Board members present: Ed Hooper, President; James Ezell, Treasurer; Jason Regier, 1st Vice President; James Gumbert, Commissioner; Robert Murray, 2nd Vice President.

Absent Board member: Secretary Bob Crandall

[Jada Patterson – stenographer and transcriber]

TEAM ROLL CALL

List of teams and team representatives who are present at the AGMTeam Team representative or ProxyArizona Outcasts AbsentBrooks Bandits Chris HullCapitol Punishers Kimball GreyCarolina Crash Gregory TaylorChicago Bears AbsentDenver Harlequins Chance Sumner / Adam ScaturroEast Coast Cripplers Eric Ingram / Kevin CrombieEWAF New York Warriors Mathew CastelluccioFrazier TNT Brian BurgerJackson Jags Ginny BoydstonLakeshore Demolition Patty CorneliusMagee Eagles AbsentMagee Eagles B AbsentMichigan Storm Nick Long / Dave Mengyan

Smashing Stereotypes One Hit at a Time

Midwest Rugby Rebels AbsentMilwaukee Iron AbsentMinnesota North Stars ProxyNortheast Passage Wildcats AbsentNorthridge Kings AbsentNorthridge Knights AbsentOhio Buckeye Blitz AbsentPhoenix Heat AbsentPittsburgh Steelwheelers AbsentPortland Pounders Ed SuhrPossAbilities Crown Rugby AbsentRaleigh Sidewinders AbsentRHI Indy Brawlers James EzellSan Antonio Ruff Ryders ProxySeattle Slam Wimsey CherringtonSharp Edge Troy McGuirkShepherd Smash Matt Edens / David LewisSin City Skulls Eric WolfeSouth Florida Rattlers John BishopSt. Louis Rams Chuck MeltonTampa Generals Dave CerutiTexas Stampede Carolyn BoebingerTIRR Texans AbsentU of A Wildcats Bryan BartenUtah Haggis AbsentUtah Scorpions Tim DaynesWisconsin Renegades Absent

21 teams represented at the call to order.3 regular proxy ballots24 teams represented: There is a quorum.

Approval of 2009 AGM minutes (Attached)John Bishop (South Florida) moved and Ed Suhr (Portland) seconded the motion. No discussion.The minutes were unanimously approved.

Complete red package contains:AgendaPresident’s reportCommissioner’s report


Treasurer’s reportVice President’s reportRAC’s reports (7 available 1 to be given verbally)

REPORTS:

President’s report (Attached - Submitted by Ed Hooper)

MR HOOPER: I would like to preface in putting that out to you by saying it has really been an honor to serve as President of this organization these last four years, and everybody has been a contributor, especially as to how that has gone forward. So I would accept questions on submissions of my report at this time.

Commissioner’s Report (Attached - Submitted by James Gumbert)

JAMES GUMBERT: I would like to say thanks to our outgoing Board. Ed Hooper and Bob Crandall, who has worked tirelessly for you and this Association, and has done well beyond the means of a volunteer job. So, I would just like to say how appreciative of them that I am; and also, to say thanks for Jason Regier and Bob Murray and all their hard work for this year and it's been a pleasure working with all of you. If anybody has any questions about my report I would be happy to address or entertain any questions.

Treasurer’s Report and Proposed Budget (Attached - Submitted by James Ezell)

JAMES EZELL: I basically went off of this physical year’s expenses and what I expected to be the same as last year. I used those figures from last year’s budget. For those that don't know, basically we operate on a March 31st physical year-end so that I can give a full years report at this meeting. If you see those financial statements I prepared, basically –we’re almost $10,000 net income for the physical year. Our tax return is based on the calendar year so we really didn't make that much money. The way our income comes in – we still expect to get a significant amount of income from our option items and from postseason host sponsors that we haven't received from yet, but we budgeted for about $3000 net income and it came to almost $10,000.

For this year’s budget, I have a few questions that have already been presented here and I will just go ahead and address those in case some of you have the same question. There is a line item on the proposed budget, if you're looking at the right one, there will just be one column and it will say "profit and loss budget". We have the balance sheet and the profit and loss. This will say "profit and loss budget April 2010 through March 2011". It will just be one column. There's a line item on here for miscellaneous revenue which is –


last year we had a $4000 license fee for the Gatorade commercial and there may be a possibility that we will have that again this year, so I included it.

Merchandise, John Ershek still has some merchandise that was purchased last year, and balls are available to be purchased from the USQRA, so that's where we get out revenue merchandise sales. I left that number the same as what we had budgeted for this past year and then basically for cash basis, the expense down here is under "cost of sales and report of sales.” I based that number off of what we paid for our merchandise and the majority of that was for our balls that were purchased this year.

Team USQRA, last year we budgeted $2000 from revenue, from that team, and then $2000 in expense. They actually raised almost $15,000 last year but those monies were returned in that effort. So, I just used those figures for this year. It does equal whatever their income is, which is what I put down here.

JOHN BISHOP: Is that the special projects income?

MR EZELL: Yes. Then the website expense, it's a small $50 a month maintenance fee that we pay to keep our website up, so I think we found that that figure should be closer to $600, but in case we have any other charge that should all fit into that, there's a little room there.

I have a detailed ledger up here if anybody is interested in what makes up any of these accounts. This is the first year, and I spoke to this in my report, that I set the books up in Quickbooks and it's made a huge difference. It is a lot easier to generate reports and do whatever kind of analysis, if anybody would like to see anything in particular in that report.

WIMSEY CHERRINGTON: Thanks for setting that up and doing that, I know it's not a small task and thank you. You have cost of goods sold under expenses, did you mean for that to be there?

MR EZELL: It's like a contour asset account. It goes into computing gross profit; so yes, that's where the program puts it.

MS CHERRINGTON: So, there's $7000 in the gross revenue?

MR EZELL: For last year?

MS CHERRINGTON: For last year.


MR EZELL: No, it's a contour asset which is kind of like an expense. The cost of goods sold comes out of your income to calculate your gross profit. So it is an expense to that effect and it is subtracted out. Do you see the number above the $3000, it's $88,000?

MS CHERRINGTON: Yes, got it. Thank you, sorry. One other small thing. You have the $15,000 in gross profit, and down below you've expensed that out.

MR EZELL: I'll change that description, that's what it was before.

MS CHERRINGTON: And again, thank you so much for all that work.

MR EZELL: Once I got it set up it made things so much easier.

MR BISHOP: Just two quick questions. The bank fees, $400, is that monthly bank fees?

MR EZELL: Yes, we made the decision to keep the Bank of America account open for transactions related to merchandise since John is still managing that and I think you have to have a $30,000 balance to appoint those fees, so there is a $30 a month maintenance fee on that account.

MR BISHOP: Then the very last, insurance $8000, and it's listed as liability. Is that part of the wheelchair support registration fees plus the DNO insurance? I think off the top of my head the DNO insurance may be a $1000, $1500 and now it's listed as $8000.

MR EZELL: Yes, wheelchair support was the bulk of that, and I think will be increasing this year so that's why it's about $1400 higher than last year.

MR BISHOP: Thank you.

MR GUMBERT: You will notice in his report the last paragraph on page eight. He says you can expect registration fees to go up somewhere between $100 and $150 per team. Our Association faces the same type of shortfalls that you guys do because of the tournaments and clinics, to operations, to fill in the blank.

We have been operating this past year, at times, where we felt like we were operating in a place where membership should take on a little bit more. We are estimating next year around a $150 increase in your registration fees; so, you guys need to be aware of that. Everything else is costing more and more for what we do and if there are any questions I'd be happy to address those.


MR HOOPER: You should know that putting on a National Tournament runs anywhere between $40,000 to $50,000. That's also a factor in this, and believe me, a $150 increase doesn't even come close to touching a percentage of that fee itself. So, it's kind of the way it's going. So, are there any other questions about the budget? I would like to say, it took four years, but James Ezell finally showed up and I am so grateful that he's here to do the job he's done for us. He has reports we haven't seen since I've been around so thank you, James.

MR EZELL: You're welcome.

PATTY CORNELIUS: Do you guys anticipate with fees going up, for example, international players’ fee, are any of the other fees going up other than team registration?

MR HOOPER: I don't know.

MR GUMBERT: I don't know at this time.

First and Second Vice President’s Reports (Attached - Submitted by Jason Regier and Robert Murray)

JASON REGIER: Any questions on either of the VP reports?

BRIAN BURGER: Are these reports posted online prior to view or is this the only time?

MR HOOPER: Yes, they have been posted online for a week.

RAC Reports (Attached – Submitted by RACs except Mountain East)

MR HOOPER: RAC reports, Chance if you could give us your report we would appreciate it.

CHANCE SUMNER: I have four teams in my Region. Texas Stampede, San Antonio, Houston TIRRs, and Harlequins transferred out. San Antonio made DII. What else do you want to know?

MR HOOPER: Take a look at some of the other RAC Reports. Clinics, that kind of a format. Is there anything, does any board member have anything regarding that?

MR GUMBERT: I'm in that region and that region is starting in – in Texas we are going to be doing monthly games between the four Texas teams because Dallas is expected to come on next year. So every month starting in May we will go in between the four Texas cities and play.


We had a classifier attend the tournament and he saw somewhere between ten and fifteen athletes.

TRISHA SUHR: Thirteen new players.

MR HOOPER: So, that will be included in the report. With that, we're finished with that section. I entertain a motion to accept the reports to be included into the 2010 minutes.

MS CHERRINGTON: Motion to accept all reports.

ED SUHR: Second

MR HOOPER: Discussion. None. All in favor of accepting these reports to be part of the 2010 minutes say “Aye.” Unanimous “aye”. Objections or abstentions, none.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Referee’s (USQRRA) Report (Attached – Submitted by Andy Miller)

ANDY MILLER: I apologize for getting it in late, I wanted it to be reviewed by my Board before I turned it in. I want to read it to you but I just want to point out that our concerns are obviously keeping the pipeline full with new officials and we were only able to have one clinic this year, that was the one in Louisville, and that netted us two new officials.

So, we are looking forward to the USQRRA proposal on how to have at least four clinics a year. We know there is interest out there and we just want to make sure we keep that pipeline full. In terms of member development, one encouraging thing that we found there is an unusually high commitment from several of our new first year officials. Typically first year officials don't get a lot of work, don't get a lot of activity, and as a consequence don't get the development that we saw this year. This past year we had 38 refs out of a membership of 60 and we've seen some stats there. And I would just characterize this year as a good working together year from continuation of last year.

And I sit as a non-voting member on the USQRA Board, but participate in discussions and raise questions both ways. And Gumbie and you Ed, attend our Board meetings as well and I think that's a positive step forward. We work together on a number of issues that you see in the report there and I will entertain any questions that you have.

MR. HOOPER: Any questions for Andy? I would like to say on a personal note, three or four years ago we reached out to Andy, USQRRA Board president, because we didn't have


the greatest relationship with them at that time. We reached out and they reached back and it's been 1000% better ever since. Andy is outgoing as the President of that organization, so thanks Andy, in a personal note to you folks for all the work that you put in.

MR. REGIER: Andy, I've just got a quick question. There are 38 who are active. How's that number for you guys? Would you like more, is it enough?

MR. MILLER: We would like more active, and the way I define active for this particular report was referees that had some level of activity in this past season.

MS. CHERRINGTON: Are you asking that some of the clinic funding be earmarked, specifically for official’s clinics?

MR. MILLER: We're working through the details of the proposal and putting together the framework of that proposal. To answer your question, generally we would like to see some money set aside that covers two instructors, or for the clinic and $100 for –

MS. CHERRINGTON: So my concern is that there ought to be enough money for non-official clinics; so, if that is what's happening we're raising the amount of money budgeted for clinics at this time. Okay, thank you.

MR. GUMBERT: Andy, I sit on your Board meetings, you sit on ours, one of the things I get asked a lot and nobody wants to ask one of the referees, there was a lot of discussion at a couple of tournaments as to how and why these referees were selected and participated at those tournaments. Would you walk the process along for everybody that may or may not have questions with regards to that and what the process is that we work with?

MR. MILLER: In general, one of the changes that we made over the last three years is to switch to a system of Regional Coordinators similar to what your RAC's are, with responsibility in a particular section. So, we have four of those people that are RAC's – Kelly [Kaliszewski], Mitch [Carr], Genny [Gomez], and Marianne [Duda]. The process we implemented for selection of officials for a particular tournament, is we asked the tournament directors to work through the RAC's to determine availability and number of refs required and that type of thing. As opposed to kind of a previous method that had been used where officials were contacted by directors, and it wound up being the same old folks that were getting to work.

What we found with a lot of the people, particularly the newer officials, they were not getting the opportunity to work and get better. So, we implemented this process and what we've asked our refs to do, in terms of selecting officials, is being first and foremost


conscious of having a qualified crew there, because we want to do that, but at the same time, try to work in less experienced officials and schedule them for games that may not be as intense and are more appropriate for their level of expertise for that developmental experience.

And then the third thing that we ask them to look for is the economic aspect of it, so that we can bring in officials that are local, as opposed to having the added burden of airfare and travel expense on the tournament directors. So, that's sort of the balancing act with the particular tournaments. That's for the pre-season and non-sanctioned tournaments.

The process that we use for the postseason is that the USQRA Board holds the RAC for input ranking of individuals within their area of responsibility, and the USQRA Executive Board essentially makes the assignments for the Sectionals, Regionals and Nationals.

MR. GUMBERT: I think it's important, in case no one asked that question in this room, and I just wanted to make sure what the process is. The last thing I want to say is that we talked about the budget earlier, but while everything – we have looked at ways to trim ourbudget to save money for this Association, and I want to compliment the referees for working with us, especially for seeding for Sectionals and Nationals and try and find ways to reduce cost with manpower, if you will, and working harder days, and this past year helped us save money and we certainly appreciate it.

MR. HOOPER: Next up is the Classification report. I think the thing that stands out for me on this report is the 87 new players classified this season. That's a big, big number. I don't know how many guys are in the league, but that is like 25% probably on top of what we already have active in the league, and that's new players. That's not re-classes and all the rest of it. So, you know, I mean, my hats off to the actual guys that came in to be classified and, of course, the classifiers who did it. So, Trisha is here and if you have any questions for her, now would be the time.

MS. SUHR: Some things I left off my report, I just typed it in normal print, was that you guys have most of our numbers from our tournaments, we had sixteen active classifiers classifying this year in this tournament. What I'm most proud about is sixteen classifiers, four from Atlantic, four from Heartland, four from Mountain, four from Pacific. So, that shows me that it's across the country which I'm really happy about. Because a few years ago it seemed like we had classifiers bunched together and they only came from certain areas across the country, and I think we are doing that nicely right now. Internationally, we had one classifier, Paul Sawicki down in Argentina, and three in addition to him that are actively classifiers, internationally.


MR. GUMBERT: How many protests did you see this year?

MS. SUHR: I have down here three. I know of four protests, I missed one at the Heartland Sectionals.

MR. GUMBERT: Are you going over the larger presentations later?

MS. SUHR: That will be under new business, so we can talk about it under old business or however you would like. We spent a lot of this year on the USQRA Manual, as you all have had a chance to look at all of those pages. We did a working section at "Best of the West" where we brought in eight classifiers to work on it. So that's been our big project this year.

MR. REGIER: I have a similar question for Andy. How are you guys, numbers-wise, where people are at? What would you like to see, how can we kind of help getting new people out?

MS. SUHR: Sixteen active classifiers, three other classifiers wanted to get in on Nationals, I just could not place them anywhere. Because we are – prior to postseason we use the money that comes from your teams towards classification and I try to make sure every section – I think we fill our panels fine, we didn't have any clinics, sponsor clinics. We do a couple of universities, but I think that we are fine for our numbers, but I want to develop and prosper more, but we probably need a few more clinics.

MR. REGIER: I think it's one of those things where you have referees, classifiers that have pretty high licenses that need to be seen and going around, that it's kind of that balance and developing new people getting out there. I just kind of want to get a gauge from you if it's like, well we really need –

MS. SUHR: I don't really feel like we need – we have recruited the last couple of years, and we have done a really good job bringing our classifiers up and we have always seem to have ones and fours and right now we have twos and threes and those are the ones I'm working with to get more and more experience. So, that's where I'm feeling that I need – the need to bring those ones along more, versus building up the level ones.

MR. GUMBERT: What are our total numbers overall?

MS. SUHR: Active players, I would go to the website and I would look at the roster, but I don't have that with me.


MR. HOOPER: Anything else? I would remind you all again, I think you have a handle on it, but just speak your name before you start speaking, it will be helpful. Wheelchair specifications committee, Eddie [Crouch] was going to send me a report but he didn't, so I will pass that off to Gumbie.

MR. GUMBERT: We met a couple, three or four times over the season and a couple of the things that we changed is that we upped the committee and brought on advisors from wheelchair manufacturers. Tom Vesco joined and sat in on our inspect committee and made it a lot easier for us if we had a question we could turn to a manufacturer and had their response immediately. Even if it wasn't their chair they were able to look up Article 13 and be to give an opinion on that. So that was one thing that we kind of expanded upon and tried to get better reasoning of the decisions we made.

The second thing that we kind of addressed, some was the front ball holder that some of the guys have affixed on their chair is – USA player Nick Springer has one on his chair, as well as Ron, just to make sure that the chair is legal. One of the things that we wanted to caution the membership both on the web, as well as a mailing, is that any structural change or modification to a wheelchair needs to be approved and that is a very good example of that. There's probably still some renovations that are left out there that we haven't faced yet, but for the most part we feel like we're getting pretty close to a standard chair. It may or may not look like it, and as a result when you come up with some kind of new design and you present it, it needs to be approved by the equipment committee to make sure it's legal for sanctioned play.

And I think that's a big thing for us to know. If you go to an invitational tournament, the director may let a chair go in the sake that it may be on team with you know, older chairs that would be considered legal now, but not with any postseason, but they will let it go with invitational. That's where the line is really drawn in sanctioned tournaments. We go by Article 13 and what that means, and so that will be in effect this weekend, and Andy and their crew of referees know that going into it. So, if there is a question I would have you address probably at the referees’ meeting, coaches’ meeting this evening so that you can have any question that you may or may not have addressed.

Outside of that, the IWRF rulings came out at the end of last season and those were emailed, as well as posted on the web. The biggest thing we tried to do was make sure that if we were faced with an issue that we got, not just the person that asked that question but everybody in the Association, information with regards to what we were ruling on so that one person in California had the same advantage or disadvantage as someone in New York. I'll entertain any questions in regards to that.


MR. HOOPER: Thank you, sir. Next up is the Hall of Fame Committee and John Bishop is going to give us a brief overview of that.

MR. BISHOP: Brad Mikkelsen is the Chairman of the Hall of Fame and he won't be able to be here today. I apologize that he's not here, he's out of the country and has had very limited email access. In general, this weekend is pretty cool. We're actually establishing a physical Hall of Fame at the Lakeshore Foundation and will have it Saturday at twelve o'clock after the games. And I especially want to thank Gary Pate, who is heavily involved, and Lakeshore Foundation for being the host. The initial display is just the start and as time goes by we will have the memorabilia with this. And at some point there will be a freestanding Hall of Fame website that will go into a lot more in-depth about not only the people in the Hall of Fame, but the history and sport.

So, this is kind of a beginning step for us. With regards to the Hall of Fame itself, we have no one being inducted this year. We had four very worthy candidates that were submitted for consideration but the Hall of Fame itself, in order to be inducted you have to receive 75% of the votes. The voting members are the members itself and the fifteen of us, and each candidate can cast as many as three votes, but only one vote for any given candidate. You don't have to use all three of your votes, but this year we discovered that we have a number of Hall of Fame members that are no longer active with the sport and the bios that we received in the recent past have been pretty basic. We really need to get more information. The Hall of Fame is a tough club to be in and it's designed to be that way because some of the members are no longer active in the sport on a regular basis, so they need more information to put forward on potential candidates.

Also the Hall of Fame itself does a good job following its own bylaws with regards to getting information out to teams, and I think our guidelines are supposed to happen in November of each year. So, basically the Hall of Fame itself established a committee that will review all the foundations and policies and bylaws and will also be getting the information to the teams in a more timely fashion. So the team will realize when that date comes along the consideration for the Hall of Fame now is the time to do it. This year we had someone who received 73% of the vote. They were two-tenths off of making it into the Hall of Fame. And once you have received 60% of the votes at any time that your name is submitted, your name carries over indefinitely.

We probably should have started USQRA Hall of Fame sooner than we did, but I think we're in good shape. It's been two years since we've had any inductees but it's not uncommon in Hall of Fame in major league sports: that's wheelchair basketball, fishing, et cetera, et cetera. Anyone have any questions?


MR. REGIER: I have a comment. I talked with Brad Mikkelsen in January while we were in Florida and the problem is like you said, we've got people in the Hall of Fame where a lot of folks that are playing right now had never seen or don't know and vice versa. People that have gone to the Hall of Fame have usually either been at the end of their career so they don't know a lot of the new teams, new players. And something that we have looked at as a Board is how do we start that communication?

We can all agree there's players out there, teams out there, how do we do it so we don't have this kind of generational gap here? I think we just need more discussions and it's kind of more of a comment, more to see if anybody has any suggestions, because we should have more dialogue about a players teams in the past. It happens once older guys, you know, when they're done with teams and done playing a little bit, a lot of that history stays with them and they're not connected any more.

So, I've looked at it, and like John said, I think there's a lot of very worthy people, and those nominations need to come from us. So, if we don't have a dialogue and we're not helping them, we have a big gap there.

MR. BISHOP: I have been involved in the sport since '91 and there have been some people that have been submitted for consideration that I knew for a small part of their career, but part of their career was – they might have been involved with rugby before the USQRA was actually established, but they were from a different part of the country and what we get talks about a few little highlights in there, but it doesn't give near enough information for someone that has very little knowledge or no knowledge of that individual and stuff to really give a fair consideration.

The Hall of Fame itself is going to do a much better job in the future to give you the information that you need in a timely manner so that you can – if there's someone that you want to nominate for the Hall of Fame, you'll scan a piece of paper and these are the dates, this is the guidelines that I need you to follow, and it gives you some examples of what a good candidate would be.

CHRIS HULL: So, basically you just get a picture of their whole rugby career and say, “This is what they did from this day.”

MR. BISHOP: Yeah, they played this year to that year and that kind of stuff.

MR. HULL: They went to National Championships and they won the National Championship of this team and et cetera?


MR. BISHOP: Exactly. In some cases there have been people nominated where a particular Hall of Fame member has good knowledge of this person and so they will actually go through and beef up the bios and we don't mind doing that, but we're just looking for more information from the membership itself.

MR. HOOPER: Any other questions?

MR. GUMBERT: I have one. I know in the past you guys have done some fundraising, what's your plan on that and how is that looking for you?

MR. BISHOP: Well, we're going to definitely reach out to the community with the Hall of Fame and try to find some sponsors because we really want to increase the presence of the Hall of Fame more than what you will see over the weekend, but eventually we would like to add some beautiful display cases and some history and eventually some materials that – today it's about the USQRA Hall of Fame, but in essence, it's really about the sport of wheelchair rugby and the history that we have available for most people that are in the sport. They know that this sport was born in Canada and in '88 [the USQRA was founded], and you know, what's happened since they played the game and there's so much cool history and knowledge out there. So, we will be looking for sponsors and sticking names on the walls due to recognition. We will probably reach out to the membership itself you know, maybe people would want to contribute.

MR. REGIER: I think one suggestion that we talked about was kind of where are they now statement, and I talked to Brad about it, it would be awesome if we put up those stories. One of the coolest things about our sport is some of the stories, the history behind it, and I think it would be a good way to kind of let people know about some of those people that started out in the sport.

MR. BISHOP: Terry Vinyard, who some in the room know, was the coach of the Tampa Generals and coached the first Olympic team in Australia, but Terry has started to and just touched the tip of a iceberg in writing a little bit of history about the USQRA and I think – I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I believe it would pique your interest. So, it's just a start.

MR. HOOPER: Okay, any other questions? Okay, Clinics, did I get that report in or not?

MR. GUMBERT: Yes.

MR. HOOPER: So, the Clinic report is in. Do we have any questions for Ed Suhr?


MR. GUMBERT: Just a comment. One of the things that we did in our town hall meeting that we had with each Region was that we identified that we wanted to have at least one clinic in every Section, and we feel like it's great for spurring on new teams or helping some new ideas. So we encourage you to do that and work on it now as opposed to November, and if you contact Ed Suhr he would be happy to help you.

MR. SUHR: Get in touch with me now because the deadline is June 15th and last year we kept pushing it back, but then once we pushed it back, it was difficult to get structures and decent price. So, we are going to stick to the June 15th deadline. I think I have had only one team contact me so far, so please get them in as soon as possible.

MR. HOOPER: Make no mistake about it, that clinics and exhibitions are the lifeblood of this sport and those grass root efforts, and going out there and showing people the game, are critical. So have them at every level and don't forget there's levels available. There's beginners, intermediate, advanced and someone has done a good job and I don't know – I can't remember if Jacksonville is here. I think 33 people classified there or something, I mean bringing in these players and the great players are in those places. They don't commend great players, but five years down the road there's some great players there. So, it's really important that we all do that.

Any other questions for Ed? High performance training program that's in the Commissioner's report. It kind of – I don't know if you want to address that or not, James, I kind of just carried that forward. It's more of a Team USA, that type of thing, and Team USQRA. Do you have anything else you want to add?

MR. GUMBERT: I do, and I would ask Troy to speak on this, but where our problem was a couple of years ago, for those of you that don't know, Team USA was essentially twelve people that were highly motivated and playing at the top of their game and over the course of the past four years we expanded that to a national size. And the Force has been a self-funded, from an athlete perspective, pay-to-play team. They traveled too in the past year, they went from being a clinical team where they did a lot of camps and various competitions, to where they traveled more than Team USA did last year. They went to Rio [de Janeiro], and West Palm [Beach, Florida], and the [Demolition] Derby, and have a full plate coming up for this summer and hopefully they will be able to attend the Maximus tournament.

And I couldn't be more proud of that program because they are under a larger umbrella part of the USA side, where we went from sixteen players to where we have 35. Team USA Beijing, Team USA Argentina, and that's within a year and a half. And I think you can only look at it nationally this year and see some teams that have some members from the Force playing in DII as well as in DI, and see the difference that it's making for their


club side. And part of the goal for us coming up with this was seeing not just the individual goals, but seeing how these guys and gals take back what's being taught to them and make our league better.

And I believe there's an important place for that in what we do, alongside the clinics, and just a couple of milestones that USA has right now. The Argentina team was undefeated and won the first ever America zone. Just a keynote on that, for the first time a female USA rugby player was on that team, that's a first as far as a milestone for us, and that was Kerri Morgan, and so we are very proud of her accomplishments. What we are even more proud about is our team has stayed focused and traditions that we've worked very hard to set in years past are moving forward.

The last thing I will talk about is at this year’s tryouts for the World Championship Team, those 35 people came in to tryout, and if any of you have ever come to tryouts before, and it was your first tryout, you were a little bit overwhelmed just by the unknown. All these players had already been there before and so all they came in to do was to perform, and one of the things that we wanted to do was get the best performance out of everybody and we expanded our tryouts from a three-day tryout to a four-day tryout.

And it was really good, very pleased with the selections that we made and had an incredible selections staff, they were all coaches so it wasn't like somebody was kind of biased, it was – it came from a coach’s viewpoint and I think it sets us in a good position, as far as with us moving forward with our program from both the USA and USQRA side. And I will let Troy speak about his thoughts on this past year.

TROY. McGUIRK: Like Gumbie said, we've got like ten out of our twelve players here at

Nationals. Some of those players are playing D1 and six are playing D2. So you can definitely see that the program has gotten better and you can see players and how they are moving their careers along. Even though we went to Brazil and came in second place, we still learned a lot and went to West Palm, and we didn't win a game there, but you can see improvements in every single game. So, every time we get together, it just keeps getting better and better. So that the program with the players, and staff have been great. As a coach, in that kind of position, [it’s] been awesome for me, I have learned a lot. And Gumbie is definitely a big influence on the players, so I'm enjoying the program very much. Thank you guys for the program.

MR. GUMBERT: I just think it's important that you guys know what it looks like on those budget items and stuff like that, and see the money that's spent, and I think that money is well spent. And we get a lot of questions, sometimes outside of this room, “Well, why did you spend here and do this,” and I think the whole thing of it, from an international


side, is about performance and we are never happy with our past performance, we're always improving. And this is a big way that we feel like we are going to be able to improve.

MR. HOOPER: I think that the fact that the Force got to place in tournaments this year made a huge, huge difference. Troy is right, just look at the improvements and it's been enormous, I think. It's not always about wins, it's about getting better. Good job and thank you. Do we need to take a ten minute break?

(Whereupon, a break was taken.)

MR. HOOPER: Everyone back in the room and get our seats. All right. Do we have everyone, I hope? We are going to be voting here.

BOB. MURRAY: We are missing one.

MR. HOOPER: Well we can get started on this. All right. We have the bylaw proposals, there are five, I don't know if they're in the packet. They are in the packet, but are they in any order that they're listed on the ballot? Let's take them in order what they are on the ballot. The first one is suspensions. Everybody find that cause I can't find mine. Does someone have that handy, I'm not finding it. Is that the first one?

The first one is suspension; it amends the bylaws and it adds language to the bylaw, and it's regarding the yellow and red cards. Here it is: you guys can follow along with me. There's one of these I'm not going to read. The yellow and red cards that are handed out in sanctioned tournaments should be "served or carried over", that's in quotes, that's the change. In sanctioned tournaments during the regular calendar year – Example: a player gets a red card at the end of Regional play, and plays another tournament before Sectionals, thereby meeting the needs of serving one game suspension in [a] non-sanctioned event, this change would make that game suspension serve only during a sanctioned event. So, if I may clarify that, if it needs clarification. If you play in Regionals, and you get a suspension, you don't get to play the first game of Sectionals. Is that a fair clarification in that?

MR. GUMBERT: It's fair, it will be the next sanctioned tournament that calendar year, so if you didn't place Sectionals, for whatever reason, your health didn't permit it, but advanced to Nationals, it would be in that next event that you were on the roster and set on the side lines is when you would serve that.

MR. HOOPER: Need a Motion to consider this proposal.


MR. SUHR: Motion.

MR. BISHOP: Second.

MR. HOOPER: Discussions.

MR. SUMNER: … Regionals are sanctioned tournaments?

MR. HOOPER: Yes, they are.

MR. SUMNER: In my opinion, if someone is suspended in the last game, for the last game at Nationals, they have a bad Nationals, and they end up placing fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth, that's going to carry all the way over until the very next year?

MR. MURRAY: No, it doesn't.

MR. SUMNER: Okay.

MR. MILLER: Andy Miller, Referee Association. I guess the one question I have, I think it's a good idea, but I'm just a little bit concerned about how that would be tracked, and it's not just the sanctioned tournaments, but also for during the regular season. Within a particular tournament, what we did this year was essentially write it on a piece of paper and stick it up on a wall. We had one at Mountain [Sectionals] and we did it that way. But for tournaments, we're going to need to figure out a way to, I don't know, maybe put them on the website, not to humiliate or embarrass anybody, but somehow we've just got to know that something occurred at another tournament so that people working the tournaments will know who needs to be sanctioned and held up.

MR. GUMBERT: I think one of the things that we discussed was the information from the scoresheet, the penalty box sheet being able to supply who and when that happened to, and then the way that we would proceed with that is, and we're talking about sanctioned events, but not necessarily talking about non-sanctioned events in this particular instance. When somebody will have a two-day tournament somewhere where they just go and play, and the guy just sits on the bench and doesn't play and thereby doesn't serve the penalty that incurred at a sanctioned tournament, the way that I would say we would monitor it, is that when we get the scoresheets from a Regional, if you will, we would note that if somebody had advanced to a Sectional or to a National, that would be an easy information exchange between those two, whether it's one tournament or two tournaments, that we would have to stay on the ball about.


MR. MILLER: Yeah, I'm just saying that the Head Official for the next tournament that that player is going to be in, somehow needs to have that information relayed to him or her or have it available online somewhere.

MR. GUMBERT: Agreed.

MR. HOOPER: Any more discussion? I think those details can be worked out.

MS. CORNELIUS: What constitutes a sanctioned tournament?

MR. HOOPER: At this point, it's just Regional, Sectionals, and [Nationals]. Any more discussion? All those in favor of Proposal Number One, Suspension, please raise your hand? Only if you're a voting member.

MR. MURRAY: Nineteen in favor.

MR. HOOPER: Opposed?

MR. MURRAY: One.

MR. HOOPER: Abstentions?

MR. MURRAY: One.

MR. HOOPER: Let's do it again. All those in favor?

MR. MURRAY: Twenty-one.

MR. HOOPER: Twenty-one in favor. Opposed?

MR. MURRAY: One.

MR. HOOPER: All of the proxies are in favor. So the Motion carries. Next up is Postseason Eligibility.

MR. REGIER: Article I, Section 2.c.

MR. HOOPER: This one is a short one anyway. This amends the bylaws and it identifies Article I Section 2.c. It replaces and deletes language with the following. Don't know how the original language reads. Here it is. Current language removed it states -- I don't know what I'm reading.


MR. REGIER: You want me to read it? The gist of it is, as well as the two more games at a different tournament prior to February 1st, and replace the deleted language with, we play two more games between December 15th and February 1st. This was an old rule that we wanted people to get their games in after the holidays. But as it was written, you could basically get a tournament, say in November, and you could do one in December and those would have been the two tournaments and legally you would have got all of your games in.

The intent was always that after the first of the year, or as stated here December 15th, that you would attend another tournament. So, this is really clarification. I think almost every team has followed this rule to the intent, which is to get your games in before the new year, as well as getting your games in, in January. Does everybody understand that? So, it's kind of a small clarification on something that we have actually been following but hasn't been correctly written.

MR. HOOPER: I would take a Motion to consider the proposal.

MR. BISHOP: Motion.

MR. HULL: Second.

MR. HOOPER: Discussion?

ERIC WOLFE: Eric Wolfe, Sin City. So, this would require you to play two games before December 15th, for everyone to be eligible for postseason, as well as in between December 15th and February 1st you play two additional games with each of the players that you intend to be eligible for post, correct? The only problem I see with this is there are a few teams in the league that have to pull people in from different areas, and just with the schedules there's conflicts. My team personally, we try to get them out of the way as fast as we can, we schedule our tournaments early in October and then we have another tournament usually in December, which qualifies us for postseason. If it were changed to this, we would not qualify for post. Just the people's schedules, I see it being a pretty big problem. It's a holiday season, five out of six guys might be able to make it, but that sixth guy just can't make it during that time frame.

MR. REGIER: Eric, if I could just clarify. We've actually been following this rule [since] probably eight, nine years ago, and it was really put in place so international players could come in once and then they wouldn't show up at Nationals again, or Sectionals. So we've actually been following this, so I hope you're correctly qualified for this postseason.


MR. WOLFE: We are this year.

MR. REGIER: But that's what we have been following.

MR. WOLFE: And an issue with this too, how are we determined – where is this being tracked?

MR. GUMBERT: Here's how we're doing it right now. When we, as far as the Bylaws and Constitution, request you to send in your scoresheets to the Commissioner within twoweeks, that's how we're tracking it. What we're asking you is, the reasons why we're doing that is to maintain some type of eligibility for you as a player and also as well as your team. Short of going to someone's tournament standing there saying okay he's good –

MR. WOLFE: No, I understood that. With this, would there be possible exceptions, for example, we have Garrett [Hickling], an international player on our team, and he has prior commitments for his National team, so that is not possible, so it would be if you can't make it within those time frames there's no exception?

MR. GUMBERT: The only exception is a medical exemption. Sometimes a medical, but throughout the years that we've had this, that was part of the burden that was initially written that players would have to try and come back so that – like we were talking about earlier, October 1st you don't see until April 14th and you're like oh, okay, where has this guy been? So, that was part of what that intent of that rule was. When we wrote this it clarified upon the rule so that there's no ambiguity there.

BRYAN BARTEN: You bring up a point of the holidays and time frames. You were talking about December 15th to February 1st, I've heard a lot of people just around the circle talking about extending that to February the 15th to give us an extra two weeks. I'm wondering if anyone would be opposed to a friendly amendment to just extend it by two weeks?

MR. GUMBERT: It's worth a discussion, and I will tell you this, this year on February 15th, we had our first Regional. So, we're already in the postseason and now we're having a discussion about “Well, I want to host a tournament to get my guys legal.” And so I, from a Commissioner's standpoint, that would be impossible, you know, because you're already getting into postseason, and you've got guys still trying to be legal. So, that would be the response from the Commissioner's office.

MR. REGIER: Bryan, I want to come back to that, but I've got a few other comments. Wimsey, please.


MS. CHERRINGTON: I have the same issue that Eric brought up but have an additional issue as well. Getting gym space would be very difficult for us with the holidays and then from January 1st on, basketball has all of the space and it's very difficult to be able to get space for tournaments. So there is that issue on that also.

MR. GUMBERT: I appreciate it and thank you, Wimsey. And the one thing that I think some people look at this and say well, I've got to host a tournament. It's really just two games, it's not an event that you have to host.

MS. CHERRINGTON: Even getting gym space for that, that's what I'm talking about. Basketball has it every weekend.

MR. GUMBERT: So for the month of December and January, you guys aren't even able to host a practice?

MS. CHERRINGTON: January we can, and that's what we usually do. Of course, you know weather conditions for us, sometimes we have to postpone a tournament and that's even more of an issue as we get into late December and January for us. But yes, it's really, really, really difficult.

MR. GUMBERT: I appreciate your words and let the Association decide.

MR. SUHR: And this is not just for Nationals, it's for everybody.

MR. REGIER: This is everybody to get your games in to be legal for postseason. So, again the rules aren't placed to encourage teams to play tournaments. We have that option where you can play two games and I believe you need to have one sanctioned referee. So, you have that option if you have teams that are close. But this is for everybody to be eligible for postseason.

MR. SUHR: The biggest problem I have then is people with bigger rosters, like us, we had fifteen guys at Sectionals. Half of those guys would not be eligible to play under this rule, because if we travelled to a tournament in January, I can only bring eight or nine guys. And if we stay home, then we have to drive up to Seattle again. But even then, most of them would sit on the bench and watch the other guys play. One game, it's really hard to get everyone up there with gym time.

MR. GUMBERT: And the one thing also from some people who may or may not know, you don't have to play in a game to be considered in a game, you just have to be in uniform and in a rugby chair on the sidelines and on the roster.


MR. SUMNER: I was also going to suggest pushing just the Sectionals, Regionals should count as a qualifying because not every Section has a Regional and you should be able to see those players and they're still enforced to come in and it's not going to be a big surprise on what people don't know about.

MR. GUMBERT: And I appreciate your words. The concern I have in just trying to contain this monster is that, looking at what Trish showed to us, 87 new classified athletes, that means, in my view, our league isn't declining, it's expanding, and the more that it expands to other teams. In my Commissioner's report we talked about hopefully expansion in every Section by one team in two years. This year if all of the teams would have stayed in, there would have been at Regionals in several areas. And so what I look at from a Commissioner's standpoint, when we begin sanctioned play, that's when you should have your games to be legal for postseason. Because Regionals is postseason. And it shouldn't be a qualifier to play postseason, you should have already qualified to attend that postseason, in the eyes of what the rule says.

MR. SUMNER: You have to have two games before December 15th anyway, so it's not like you're getting something in, in the last second.

MR. GUMBERT: Well, it's not – what our rules say are for regs, that's what our rules say. That's where I base all this discussion from.

TIM DAYNES: First of all, I want y'all to know it's an honor to be here from Utah. But I was just wanting to ask a question, can you explain to me more about what the pools are, specifically in terms of getting a tournament for requirement. You mentioned about two games, a referee –

MR. GUMBERT: A hosting requirement is different than player eligibility. Games are considered legal games and in that definition, in our rules, what that says is you have two legal roster teams that have – that players are in their rugby chairs, in uniform, and I think the one thing that may be a little different than what you see at like a sanctioned tournament, you can have one ref, but you have to have scoresheets from that event, scoreboard, full rules that we play under, and that constitutes as one game.

That can be a practice for you, you know, it's not like we have to go host the Utah Scorpions where we brought ten teams, but that could be you and another team running against one another and that would be considered as long as you follow the guidelines in what a legal game is, that would be considered you eligible from a player’s standpoint.


MR. MCGUIRK: I saw that we had three tournaments cancelled and it moved the date to the 15th [of December], but it forced teams to go to maybe one of those tournaments and not be cancelled. I mean, February 1st when you sought tournaments afterward before Sectionals start, but I don't see where you would be able to do that within fifteen days. I know Denver was cancelled and I know there were teams that were allowed to go to that tournament, but you have to have everything done by the 1st [of February].

MR. REGIER: I think the 1st is a hard deadline.

MR. GUMBERT: From our perspective, I'm not admitting something here, this is kind of like what we have written down and we have all agreed upon as an Association that we wanted to be governed by. That's kind of like we're putting them into place and tell you this is what we're doing. If you want to change that, you want to modify that, you have that right. I'm just saying that my interpretation of this is that the intent of this was to apply as it is now being proposed to us.

MR. HOOPER: What was the problem with the current language, because everybody is doing it anyway?

MR. GUMBERT: Well, what happened was some teams in the past had done exactly what the letter says now, where they've got four games in before December 15th, and it wasn't policed by the Commissioner. The Commissioner ruled on it and never made that clarification public. And so people were acting under what they thought was the intent, which is un-clarifying here, as opposed to acting under what – well, really what was happening was they got a loophole in the rule.

MR. HOOPER: Like in October, theoretically, you can have a team play two games -- players play two games and then a week later play two more games and then show up in April.

MR. SUMNER: Isn't that kind of the same thing, it's another loophole. I mean, the whole purpose of what you guys are saying is to get people to travel and to get them to interact, and throw them another one for them to scrimmage.

MR. HOOPER: I think there's geography involved with that as well, and we're trying to – we have 40 teams in the league, we don't just have six teams, and if a tournament is cancelled that you planned to go to we're trying to – I think the rule is trying to accommodate somebody who can't go to travel 500 miles to have a scrimmage or go to a small tournament. And it's, I think, a fair way to do it, at that point, rather than getting something cancelled on you that could cause ineligibility.It's not perfect, for sure, but it is a way to get everyone eligible, I think.


MR. GUMBERT: If your endorsement is signed – this is what you guys voted for as an Association. From a pure enforcement side, this is what you said you wanted us to rule.

MR. WOLFE: You're explaining that we want to have these people seen, but this ability to throw two teams on a roster; for example, Northridge, it's two teams, but they are the same team. It's two rostered individual teams, they all practice together so they all have the same facility, they use the same coach and everything. They can throw a tournament together, a practice game, and all they need is a sanctioned ref and fill out the scoresheet.

There's other teams in the league that can't do that, us being an example. Our closest team is Northridge. It's not like we can just ride down there on a Saturday and throw it together, that still takes a lot of planning. I understand what you're saying that recently this rule has been enforced as we're trying to change it, and maybe some teams got away with doing that. The time restraint is a problem; December 15th to December 31st is really a no-go for most people. That's holiday season, New Years, Christmas or whatever you celebrate in that time frame, so that really leaves 31 days to throw a tournament together and if there's cancellations, that have you scheduled, speaking from experience, our team doesn't schedule three or four tournaments in case one gets cancelled.

MR. GUMBERT: When do you schedule your tournaments?

MR. WOLFE: We schedule based on the rules, our first one is usually October and we do usually travel to a tournament in January when cost is available. This year it was not possible.

MR. GUMBERT: So, what you're saying for you is this rule doesn't work?

MR. WOLFE: The dates don't work exactly. We have to throw something together in the Bay Area to get people classified, which it worked, but it's because other tournaments were cancelled. It's not an issue of the wording, it's an issue of the time frame.

MR. GUMBERT: Got it, and I will address this this year. And I think I counted we had 43 tournaments so there's a wide variety to choose from, and also play for, and of that, I know four were cancelled and this is just off the top of my head. So when people come and say you know, this is a hardship, I get it, I understand it, I've managed a team myself. The front of that is that we sit down and plan, just like you do, this is going to be Houston, San Antonio are gonna want to come and play, what are we going to do? And we base those same kinds of things. Again, that goes back to: You have a voice and you're representing it very well, I'm just what this intent was for, without going around and around about it. I get it, it doesn't work for you.


MR. REGIER: Let me follow up some. Gumbie's got that right, this was put in place, the spirit of the rule was to make sure – it's kind of around international players throughout the year where they get their games in. So, we're clarifying that piece. I think Troy hit on something as well. The concern that Gumbie, as a Board, we've discussed this and we've gone round and round, and I look at it and go are teams dropping out? We have seen teams that are dropping out of Regionals because they go “Well, we don't know if we can get out games in.”

If they get the tournament – the piece I would like to see is probably extending to February 15th. I think there's another three or four tournaments in that time, it's tough for us, we're similar to Eric in the situation that we're usually flying somewhere to get those games in and say you've missed one opportunity, that's maybe the only tournament we can go to.

The other piece is whether Regionals would count for this. I would kind of be in favor to have Regionals count for this, in favor of trying to get teams not to drop out of Regionals. I don't know if that's the case. I think the biggest piece is – the concern I have is people pulling out of Regionals so they don't have fines if they know they can't get games in.

MR. WOLFE: Instead of changing the wording, isn't this more about enforcing and policing the current rule?

MR. REGIER: It's getting the right language to be able to police it.

MR. HOOPER: I think the other is another proposal, Jason.

MR. REGIER: We're bringing in the hosting requirements and different things, but it's just – we're looking at this, and let's understand the intent of what we're trying to do and let's approach it from there.

NICK LONG: Is there not a way that we could move the date from December 15th to December 1st?

MR. REGIER: Or something else, get two tournaments in before postseason or three tournaments. We could look at a whole different scenario.

MR. SUHR: I think you mentioned geography. If you have a team within the driving distance, that makes a huge difference. Whereas on the West Coast you have to drive four hours, that makes it a lot more difficult. Another suggestion is: Could the deadline be before the postseason?


MR. REGIER: That's what we are trying to balance is how do we set this rule, be able to enforce it and do it kind of officially.

MR. GUMBERT: I'll just add to that because some of you guys in this room will wait until this rule is done and then you will go, “This team didn't get theirs in in that set amount of time.” I get it, I understand how the games are played, I'm just trying to look for us – number one, the intent was initially for this rule to be voted on. Number two is that I've got to be able to find a way to police it from a Commissioner's standpoint. The way that it's possible for me to do that right now, is to do that where you have your games in before postseason rather than chasing people all over trying to find out when postseason is for Vegas or for New York, it works that way for us.

And then, from a last standpoint, we have a whole bunch of ideas on the table. Right now what we have on the table is this right here (indicating) and I think the discussion is good, but at some point we need to either vote on this or leave it as it's written and I would say a couple of more comments and then we will entertain a Motion.

MR. HOOPER: I will say this real quickly. The one thing, maybe as a friendly amendment, might be a consideration on the date. Change it to December 1st and that might give us a little push to get this thing through. I agree, it's pretty straightforward, we're already doing this, we're just clarifying how we're doing it.

MR. BARTEN: How does that work, we just propose a friendly amendment?

MR. GUMBERT: You propose the amendment, you're asking for a friendly amendment, at that point our proxies would be excluded from the decision making on this and your amendment would be either accepted or denied. Then from that, we would vote based on what your amendment is.

MR. BISHOP: The persons that submit a proposal [have] to be open to the friendly amendment, and if you are accepting to that, I think the proposal gets voted on as written and then you can accept a new proposal.

MR. HOOPER: The one other thing that I would add to that is, that there is a general proxy in anyone's hands, the general proxy says that if team "A" can't be here and team "B" is here that they can vote for that team on any amendment.

DAVE MENGYAN: Just for statistical purposes, there were thirteen tournaments scheduled after December 15th this year and eighteen scheduled before and four that were cancelled.


I would have expected that there would have been a lot more tournaments before December 15th and less after and I was surprised at the number.

MR. HOOPER: I think I'm going to bring this to vote. Procedurally, I'm not sure how this works again. Do we vote on the proposal and then the Amendment?

MR. GUMBERT: If it doesn't pass then we go to a friendly amendment.

MR. BISHOP: That's your call.

MR. GUMBERT: What is your friendly amendment, Bryan?

MR. BARTEN: My friendly amendment would be to start December 1st and extend to February 15th. I don't see any reason why not to start December 1st. Is that cool with everybody?

MR. GUMBERT: Would you entertain this because again for me, from a recordkeeping standpoint, if we are having Regionals while postseason has begun and we're trying to gain eligibility, that's a nightmare for us. Would you entertain at the beginning of postseason as your cut-off deadline. So, if you say December 1st, you have to have two games in before then, and then an additional two games by the beginning of postseason for the Association?

MR. REGIER: You can bring somebody in and go back to back weekends realistically, if it worked, and could get all your games in. Again, what are we trying to do is this spread and make sure people are here throughout the season?

MR. BISHOP: Initially, this rule was put together to keep the international players in the country and participating in the sport as opposed to coming in, play a tournament, go home, come back at Nationals and be a factor in postseason play. So, it really comes down to what do you guys want in the sport? Do you want to have international players that only come in to get their qualifiers and then come back for Nationals, or do you want teams to actually compete throughout the year? Personally, I like the idea of breaking it up into two stages. Maybe make your first two games have to be between December 1st and –

MR. GUMBERT: Two games before December 1st and two games before postseason begins.

MR. HOOPER: Let's clarify this. Is the friendly amendment December 1st and then your other two games in before February 1st?

MR. GUMBERT: Based upon before postseason.


MR. HOOPER: If it gets too confusing – well, it's your proposal.

MR. GUMBERT: I will accept December 1st and then the additional two games before the beginning of postseason.

MR. MENGYAN: I do have a point for clarification. As far as what constitutes the beginning of postseason, are you talking about our own Region?

MR. GUMBERT: If you are in Michigan and you have to have a Regional in Southern California, it's when postseason begins, because you could transfer from Michigan and say “I want to play postseason in Southern California.”

MR. EZELL: It seems like to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish with this, maybe it would be better to say – maybe even to leave it as it's written here and add that those games should be separate by a certain period.

MR. GUMBERT: I won't accept that.

MR. EZELL: As it's written you could go to a tournament the last weekend in November and then the next weekend, the first weekend in December.

MR. GUMBERT: Right now you can go the middle of December and then the week before Christmas.

MR. HOOPER: Gary.

GARY PATE: I'm going to protect my court reporter, you can't all talk at one time guys, this happens in my courtroom, and please identify yourself.

MR. HOOPER: Thank you.

MR. SUMNER: When you were stating the beginning of postseason, is that the beginning of postseason for everybody or where you're competing?

MR. GUMBERT: The friendly amendment that I will accept is that the beginning of postseason will be for the entire Association.

MR. SUMNER: The very first Regional.

MR. GUMBERT: That's correct.


MR. HOOPER: I'm bringing this to a vote. All of those in favor of accepting the proposal with the friendly amendment, please, raise your hand.

MR. MURRAY: Sixteen.

MR. HOOPER: I'm trying to read these proxies.

MR. MURRAY: The proxies don't matter now because it has been amended.

MR. HOOPER: That is correct. Okay that's all of those. Opposed?

MR. MURRAY: Five.

MR. HOOPER: Abstentions? So, we have sixteen in favor.

MR. MURRAY: No abstentions.

MR. HOOPER: The proposal carries.

MR. MENGYAN: Can you read the proposal how it will be worded out.

MR. GUMBERT: The clarification is going to be this now. The rule will read – “will play two games before December 1st and an additional two games before the beginning of postseason.” And what we can say with postseason, we can put it in a clause, “postseason is defined at the beginning of Regional play throughout the Association.”

MR. WOLFE: With the wording like that you might have to revote on the change of the proposal. With you saying before December 1st and then two games before then, you want to word it two games before December 1st, as well as two games between December 1st and the regular season.

MR. GUMBERT: That's fine.

MR. HOOPER: So, we will break for lunch for one hour and be back here at one o'clock and have a good lunch.

(Whereupon, lunch was taken.)


MR. HOOPER: Let's get our seats and start back up again. Looking around the room I don't think we have everyone back but we can go ahead and get started. Next proposal is the End Game Protest.

MR. GUMBERT: This is a proposal to adopt the IWRF Protest Procedure to be used for our Association. Do I have a Motion?

MR. BISHOP: Motion.

MR. GUMBERT: Do I have a second?

MS. CORNELIUS: Second.

MR. GUMBERT: Discussion?

DAVE CERUTI: Can you explain what this is?

MR. GUMBERT: To explain what it is – basically the IWRF, in 2008, came to us while we were in Beijing and explained to us that they wanted to modify how they were handling the protest procedure for games. The way that it was, at that moment, was that during a game if a call, not a judgment call, but a call is missed and you want to protest the game, the coach or the team representative, you would go to the table, sign the score book and what will happen is they would draw a line of when that occurred during the game.

After the game was over they would – the referee would identify what happened and you would have the option at that point to go back to where the game was at, and if it was deemed by the protest committee to be legal, then you would have the option to replay from that moment. Upon filing your $50 and stating what the protest was about. You also have the right to just say “I don't want to protest,” if you want. What they wanted to do, what the IWRF wanted to do in Beijing, is not to have to go back and replay the game.

So, what they said was they would allow the team representative, coach, to approach the table when it happened. They would call the referees over, then those referees, and the team officials, at that moment, do a spot decision, for lack of a better description, of what just happened based on a protest happening in the moment. And if it was deemed, you know, you could prove where you were, then what would happen is the game would be reset and played from that moment on, as opposed to going back all the way through.

MR. BISHOP: So this differs?

MR. MENGYAN: It's resolved right then and not taken up after the game?


MR. GUMBERT: That's correct. The thing that is – it puts us more – number one, it puts us in line with the IWRF pool. Number two, it takes procedures that might be – you know, you're in a situation in a game that would have to be replayed from the first minute of the game and then determine, and then try to find time to be able to play that game.

MR. MENGYAN: Who is involved in the decision?

MR. GUMBERT: The Head Official of the tournament, the Head Referee on the court, the [scoring] Table and in a situation with like our sanctioned tournaments, it would be the [Technical Commissioner] at the table. Then they have a Technical Delegate with the IWRF, and that would probably be part of the Executive Committee, the way the new one phrased it, and if it was at a place where there wasn't an Executive Committee member it would be a rep.

MR. MENGYAN: So could this be applicable at just a regular season tournament?

MR. GUMBERT: It could, but the Protest Committee would be smaller and may or may not include an Executive Committee member.

ADAM SCATURRO: If video is available can you use the video?

MR. GUMBERT: Not if it's not something that's been utilized by the Referee Association, as well as the Protest Committee, and it's not something that I'm prepared to bring into consideration at this point.

MR. BARTEN: Can you clarify how this works again? Like you finish the game and then you find out if you were right?

MR. GUMBERT: What we're saying is that the way it reads now, an infraction happens that is called wrong and it happens in the first thirty seconds of the game, you know it's wrong, you go sign the book, you play the game, you lost the game. You have the choice then at that point to say, “I want to replay from that moment.” So essentially you're playing thirty-one minutes and thirty seconds of the entire game over, according to what the rule is today.

MR. BARTEN: And when do you do that?

MR. GUMBERT: Well, you have thirty minutes after the game and fifty dollars to protest the game for that to happen. That's the protest procedure currently and we play it. What we're saying is, to move past that, and not have to go back and do it that way, in that


thirty seconds when it happened and you know it's wrong as a coach, you go to the table and say, “I want to protest this.” You go up and sign the book, the scorekeeper will buzz the horn, call the lead official over from the game, he will come out and ask what's the problem, you explain it, and it's resolved right then on the spot.

MR. SUHR: No cost?

MR. GUMBERT: No cost.

MR. BISHOP: I was just going to make a comment. This took place and became effective in Beijing and it's been very successful. Most issues that have come up have been resolved within two to three minutes, where in the past we've had protests that have been filed under the current situation that have lasted, and I can't remember an issue, but almost an hour in the postseason tournament.

MR. REGIER: I guess one question I would have then. Would this be done in a lot of international tournaments, and what if you have a team that has a player-coach and say they are on the court, does the same rule apply?

MR. BISHOP: Sure.

MR. GUMBERT: You can have three such technical fouls in a tournament. The way to answer any question regarding an amendment to how many times you can protest, a coach is permitted to request any number of a decision ruled; however if the ruling goes against the coach, a technical foul is forwarded. If a coach has received three such technical fouls in a tournament, no further request will be permitted.

MS. CORNELIUS: Read the next paragraph.

MR. GUMBERT: Referee One says if the decision review request is frivolous, trivial or part of a pattern request that are immediately declined after the explanation, he or she should warn the coach that repeated trivial calls may be sanctioned by a technical foul. After [this] warning, Referee One may sanction a coach with a technical foul for delaying the game, if the behavior is repeated. So, if a coach is just constantly stopping a game for whatever reason, and looking to get one, there's how it's going to happen.

MR. HOOPER: Should we bring this to a vote? There is one other section to this that's part of this proposal and that's to also adopt the IWRF tiebreaker; am I correct on that?

MR. GUMBERT: That's correct.


MR. HOOPER: That's an adoption of the IWRF tiebreak. So understand that's part of that proposal and that's also what you're voting on too. Does everyone understand that? Is there any discussion on that?

MR. CERUTI: Is there any difference between the IWRF tiebreaker and our current tiebreaker?

MR. GUMBERT: Yes. The way that this proposed tiebreaker that the IWRF plays by right now is, the first thing that they will do is at the end of the preliminary round, if two or more teams are tied in point totals, the following procedure shall be used in the order presented to resolve the tie. As soon as one of these procedures is found to resolve the tie, the subsequent procedures are not to be used. Number one, if there's a forfeit. Number two, the points between the tied teams, two, three, four, whoever is tied, will be considered. Three, the goal differential between the tied teams, not all of the teams in a pool. Four is most goals for the tied teams. Five is goal differentials between all games.

And what that means is, if you are in a pool with four teams and two of those teams are tied, all those games would count as far as goal differentials are concerned, and number three is just goal differentials with the tied teams. So, instead of two, you will use all four of those teams essentially. Then sixth is most goals for all total games. If another tie situation arises, subsequent to the resolution of an earlier tie, these procedures are to be used again, in order, beginning with the first.

That's what you're basically looking for now. With us, the way we do it right now, the procedure that we have, I believe is head-to-head first. Second is point differential. Third is – Ed help me out. I'm trying to pull that up.

MR. HOOPER: The other thing is having a team forfeit and only have that “one to nothing” thing, and it affects that whole formula at that point. You lost by one point, but essentially you might have gotten beat by ten or won by five or something. So, it kind of takes care of that forfeit issue.

MR. REGIER: Plus it puts us in line with the IWRF.

MR. EZELL: What is the difference between two and four?

MR. GUMBERT: The difference between two, which is points for the tied team, and four is most goals between the tied teams. If you look at the points, what you're asking for with most goals is who had the most goals between all the tied teams. With the most goals, you're taking the combination of all their goals right there. With the points with the tied teams, if there is still a tie, the statement shall be determined based on points gained between the tied teams.


Points shall be reassigned as described in Article 243[?], for wins and losses in the games between the tied teams. Once the points have been assigned, the tied teams shall be reordered from the highest to the lowest point total. With most goals between the tied teams, if there is still a tie, the standings will be decided based on which team scored the most goals in the preliminary round games between the tied teams. Tied teams are reordered from the highest to lowest total number of goals.

MR. SCATURRO: Seems like we have to run up the scores then.

MR. SUHR: The IWRF between the tied teams says two points for a win and one point for a loss?

MR. GUMBERT: That could be, I can't say.

MR. REGIER: And mine aren't pulling up at the moment.

MR. SUHR: So the team who has the most points, as far as wins and losses –

MR. HOOPER: I would say this, let's table that vote and go to the next thing and maybe someone can check that out and just clarify it and then we can bring it back to a vote once we all understand what it is that we're voting on.

MR. BISHOP: If you look at the examples, on line "A", in the eighth column it's titled "P", which stands for points, and the first team had four wins so they had four points. Example "B", the team had two wins so they had a total of four points. So, when you're looking at the breakdown between points of the tied teams, they're talking about each team gets two points per a win. And when you look at number four, most goals, that was the total number of scores of goals made by each other team.

MR. HOOPER: That clarifies it. Thank you, John. Let's bring it to a vote then.

MR. GUMBERT: And this would go into effect for next postseason.

MR. HOOPER: All of those in favor of accepting the proposal, please raise your hand?

MR. MURRAY: Twenty-one.

MR. HOOPER: And the proxies are two in favor. All of those opposed? Abstentions? I have one opposed as a proxy. The Motion carries.


Next proposal is Seeding for Nationals, and this amends the bylaws, and the current language states that teams are chosen, first two Division I teams from each section. And the second two teams being Division II from each section. What we want to add is a new paragraph that says, "The top four teams from each section will advance to postseason, which will be seeded by the Executive Committee. The top eight teams from each division will advance to DI, nine through sixteen to DII." Oh, there is a reason. "Based on comments from memberships this is the best compromise that we can make within the current structure we have. By seeding the tournaments based on performance, the top eight in the country will play for the Division I crown, and nine through sixteen will play for the Division II crown." I will take a Motion to consider this proposal.

MR. SUHR: Motion.

MR. LONG: Second.

MR. HOOPER: Discussions?

MR. MENGYAN: Is there a precedent if a team qualifies for Division I, [they] can request to be dropped down to Division II?

MR. HOOPER: There is a precedent for that, yes. Any further discussions?

MR. CERUTI: Could we expand the people also included with RACs?

MR. GUMBERT: I didn't include it when we wrote this, but would be willing to accept that as a friendly amendment. Initially, my intent was to present that at every Executive Committee but I'm not sure on the definition of the Executive Committee. That would just be the Board. But I will entertain a friendly amendment, Dave, if you would like to propose that.

MR. EZELL: I'd like to see it just to be a ballot where everyone's input would be included.

MR. GUMBERT: Usually with our seedings with this, where you're getting information from everybody is an issue, we'd like to think it's a perfect world but it's not, but it is. The second part is I'm not – the way that we have done it before is we've asked our RACs, as well as our Board to approve what was submitted to them from the RACs who each would list their top twenty, if you will, of what it is and then we ask the Board's approval. I'm okay with that, and I think that's a fair system of the Executive Committee.

MR. HOOPER: Any other discussions? And I might just point out that this is where our proxy system is a little bit inadequate. We just have a friendly amendment put on here, and it


just adds one small thing to the pie and the proxies are thrown out. That's why the general proxies are important to give to another team. All of those in favor of accepting the proposal?

MR. MURRAY: Fourteen in favor.


MR. MURRAY: Seven opposed.

MR. HOOPER: Abstentions?

MR. MURRAY: One.

MR. HOOPER: The Motion carries.

MR. GUMBERT: I would just tell you that this was something that we talked about in every Regional meeting that we had. Every time we talked we said we wanted to bring language forward of how we could make a better postseason. And from the input from your membership, this is what we got was this right here. And I appreciate you guys giving the input at the town hall meetings and appreciate you voting accordingly.

MR. HOOPER: The last proposal on the agenda is the two-team limit. What this does is it amends the bylaws and it affects Article I Section 2.(a).ii. What this language is doing is basically saying that the Association will only recognize two teams from one member organization. Just to give you a little bit of background on this, at one point in time Lakeshore had two teams playing under the same umbrella.

Likewise, we had an organization in Florida where the Tampa team and our team from Sarasota played under the same umbrella. So, what the proposal is saying is that the Association will only recognize two teams from that, not five, three, whatever. So, that's what the proposal is all about. Is there a rational for that here, I don't see it?

MR. GUMBERT: We are faced with a situation where before the December 15th deadline teams can move players in between one another. We never specified how many teams that was, and over the course of this year there was a team that had essentially three that wasn't even in a geographical – same part of the state. We had two teams from Southern California and a team from Northern California that were all under the same umbrella of one sponsoring entity. And so they were claiming they were all three teams and should be moved interchangeably between them all. And what we're doing is putting a limit and saying instead of three teams or four teams or five teams, we want to try and limit that to


two. That's essentially what we're doing. It makes it a little bit easier for us as an Association, and recordkeeping can be able to manage what's happening.

MS. CHERRINGTON: Why does it say being tabled until next year?

MR. GUMBERT: I think it might have been tabled from last year.

MR. REGIER: Yeah, it's being tabled from last year and now we're looking at it again.

MR. HOOPER: Ready to bring this to a vote? All in favor of accepting the proposal raise your hand.

MR. MURRAY: Seventeen.


MR. MURRAY: Two.

MR. HOOPER: Two opposed, and the proxies all vote yes. Abstentions?

MR. MURRAY: One.

MR. HOOPER: Motion carries. Next business is we're going to mark it old business, but it's kind of new business as well. I'm looking around the room for Trisha.

MR. REGIER: Anne, are you going to present on behalf of Trisha?

MR. HOOPER: Dan McCauley sent me a brief thing that I would like to read into the record for the meeting. "Hi Ed, I will not be able to make the AGM but wanted to give you an update on the IWRF classification review. The IWRF classification system review committee has collected input on potential changes to the classification system. An online classification survey was done based on input from a survey and discussions at the three IWRF Championships in 2009. The survey results and the proposed changes will be presented to the general membership at the World Championships in Vancouver this fall." And with that we are ready for Anne whenever she's ready.

ANNE. HART: Trisha Suhr asked me to present to you about what we've done internationally with some of the changes and procedures and policies that have come about from the classification policies and procedures code that's required of us for our participation. So I can talk as long as you want.


So I will try to take you through a little bit about what this classification code is and why it's put in place, and how it's going to affect nationally as well. I'm pretty informal and you can ask me questions any time you want. The whole purpose of the classification code is to try to come up with a standard practice for all the sports. So, if you are a rugby player and you wanted to start swimming, you would know how it's going to happen. So, that's part of the reason for the code. We wanted to have procedures that were clear and understandable because that protects the rights of everyone involved, as well as all members.

So, that's part of our reason for that and we wanted to have procedures for protests and appeals that are similar. For protest, you could file a protest or if you don't like another athlete’s class you can file a protest. An appeal is if you feel like the rules of the classification is wrong, then you can appeal. So, that's what that stuff is all about. Just to give you a background, there's about twenty-seven different sports involved in the movement and all of them have some sort of classification process. There are sixteen different government bodies for IWRF. Wheelchair rugby has had the IWRF, and the IWRF is actually part of another independent, so that's a change for us.

So that's a background of all of that. This classification code was developed by the International Standard Code and was involved in developing the code and policy procedures. The International Standard part decides that in how you give class, to how you protest an appeal. So, it's direction. So, in general classification it has gotten two rules in all sports. One, is to determine if you're eligible to compete in that sport. Some sport has eligibility and some don't. But you've got to be clear about who is playing the game and who's not. Who can play and who can't. And they put you into groups to compete, that's what all classifications do, that's the two parts of it.

However, we've been pushed a lot now to have more rules for how we define things, and tests and the way we evaluate you as the basis in research. We aren't just making these things up. What we look at is for an athlete to be eligible and what we look at also is they have to have an impairment, like weakness and that has to have some permanent affect on your ability to compete in the sport. So if you break your leg, you're not going to be playing the sport. And it has to limit the activities specific for your sport. So the picture at the top that's goalball, it's a game that's played by athletes whose impairment is blindness. So, those athletes aren't going to be playing wheelchair rugby.

And we have to be really clear about your impairment because you may say, “That would be fun,” but we have to decide what kind of impairments are going to be eligible for rugby and then what's the severity of it and then what sport. In rugby that's pushing a wheelchair, turning, those kinds of activities. Now, an athlete might be ruled ineligible to


compete in one sport, but that doesn't mean they can't compete in another sport. That's up to the sport to decide who's in and who's out.

So, that's kind of the driving force for all of this. That's kind of the background of that. There is a couple of areas that we have looked at internationally that have been procedure and policies in the classification code. And these are areas where you have problems with the classification guidelines, so there's three things that usually happen. You don't show up when you're supposed to or you don't have all the equipment that you need. That's the first one and we call it “Failure to Attend.” The second one, “Non-Cooperation,” that's when a person is unwilling or unable to participate fully in the evaluation. The third one, “Misrepresentation,” the athlete misrepresents their skills or ability. The non-technical term for that is a cheater. Those are the three scenarios that could happen.

So we've come up with ways to define that and to come up with some repercussions for that particular athlete. So, if you fail to attend the evaluation, the bus breaks down, you don't show up, you go to the Chief Classifier and say I was on the way and the bus broke down, it seems like a reasonable explanation to me, you get a second opportunity to come to classification. You come in and you say, “Sorry I couldn't get there, I was drunk in the bar, that doesn't happen any more.” And the Chief might say, “Sorry, you don't class, you don't play.” These are things that actually we already do, so it's not new to us in rugby.

The second, the Non-Cooperation, the athlete is unable or unwilling to participate; that's what we use to call unclassifiable. That athlete doesn't get a class at that tournament and can't compete. And the Chief Classifier has an opportunity to give them a second opportunity, if they feel like there is a reasonable explanation. What might happen in our sport sometimes is we see some athletes that have some pretty unusual medical stories, and it's things that we may not know a lot about, and so we can't understand some of their presentation, and we may not give them a class. But we may say bring us more information and we can reconsider. That's happened in rugby before. So, the penalty for that is if someone is not able to participate, they're given a three month time period before they get that second opportunity.

The third one is the more serious, Misrepresentation, and it's very difficult to prove. And if we listen to the gossip from all of you in this room, everybody in the hotel is doing this. So, I don't know that it's probably that much, but it's certainly difficult to prove for us. But if that happens you don't get a class, you can't compete, you lose your sport’s class, we take it away from you, you don't get to be seen again for two years. If you're seen again in two years, and you're a good boy or good girl, you get it back. If you cheat a second time, you are permanently out. So, these are the other parts, the technical and


operational requirements in how we evaluate in sport classes and how protests and appeals happen.

The classifier training certification class, I'm not going to go into it, if you want some more information on that we can give it to you. Also what happens with the athlete's evaluation now, all sports have to do these three things. If you're going to evaluate an athlete for a sport class you have to do an assessment. These will look familiar to you because we always do them. We do that to bench test for your muscle testing, we do the technical assessment where we may push you around and try to knock you over, and then we watch you play. So, those three things are already in place for rugby and now it's happening for all sports.

The sport classes in rugby are 0.5 to 3.5. We also have ineligible athletes, which is someone who had more function in some of those classes, and in the International Manual that's referred to a 4.0 athlete and cannot play. These are the sport classes stated that are used internationally, we're not using them just yet in rugby, we're not using that in the U.S. yet, but there is some discussion about that. We have the new and review part which will look familiar to you. The confirmed part is the athlete who's permanent, one who's gone through classification, is not going to change any more, done with them, not going to see them, so the ITC is recommending that we use the word "confirm" rather than permanent because no one ever really is permanent. So, that's some discussion that we are going to have to have in the future if we want to be in line with these terminologies that are stated. In a protest, if you want to protest your class in wheelchair rugby, in the U.S. right now, how many times can you do that?

MR. GUMBERT: Twice.

MS. HART: I hear two, I hear three, I hear seven. Where we are right now is three. What happens if you are a 2.0 and you get classed and you become a 2.5, does the clock start over? International wheelchair rugby rules it doesn't matter, you only get three, that's it. Whether it's you or someone else, you only get three.

MR. PATE: If I'm on another team with Brian, I can file a protest to eat up his right to protest?

MS. HART: If you're on another team, you have the opportunity to protest that athlete.

MR. PATE: But if I filled them, it's eating up his rights.

MS. HART: I'm not sure, I need my attorney to talk to you about that language. The current recommendation is that there are two protest opportunities, you have the right to protest yourself once and another team has the right to protest yourself and that's it. So,


currently what we've done is we've had three and actually in some situations we've had never-ending protest opportunities. So that's something we need to have a serious discussion about, because the athletes themselves have the right to protest, but it needs to end at some point.

MR. GUMBERT: I have two questions. One is when you're talking about the different levels of like a new, those types of players, it was my understanding that looking at the IWRF code, classification code, that it might be possible through an interpretation that somebody that had been a Permanent before might be able to be reviewed again.

MS. HART: That's correct. There is what we call a protest under exceptional circumstances. Now, we're all exceptional, I know, but there might be an athlete who has received their final classification and they could have a change in their impairment, I've seen people get seriously worse or better, it could change either way, but if there is a change like that, then the athlete no longer fits in that class. Then they may have the ability to ask the Chief Classifier to take a look at them, they can provide information about their change, and then they would make a decision.

There could be a mistake made by a classification panel, that never happens, probably, but there could be something that happens where there is a mistake made in classification. The Chief Classifier would say, “We've missed something” and you can see the athlete again. There could be a change in the rule; we could decide we want twenty-five classes of wheelchair rugby. So if the rules change then you would be seen again even if you were a Permanent class. So, there could be a change in the athlete's condition, there could be a change in the rule, there could be some sort of mistake made and you can see the athlete again. And we've done that.

MR. GUMBERT: My question revolves around a player that has been playing for fifteen plus years that was reviewed early on in that process and went through international procedures and received an international classification that was permanent and now we bring this system in, and I know in the Paralympic code there is a way to set it up through the adoption of that Paralympic code which is part of this code that there is a possibility that I, as a coach, saw another player on a team that exhibits way past the function of that, that I can reach that player through a protest?

MS. HART: What you would do is you would contact whoever is in charge of the classification in the U.S., which is Trisha, then she would start to investigate, look at the database and start to watch that athlete a little bit and if she felt like there was a valid point there – it's actually the classifier who writes it, but you could also say, “I don't see it, sorry.”


MS. SUHR: The exceptional circumstance has to be a protest filed by a classifier, but you can bring what you feel to us and as Head of Classification we will investigate.

MR. GUMBERT: So player "A" we start watching, and he or she has been around and, you know, we start watching them for whatever reason, see there's a lot more function out there than what fits that class, there is a chance that even if they're Permanent we could bring it to you, or Trisha, who's the Head Classifier and say, “Trisha, please look at this, explain the differences for us or if it's worthy of being reviewed.”

MS. HART: Yes. That's why we want to get away from the terminology "Permanent,” because you really aren't. The last part is in the code that we are all going to be following now, is this clear definition between both a protest and an appeal. A protest is when you file some sort of formal objection to your class. You've been classed at 2.0 and think you should be a 1.5. A guy on another team could be classed as a 2.0 and you think he should be a 2.5, that's a protest. If you feel like the procedures of classification were not conducted in the way the rules say, that's an appeal.

So, if you're unhappy with your sport class, you're not filing an appeal, you're filing a protest. Now, if you've run out of protest opportunities, and you're still not happy with your sport class, you still don't file an appeal. You only file an appeal if the rules haven't been followed. So, if it says in the rules you'll be seen by two classifiers and you go to a tournament and you're only seen by one and you get a flag, and you're not happy with it, then you're filing an appeal that only one classifier gave you that.

So, there is some differences there. The protest business stays within the classifiers, you're the one who works with the athlete from a protest. If it's an appeal, there's an actual body that takes care of appeals. Internationally, it's called the BAC, The Board of Arbitration Classification and it's managed by the IPC. They have the head of the legal committee and they help point a few other people to review the rules of the sport and classification and make a decision, if the rules were followed or not. Now, they don't have anything to say about your class, they just say the rules weren't followed, you've got to go back and start over, or the rules were followed, everything stays as it is. I think that's all I've got.

MR. GUMBERT: Another procedural question is the newly classed player. I know internationally, in the past, it's not really been something that's either adhered to or enforced with. Player "A" comes out freshly injured, gets classed, they take him to a tournament and he gets an international class and a year later they take him as a developmental player on a Worlds team, he gets his second class when he's there, and along the way, because of the advancement in medicine, he's getting return on his function, because he's not being seen or playing at a very high level in his developmental,


he's able to fly beneath the radar, he shows up at Paralympics and gets a third classification and technically he's Permanent, not as a Paralympic but as an international competition, he's technically Permanent.

And I realize that I've got a procedure that I can still touch him as a coach, and I can come to you and say this, but the procedure of how quickly somebody could be seen and go through the system, given all the changes with medicine and advancement that justify these procedures, but I couldn't really locate that.

MS. HART: The recommendation now is if you have an athlete who's very new, newly injured, or they have a condition that fluctuates that, that athlete stays.

MR. GUMBERT: For how long?

MS. HART: If they are fluctuating continually, they will stay that way. They will never – if you have an athlete that has a condition like spinal cord injury, the recommendation is that they stay as a Review athlete for the first two years.

MR. GUMBERT: That's consistent now with the international manual?

MS. HART: Yes.

MR. GUMBERT: Thank you.

MS. HART: I'm done, thank you.

MS. SUHR: Thank you, Anne. At this part of your day I'm here to answer any questions you have about USQRA manual. I've got a few more changes that we've put in on the website, after a few questions I received. Our USQRA manual went to the IWRF and started its national classification, they then took it and expanded on it and then we said, “Yeah, you did a lot of good work, let's bring this to the U.S.,” and that's why we wanted this to take place because of all of their hard work, and we also wanted to address the question transparency. What we do, why we do it, how we do it, is now all written, and we changed a little bit to fit our USQRA policies and procedures.

So, now I'm asking you to vote on all of the policies and procedures. So, like I said none of the definitions of classes, none of that has changed, everything is exactly the same. That is the first part of the manual and I'm sorry I don't have a nice PowerPoint presentation, hopefully you read it and downloaded it. So, some of the terminology changed, but it's not going to affect you guys. In our manual there's a definition of the 4.0


athlete and the test that we use to determine whether he's an eligible athlete. So, that's there if you want to look at it and understand that better.

If you have any questions feel free to stop me, that was my plan. The Permanent class – we're different internationally, so we moved that which is still every three years. You get Permanent until they tell us and IPC code tells us what we have to do, so that has changed because we were told to change it. And then the exceptional circumstance is the only way to protest from a class in the U.S. Something new, even those classifiers, something you will have to get use to, you will all have to sign a consent to be classified. So, when you enter the classification room, there is a form now that international use and it's called “Consent for Classification Form.” So, it basically says I'm allowing you to do this.

There is a definition here of why we charge what we charge, we wrote down the fees for you and none of the charges have changed. Twenty-five dollars for a lost card, it's in the manual now. And protest under exceptional circumstances, I don't think I need to go over that any more. If you have a question let me know. This is something that I want you to know about. If you are going into your games as an "R" Class, you've been seen on the bench test and we want to watch you play, or we're waiting for you to be checked and we're not sure, so we give you an "R" and you go back on the court. If you decide that you want to change your class, we won't do it in the middle of the game, we will do it after the game. If crossovers, semifinals have started we will not change your class until after the tournament. If you've already made it to the semifinal game, it's not fair to your team or the other team to change your class. If it's before the semifinal game we will change your class right after your game. So it's written out in the manual of when to change classes.

Last thing, filing a protest of an ineligible athlete, we've had that happen this last season. There's two pages of how to do it. So, right now it's three months for unclassifiable athletes to be seen again if we feel this is appropriate and then two years for intentional misrepresentation. So, I'm asking you guys to accept our manual and I would love to answer questions if there is any.

MR. GUMBERT: With regards to an international player who comes to you and do you guys review him in the states or do you not?

MS. SUHR: We don't touch them if they have an IWRF class. If they have a country class that's only been seen by one country, then we will. And we added that into our manual.


MR. GUMBERT: So, as an example I would say like someone from Argentina, a new country, they're assigned a classification and done by a "B" panel and they get an international classification and they've been gamebusters, you guys would not look at them.

MS. SUHR: We don't have it written down, but I suppose if we felt like they were unfair – something was really unsafe on the court –

MR. GUMBERT: I'm just using –

MS. SUHR: I guess we would talk about it, but a "B" panel is still its own panel.

MR. GUMBERT: And then the next question is a USA player that has a U.S. classification, goes international and that changes whether it goes up or down, what happens with regards to them when they come back to the states?

MS. SUHR: We voted on it a couple of years ago, the U.S. class is still their superceding class because we probably have seen them a couple of times and we gave them their first class and at this point that's the way we look at it.

MR. GUMBERT: But they do have the ability to protest their class to be redeemed at that point?

MS. SUHR: And some have stayed the same and some have changed.

MR. HOOPER: Thank you, Trisha. I think we are very fortunate to have knowledgeable and professional people in our classification system like Trisha Suhr and Anne Hart. I'm pretty impressed by it. Let's take a Motion to approve the manual.

MS. CHERRINGTON: Motion.

MR. SUHR: Second.

MR. HOOPER: Discussions? All of those in favor of accepting the classification manual.

MR. MURRAY: Twenty.

MR. HOOPER: Opposed? Abstentions? The manual has been accepted. I don't have any other new business here, I do have Other, which is a scary title but is there any other business that needs to be brought to the attention of the AGM?


MR. MENGYAN: I have a question about, it seems like it's still a formality, but as far as female athletes, any athletes who are classed based on their age, is there some kind of – basically a rule as to how they should be documented or then voted on of some type or Best in Class et cetera? So, when you put somebody in a program, should you show their actual classification before or after those points are counted? I think it's a small thing but if the Board were to decide something, I don't think it needs a standard, but that would make it easier on us.

MR. EZELL: I think this will be taken care of after the new cards are issued to the over forty-five players.

MR. MENGYAN: All I'm saying is if the Board was to make a statement at some point for next season that says this is how this is handled. What we run into for example, voting for Best in Class, you don't know whether or not to put a female athlete in at a 2.0 or 2.5 and it keeps confusing the program.

MR. HOOPER: I will tell you what, we will get a policy written up on that. Anything else?

MR. EZELL: I think there are a couple of things to discuss. The USQRA increased involvement in the international scene for rugby and I think Gumbie would probably be the best to start this discussion, as taking on the role of NGB and explaining to everybody what that means.

MR. GUMBERT: Sure. Right now the National Government Body for International Wheelchair Rugby is Lakeshore Foundation. They have operated since 2002 as our NGB. They have managed our international programs for us, as well as, subsidized and paid for – Patty you can help me with this. They have subsidized us with, like paying for dues and fees.

MS. CORNELIUS: No, we have not done that. U.S. Paralympic has.

MR. GUMBERT: Here's how it works. U.S. Paralympic has a contract with Lakeshore Foundation to be our National Governing Body for international play. U.S. Paralympic has paid for fees, registrations, et cetera, that we have incurred as an Association. What we have said as a Board, and previous Boards, is we want to take on more of the voice of what –represent the USQRA. Up until now we had used Board members that had been both serving dual roles. When it wasn't myself, it was Kevin or another Board member that would represent both the Board and the Association as well as represent Team USA though Lakeshore and the NGB.

The Board has come back, and James just pointed this out, we want to have that voice. Well, within that, our NGB has paid for the maintaining of the program which we have


pretty hard numbers on what that looks like. Secondary to that is, to have a voice and say when we talk about this stuff with IWRF and we have a vote, we want to be saying from a Board perspective we want that right to be able to say that.

The issue that we have is, up until now, what we said as a Board, we want that right, but when it comes to managing this part of what that NGB is, we don't want that because we can't handle that. Number one, we don't have the resources to do that. Number two, that's a bigger thing than what we're capable of handling. Through discussions with the Board, we have talked about wanting to take more of that on. Is that what you're talking about James?

MR. EZELL: Yes. I wondered if the membership had any input on that and whether they were in agreement with it?

MS. CHERRINGTON: Can you clarify the specifics of what it is that's difficult for the Board to do that Lakeshore is currently doing?

MS. CORNELIUS: Well, I don't know. When I came to Lakeshore we were already managing it. We had the contract, and I just took over in 2005. I don't know what the discussions were between the USQRA and U. S. Paralympics and why that contract came to Lakeshore.

MR. GUMBERT: I can actually address some of that. U. S. Paralympic requests that the NGB have like an employee, a paid employee who would be running the program. [They] thought there was more stabilization rather than just a group of people that were kind of managing a program and then were gone in a year or two year’s time. They felt like the stability of having an Executive Director or some paid employee that managed that program went for stability within that.

MR. REGIER: I think a good example might be, and Bryan might have a comment, the United Tennis Association that runs all tennis in general. They looked at that, just in a different light. Just like James said, we don't have an Executive Director for those things.

MR. GUMBERT: And I think – and certainly you talk about, that our Association couldn't fund what it takes to do Team USA. I promise you, I know what that is. The same light is what we would be saying to U. S. Paralympic. “Hey, we're good guys, give us all this money and we will manage it.” From them, they need a little bit more than that. From U.S. Paralympic, they want to see that stability is there, and that's the reason why the contract has gone through Lakeshore with a managing partner serving as an employee, and then being a team manager job.


MS. CHERRINGTON: So, they want a full-time or part-time employee that's specifically doing this piece of work?

MR. GUMBERT: That's negotiable.

MS. CHERRINGTON: Is there enough money to support that position now?

MR. GUMBERT: I don't have an answer for that. Right now we don't have enough money to do a lot of things, so I don't know if that contract would support what is described as a full-time or a part-time employee.

MS. CORNELIUS: It's fifty percent of my job but I'm not the only one at Lakeshore. It's our developmental department, our accounting department, our communications department. It's not me even though my name is on there. It's multiple people, but that is not in the contract that says that it has to be, but that's who's involved, it's not just me by myself.

MS. HART: Where does that money come from?

MS. CORNELIUS: The money that we receive comes from U. S. Paralympics. In our contract we are allowed to raise funds for the team, but prior to this year we had not needed to raise funds for the team and they kind of showed up with that at the last minute. But it's always been in there, that we can utilize the range, utilize the name “Team USA.”

MR. HOOPER: I would say just from managing this Board for the past four years, that until we get a paid position, which was one of our goals, and I think still is, an Executive Director, I don't see us having the time to do it and be what the NGB is at this stage.

There is enough work to do here already and that is very onerous. But you know, again just my view of it. I would like to see us be at that point at some stage, and I think that's why we're having this discussion.

MR. GUMBERT: I will play it from two different angles. As a Board member I think our Association is on the verge of being able to do a lot of things like what we're talking about. You know, stepping up more roles as a proactive voice where we are treating our sport much more like a sport than a hug.

The other part of that is, as a coach of a National side. I can't afford to lose that funding or that leadership and direction while we're waiting for that to happen. That train is moving with or without us. So, I want to stay on those tracks with that train right now. That will lead the Association and we're at a tough crossroads.


We've come from a position where – a good example is our National Championship. Where we have really been helped out a lot the past five or six years whether it was Denver or Louisville or Texas or whoever was hosting. [They] really undertook a lot of it, and we, as a Board and Association, didn't have to really worry about what it is to run a National Championship and be actively involved in it. It's treating our sport more like a business, and I think we're coming close to that crossroads. This weekend you're going to see this and hopefully all of those things that we've talked about on Facebook, Twitter, emails and on the web page. Hopefully that pays off and we get more and more exposure and we start treating this more towards a sport.

The moment that catches hold, everybody knows the moment they see our sport it works. But a part of that is we've got to get in and be able to treat it like a business and that's what you're talking about. We want to act as the head of our business, and right now I think we're still trying to find our way. Some of us have been here for a very long time and have sat through a lot of these meetings. [We’ve] said things that have been said over and over, but it's not going to be an easy five or six guys or gals that are up here working for the Board, it's all of us. We bust our ass, you've busted your ass before. But, for us to be able to take another step and be treated more and more as a business than a sport, it's going to happen with the hard work of all of us.

So, my challenge is for us to be able to step up and take NGB. Step up and say, “Look we've got to get past looking for a handout, we need to go out and make it work because business works when people work.” That's the reason I'm involved, I've got a lot of irons in the fire, but I believe in what this sport does on many, many levels and I think that's where we're at.

MS. CORNELIUS: It's not out of the question, I mean National Wheelchair Basketball Association does use NGB for wheelchair basketball and has had one full-time employee for years and now they have two. So, it's not out of the question for this to happen.

MR. HOOPER: Well, you will notice that – many of you will, that Force Factor is here. Thanks in the most part to Jason Regier and that kind of sponsorship is the step in the very direction that Gumbie is talking about. We need the big sponsors and we need to step it up and get the business going so that at some point –

Look, four years ago we, as a group, said, “We'll hire an Executive Director if we could afford one,” well guess what, we haven't been able to afford one. So, those things are there but they're in their infancy but we absolutely need to go forward and look good and get even more professional than we've aspired to up to this point.


MR. EZELL: One other thing. We talked about this last year, and the situation we are finding ourselves in now, didn't have a host that was willing to put on the National tournament this year. We need a little bit of a discussion about how to circumvent this happening in the future and just spreading out the responsibility for teams to host postseason tournaments.

MR. HOOPER: Well, basically Lakeshore pulled our fat out of the fire. Had they not stepped up we wouldn't be where we're at right now. But that being said, most hosts have the opportunity to get stuff like food and sometimes transportation and because Lakeshore is here full-time and running program after program, week after week, it's not that easy to go out and ask Chik-Fil-A to donate five thousand sandwiches or whatever the deal may be. But a team in California, Michigan, wherever, they might have a lot more opportunity to be able to do that. What we have found as a Board, and I think that we all agree on it is that, you know, "we" as a group, USQRA, are going to have to start paying to come to the dance. We have been so fortunate you don't even know.

I can tell you a couple of numbers, I think we paid the Texas tournament $10,000. It was a $45,000 to $50,000 affair. Same thing with Louisville all those years. Jill Farmer, I mean, they put on five tournaments that probably cost them $200,000, we sent them probably $25,000, $40,000, you know. So, those things are very costly and we just have to do a better job of being more professional about this and getting our sponsors and getting things in place.

But it does require a group effort, you know, four or five people can't chase this thing around. It's not an easy thing to get money, especially at this time and place. So, we need teams to step up. And we have also been in a poor economy for the past two years but have raised more money for postseason, all of postseasons, not just Nationals, than we ever have in the history of the USQRA.

MR. REGIER: Small comment on Nationals. Having hosted it and seeing it these last few years, it's kind of my opinion that Nationals should almost be bid out two years ahead. Lakeshore, the only reason we were able to do this really, is because they do this week-in and week-out, and they have facilities and they know what they're doing. Everybody else, I mean, it takes – it's almost a two-year process of understanding it, what's going behind it, all the things you need to run and the whole piece of putting it together. So, just throwing it out there for conversation, I know in an ideal world that would be nice, but it's something to think about.

MR. BARTEN: I'm new at this, but undertaking a tournament like this, Patty, I thank you for doing this. I was just thinking you know about switching it up a little bit, DI Nationals and the DII Nationals.


MR. REGIER: That's really what we're trying to stay away from. When we originally started in 2000 we had done that, but when we went from a twelve team National tournament to sixteen teams, top eight being DI, the next eight being Division II, and the first year they were in separate locations and we brought them together and that was the idea that we got – how many new teams do we have here? Three or four teams that have never been to Nationals and they get to participate but also see some of the top teams in Division I. So, the idea is to get everybody together and kind of grow the sport there. Maybe realistically we have to do that monetarily. The other downfall is how you host the AGM. You can put it at one place and then you could probably – I guarantee if you split it we're going to lose a third of our people easy, but it may come down to that.

MR. HOOPER: There are some other issues with that too. We did two separate places, we did – coincidentally it was at Lakeshore and it was also over at Green Springs, which isn't very far from here and we were able to do an AGM with both tournaments in separate locations. And we've talked about this, in fact, that was going to be the next step this year, we were going to reach out and have two different places.

But what you also lose is you lose that sense, I think, community within the quad rugby world of bringing everybody together under one roof and having a banquet and having awards and celebrating the sponsors and having a good showing for all that, and I think it's a package that we – I don't know that we can afford to lose that at this point. We may have to, you know, reality bites sometimes.

I would say this too, Bryan, again I hate to keep patting Lakeshore on the back, but they truly deserve it. I think they taught us something important in that we're helping now and we have the capability and the understanding in our own heads that we have to help more, that we have to come up with more in order to do it. So you might find if you want to host Nationals, for example, that you would get a lot more than – financially anyway, more than you would have two years ago.

MR. REGIER: I think the big piece too is looking forward. We've talked about an Executive Director, I think it's a reality that it could happen. I'd say it might take two to three years honestly to raise that money. If things go well we have a real opportunity to market sponsors at a different level. You know, put another zero behind that level and all of a sudden we're talking real numbers that actually have some people working here and doing it, and I think that's the main goal. Let's not take a step back, let's see if we can actually move this forward and up a notch.

MR. SUMNER: I saw the international tournament for basketball and they have 80 to 100 teams all in the same rotation. There are little things that can be changed.


MR. GUMBERT: One of the things that I hear, and it may have been voiced earlier, is you're elected to this position as a Board member, so you really don't understand what all your roles are going to be until you get in it and start getting your feet wet a little bit. But the expectations a lot of the time if you haven't served on this Board is that, oh, these guys have got it. Anyone that's sat on this Board before, it's an on-going change of position and it changes constantly. It's like, “Well, that's what you signed up for, you should do it.”

I've got a right too, you know. It's part of my responsibility to go out and raise $50,000 for us to have a National Championship and run the league, that's a full-time job. One of those is a full-time job. That's when we say back to the membership, we need you to get involved because what Chance is talking about is right. Yeah, it's a fantastic tournament, but it didn't happen with just six people. It's not happening at all with just six people. So, that's where the Association comes in, it doesn't just happen, it takes a lot of work.

MR. HOOPER: All right. That's definitely good stuff and you know, we've got some people on the entry level of quad rugby that's going to step up here like Alison Krauss in Jacksonville is – she's a worker bee that makes stuff happen. There's a lot of good things going on. So, we are pretty happy about that, but I think we've got a long way to go. Is there any more discussion on this?

MR. CERUTI: This is just an email that came out in October regarding the international

players. An international player’s fee may be waived, and then it gave a criteria. “A player has never been or currently on an international roster –“

MR. GUMBERT: It was a policy but not something we voted on, but was a policy that was instituted when that situation arose. It was asked to us if this person could be considered an international player, because they had essentially – if I'm remembering correctly, we had an international player that was living in the States, and if I'm not mistaken he had legal citizenship, and the part was like well, which could be considered and that person then be waived of the fees if they were considered in the States. And what we said was, what I said was, “That's clarification right there,” and that's what we went under, and it was just a policy that we adopted as an Executive Committee at that point.

MR. CERUTI: Why are those --

MR. GUMBERT: Let me give you an example. Mike, who has dual citizenship in the United States as well as in Canada. If you were to say, “Well, Mike has dual citizenship so his fee should be waived, because he is technically an American citizen…” What I would say, “No he's not,” because one, he plays for an international country. He would be an


international player playing in the United States. So, the player did not have any type of international team affiliation, that's where some of that came from. So, if Mike wasn't on London's team, then he has no affiliation with another country whatsoever.

MR. HOOPER: I can give you probably more insight on this situation. I've had this argument already. When Mike came and played for us, I argued that he should not have to pay that, or we should not, and that he lived in the United States, and really, probably shouldn't be considered an international player since he's a citizen of this country. Now, my motives were selfish, I wanted to have both he and Dave Willsie on the team, but didn't work out that way, and the final ruling came down that an international player was not necessarily a player from another country, but rather a player playing for another international team.

This was a policy decision that I think came from Tom Hamill. There was a player that played with Boston for a time, that was from a Latin American country, as best I can remember, I can't remember the guy’s name, Carlos, he played and he was not considered an international player when he played for their team. It's not a direct comparison, but it is kind of the way that it came down and the way that was set a number of years ago.

MR. GUMBERT: And the other part of that is, if Mike was not an international player, then let's bring him in and let him play.

MR. HOOPER: And we kind of define international player as someone who plays on another team from another country, not necessarily a player who is from another country.

MR. GUMBERT: So, do you want something to come of this?

MR. CERUTI: No, I thought that that was a rule and thought it was something new.

MR. GUMBERT: I would say there probably needs to be a further clarification on that, and our explanation, and I will work with that.

MR. HOOPER: There is a ballot in your packet and this is one vote, it's not Chicago, one vote per team. Everybody make sure you have a ballot. You definitely need to put your name and your team name on there to make sure we have that squared away. We have one named person running for President which is Gary Pate, he's here. It has his information, why he wanted to run, what his credentials were. If you want to say something, Gary, you can do that at this time.

MR. PATE: I'm changing my mind. No, just kidding. Nearly everybody in this room knows me, I support this sport so I don't have anything else to add.


MR. HOOPER: There could be a write-in or nomination on the floor or someone who would like to be, would have to be with the agreement of that person, that they would do it. For first Vice-President we have three candidates, two of which are here. We have Carolyn, and if you would like to say something please do.

CAROLYN. BOEBINGER: I'm Carolyn Boebinger, I work for the Texas Stampede. I wrote online about why I'm passionate about this, why I'm passionate about rugby, and why I think I would be a good fit for this division. I've only been in rugby for about four years now, but I've done the Seattle team, and now I'm with Texas. I'm involved in several different organizations in the greater Austin area and I think the work that Jason has been doing is absolutely fantastic. You look at the Gatorade commercial, you look at the work he's been doing with Dave on the websites. The one thing I want to do is gain input from members, getting more information like Jason had written up about communication.Getting more information out to members, getting scores posted as soon as possible. I know I get so frustrated when I'm texting people and I'm trying to look all over the league to find out what's going on. Bob Murray did a great job at Sectionals with his Twitter account sending out all his. It was fantastic, and I mean, that's something we need more of, we need to get the word out, we need to get everybody out. Thank you.

MR. HOOPER: Nick Long.

NICK. LONG: I turned my name into the hat, you know, I've been involved with rugby seven or eight years, both as team captain and coach for the last two years. Also involved with Iron Non-Profit for Michigan for the last five or six years and it involves a lot of fundraising and getting the word out and everything. I put my name in the hat to get more heavily involved and make a difference and also drive for the things the Board can accomplish and move forward with the sport.

MR. HOOPER: And the third person is Larry Porter. Larry is not here. If I read his, I will have to read the others, right? Y'all did get the ballots and information and bylaws and everything; am I correct in that? And for Secretary we have one person on there, Susan Alvarez, and Susan is not here. So, with that I would ask you to fill out your ballots and make sure you put your name and team name on them and we will come around and get them. Bob will collect them and we will tally them up.

(Whereupon, a break was taken.)

MR. HOOPER: The election has been totaled. For President and a nail-biter, Gary Pate unanimously elected. First Vice-President, thirteen votes for Carolyn and ten votes for Nick and one vote for Larry, so Carolyn is the new First Vice-President. For Secretary,


Susan Alvarez who also received all twenty-four votes. So, those are the new elected officials for the USQRA. Congratulations and welcome to the club.

Anybody who was not elected, it's the same thing as last year, we definitely need your help and your input. There's a lot of things that you can do. If you're interested in being involved in this level than you certainly can be involved in others. Communication is one of those. By that I mean, you know, like a PR person, just helping out in that area. The marketing committee, the web committee, there's a lot of things out there that we need help with and please get involved with it and especially if you have the expertise and the time to do it. I think the last item we have here, do we have anyone interested and would like to get this up front, Jason made the point on Nationals it should be two years, and I think it's a really great point. Anyone for Regionals? I don't know how many Regionals we would have.

MATT EDENS: Shepherd for the Atlantic South Regionals.

MR. HULL: Jacksonville for the Atlantic.

MR. HOOPER: Wow, two. Any other one for Regionals? How many did we have last year?

MR. GUMBERT: Heartland, and you had Atlantic North and Atlantic South and possibly this year – nothing moves, everything stays and we increase that we will have one in the East.

MR. HOOPER: I would say anybody who's a RAC for those areas and the Commissioner will be in contact with you as well. Any of the areas, you get the word out within your region and section that we need hosts. Sectionals, anyone interested in doing Sectionals?

MR. WOLFE: Las Vegas for the Pacific Section. MR. SUMNER: Denver.

MR. HOOPER: Denver for the Mountain section. St. Louis for the Heartland section, which is Chuck Melton. And how about Atlantic? Maybe Jacksonville and Sheherd should talk and one of you do Regionals and one of you do Sectionals, just a thought. And the final one is Nationals. This is a big one, and I thought Michigan had an interest in Nationals, no? I would make a note of that because I thought that they had an interest, am I wrong? Okay.

With that, one last thing before we take a Motion to Adjourn, and that is that y'all should probably know that Saturday afternoon Division I and Division II, semis, both Division I games will be webcast with Tampa Digital and the D2, the one D2 game crossover will


be webcast, but we will choose which one, we don't know which will be the – we want to try to show what we would think be the better of the two. That's a subjective matter so I'm sure that will come back at us at some point.

And then on Sunday both Division I and Division II games will be webcast. And they're being done by Tampa Digital, they're going to do the actual webcast. And the sponsors and so forth that are here, especially Force Factor, you see the guy walking around with Force Factor, y'all need to tell your teams and your players to thank these sponsors. And if you can get on your Facebook and tell anyone and everyone about this, what's happening, and the site is up and it's available. So, we're excited about it, and that's it.

MR. EZELL: The auction.

MR. HOOPER: Oh, the auction. Thank you, sir. The auction, we have – we have a Melrose chair, we have a Vesco chair, we have an Eagle chair all available, it's on eBay. The links to that for all the items, not just those chairs, are on the website. And there's going to be a laptop at Lakeshore where you can actually go and make your bid on-site, if you want to do that. Offensive, defensive on the chair front, so make sure you bid if you need those things. The other thing is the Spinergy wheels, Fusion has, as they've always had in the past years that I can remember, have donated two sets of wheels to USQRA. And also Spinergy itself, has donated two sets of wheels, and those are also up for auction. They're $800, $900 retail wheels. Make sure you get on and bid for this stuff. It's how we pay for Nationals. The coaches’ meeting is at 7:00 p.m.

MR. GUMBERT: I would like to say how I appreciate having Ed and Jason and Bob. From a personal side, I would like to thank all the RACs for all their work over this past year; you guys have really helped out and we continue to lean on you and we look forward to continue to help us build our Association. We don't say this enough but thank you classifiers and thank you refs very much for all you do.

MR. HOOPER: This Board is like having teammates. I played for a long, long time and these guys and James has came onto the Board and Gumbie and Bob and for me personally, Jason and Bob Crandall and I signed on all at the same time, and I need to extend to them a great deal of thanks for all the help that they have done for this Board.

Thank you again, and I will accept a Motion to Adjourn.

MR. SUHR: Motion.

MR. BISHOP: Second.


MR. HOOPER: Meeting is adjourned.

MR. MURRAY: The time is 3:45.


USQRA 2010 AGM Minutes - quadrugby.comquadrugby.com/files/2010 AGM Minutes Redux.doc · Web viewIn the process of recording AGM transcript for minutes REF. - 2010AGM Minutes.txt.

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