ARA Meeting Agenda
December 16, 2024
Meeting Minutes
ARA General Meeting 16Dec2024
Board Members in Attendance: Dave, Steve, Harrison, Laura, Nathanael, Aldwin, Claire, Edwin, Bichen, Luke
Open Session
Executive Board News
Special Election Results: Welcome new board members Harrison, Laura, and Nathanael
Nima has resigned from the board, thank you for your service
We will have another special election to fill the vacancy
Nominations remain on the table until the January meeting in which the candidates may introduce themselves and give a short pitch
If you want to rerun, please use the form again and just put “See prior comments”
2028 Cycle Format
Question about having NAO every year
Discussion about regional invitationals
In person focus group meeting possibly to be held on Saturday night at the invitational, specifics TBD
ARA Dues Presentation by William
The presentation broke down the costs to travel versus the cost of tournament entry
Charging a few dollars, 5-10 more, for an ARA sanctioned event will not meaningfully change the cost as the bulk is due to travel and lodging
Over the course of a year this would give ARA a few thousand dollars to work with to do something, provided the open tournament schedule is maintained and all clubs opt in
Do we need a finance working group? Right now ARA is not set up to handle money.
2025 Invitational
Hotel block at venue
4/3/1/0 Scramble Sets
Tentative Schedule is up
Working Group Updates
Tech
The database is in sandbox mode and can be used at staging.arariichi.org
Demonstration on setting up users, admin pages, club updates and events
Uploading events has to be done by superadmins
Can be as many admins per club as necessary to maintain the database
Call for volunteers to test
Outreach
Club outreach survey has 76 responses
Social media posting is increasing
Follow the ARA instagram!
Rules and Judging
No further comments on lower penalties mod
Steve and Tamas participated in the EMA referee seminar at ERMC, some lessons learned to apply to ARA
Need to develop an appeals process for when someone doesn’t agree with a ruling at an ARA event
Education and Resources
Tourney-in-a-box is submitted to be placed on the ARA website
Document on how to start/maintain a club is in the works.
Other Business
Professional Organizations
Saikouisen pros announced, congrats to all the new pros
WRC pro system to be announced shortly
WRC pro league details coming soon as well, in Marc
ARML
Formerly the IORMC WG
A1 has been getting stale with nothing to play for other than the win or avoiding relegation
A lot of new players from around the country, 152 players right now with around 20 on hiatus
Closed Session
Claire updated the website with new board members and assembly info
Discussion on tournament timing
60+0? 65+0
Pace of play and calling clock on slow players
How enforceable is calling slow play?
Additional meeting for invitational minutiae scheduled for 12/23
Next General Meeting January 27, 2025