Minutes Special Meeting of the USA Fencing Board of Directors July 1, 2018 in St
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Minutes Special Meeting of the USA Fencing Board of Directors July 1, 2018 in St. Louis, MO The board approved, by email vote open from May 21-28, 2018, BiggsKofford as the audit firm for fiscal year 2017-18. Present: Donald Alperstein, Don Anthony, David Arias, Raquel Brown, Alan Kidd, Lorrie Marcil-Holmes, Ann Marsh-Senic, Jeff Salmon, Daria Schneider, Adam Watson Absent: Sam Cheris, Cody Mattern Guests: Peter Barton, Kris Ekeren, Doug Hayler, Melissa Jones, Bill Korbus, Jim Neale, Kate Reisinger, Christine Simmons, Robert Zagunis I. Call to Order, General Information and Organizational Items General Announcements MOTION (Mr. Alperstein as liaison to the Referee’s Commission): To amend the Agenda pursuant to Bylaws Art. VII, Sec. 8(b) to consider the following motions. RATIONALE: The Bylaws prohibit consideration at a special meeting of the Board of Directors of any business not mentioned in the agenda published at least five days in advance of the meeting unless a majority of the directors in office vote to take up the matter. The following motions concern critical rules amendments that were not available for publication at the deadline for inclusion in the published agenda. Consideration and adoption of these rule changes are needed to conform USA Fencing’s Rules of Competition to those of the FIE. MOTION (Mr. Alperstein as liaison to the Referee’s Commission): To amend article t.33 of the Rules of Competition (“Injuries or cramps, withdrawal of a competitor”), paragraph 1, to read as follows with an effective date of August 1, 2018: "For an injury or cramp or other acute medical incident which occurs in the course of a bout and which is properly attested by the delegate of the FIE Medical Committee or by the doctor on duty, the Referee will allow a break in the bout lasting no longer than 105 minutes. This break should be timed from the point when the doctor gave his opinion and be strictly reserved for the requisite treatment of the injury or cramp which brought it about. If the doctor considers, before or at the end of the 105-minute break, that the fencer is incapable of continuing the bout, the fencer must withdraw (individual events) and/or be replaced, if possible (team events) (cf. o.44.1199.6.a/b). All breaks for injury or cramp must be noted on the score-sheet for the bout, the pool or the match. USA Fencing Board of Directors July 1, 2018 Meeting Minutes RATIONALE: The FIE has changed the duration of injury breaks and made certain other clarifying changes to the injury rule. USA Fencing should adopt these both to conform with the conventions of international fencing and for the benefit of our fencer who participate in competitions governed by the FIE Rules. Further, the existing USA Fencing rule perpetuates an anomalous reference to the FIE Medical Committee that should be omitted to conform our rules to our practices and organizational structure. Please note that if the following motion is also adopted, Rule t.33 will be renumbered as t.45 and that the revision of the “cf” reference in the foregoing motion assumes adoption of the renumbering. MOTION (Mr. Alperstein as liaison to the Referee’s Commission): To renumber the Rules of Competition and adopt the non-substantive wording changes listed in the attached excerpts from the document "92829-releve decisions congres 2017 ang.pdf," in a manner and to the extent the same are consistent with USA Fencing’s practices and organizational structure. The renumbering will take effect as of August 1, 2018. RATIONALE: The FIE has renumbered the rules for consistency and has reworded some for clarity. This includes removing rules that are no longer relevant, such as regulations regarding now-banned Lexan masks. This task involves no substantive changes to the rule book and the Rules Committee of the Referee Commission recommends keeping pace in the US rule book for reasons of consistency, data hygiene and US international referee facility with the rules applied in international competition. Where and to the extent USA Fencing’s rules deviate from the FIE verbiage because our rules have been modified to reflect certain policy decisions and operational practices, the Referees’ Commission will be authorized to harmonize the FIE and USA Fencing versions. Second Ms. Brown Motion passed. Remarks – Donald Anthony, President (Appendix A) II. Consent Agenda Items (Mr. Anthony) 1. To approve the minutes from the April 12, 2018 meeting. 2. To approve the financial reports for March and April 2018. 3. To receive the Audit Committee, Election Committee, Referees’ Commission, Tournament Committee, Veterans Committee, Club/Member Services Resource Team, Division Resource Team, Marketing and Communications Resource Team, Paralympic Development Resource Team, Sports Medicine Resource Team, Sports Development Resource Team, Sports Performance Resource Team reports. Mr. Anthony noted that the board is voting to receive the reports. This does not mean that any recommendations contained in any of the reports are approved. Second Ms. Schneider Motion passed. USA Fencing Board of Directors July 1, 2018 Meeting Minutes III. Executive Directors Report (Appendix B) IV. Finance Report (Mr. Hayler) April 2018 Financials Membership Services total net income is currently behind budget by $96K, total income is $98K behind budget and expenses are $2K under budget. Competitive memberships are down $35K and we have determined that this is due to membership upgrades. Membership upgrade revenue after April 1st are split between the prior year and the current year and the member is getting two years of competitive membership for the cost of one year. In the past, we have not accounted for the reduced cost of the membership and will correct going forward. Coaching membership revenues are under budget by $68K. This is due to a significant decrease in Coach (previously professional) memberships, from 2,536 memberships in the prior year to 2,026 memberships in current year. We believe the drop in Coach Memberships is due to more people purchasing the +CheckEd membership add on which has increased from 533 in the prior year to 1,333 in the current year. Despite the fact that membership is behind budget, membership’s net income is $1,422K, $133K ahead of prior year actuals of $1,289K as of 4/30/2017. National Events total net income is currently behind budget by $106K, total income is $138K over budget and expenses are $243K over budget. The April NAC in Richmond, VA had a net income of $147K. It came in $24K over the budgeted net income of $123K. The main reasons for this is registration fees came in $13K over budget. This has been a challenging year for national events. Total revenue through April 2018 is up $117K over the prior year, which is an increase of 3.4%. However, event expense have increased $383K over prior year. This is an increase of 17.3%. We have done a thorough review of the budget for Summer Nationals and have made budget adjustments and cuts. This is the last major event to be held and holding this event to its budget is vital in making our year end income goal. Marketing and Communications total net income is currently ahead of budget by $11K, total income $21K ahead of budget and expenses are $10K over budget. The expense overage is due to changing the company that manages our online store. We were required to purchase the $11K purchase of the inventory from the previous online store. The inventory is to be sold at events by NDP so we will recoup the cost of this expense by the end of the fiscal year. The increase in revenue is due to better than budget merchandise sales at our events and a larger number of paid for e-mail blasts. USA Fencing Board of Directors July 1, 2018 Meeting Minutes General Admin total net income is currently ahead of budget by $17K, total income is ahead of budget by $63K and expenses are over budget by $46K. Income is higher due to a $17K insurance claim for equipment damaged in transit to the Oct NAC and investment revenues of $39K from the US Olympic Endowment account. The overage in expense is due to higher than budgeted Braintree (formerly Paypal) fees. Sports Performance total net income is currently behind budget by $34K, total income is $5K under budget and expenses are $29K over budget. There is a $14K overage in budgeted air fare expense and a budgeted overage for team apparel. Due to timing of expenses these overages should be on budget by the end of the fiscal year. Development total net income is currently behind budget by $6K, total income is $6K behind budget and expenses are on budget. Executive Office and Board and Committees are on budget or close to budget with no major variances. Cash + Receivables exceeds our payables by approximately $1,245K. The cash on hand includes $153K in a money market account and $676K which is currently held in the US Olympic Endowment account Our YTD net income is $451K versus a budgeted number of $660K giving us a negative variance of $209K. Our prior year net income was $1,077K versus a budget of $1,152K as of January 31, 2017. We have made budget adjustments and cuts across all departments without impacting current programs and services. Making these cuts has left us with a very tight budget to close out the year. Therefore, barring any unforeseen major expenses between now and the end of our fiscal year, we believe we will reach the budgeted goal of $150K by the end of the year.