Additional Eligible Voters to Receive Ballots

More voters have been found to be eligible to participate in the current USATT Election of Officers.

Originally, I was working with the version of Standing Election Rules I found posted on the USATT website. It turns out that a change was adopted at the Board meeting of July 8, 2001. At that time, the membership cutoff date for voting was changed from Aug. 1 to Sept. 1. Unfortunately, this change was not incorporated into the Standing Rules as posted online.

I have arranged for ballots to be sent out immediately to all whose memberships began, or had previously lapsed and were renewed, during August of this year. My hope and expectation is that these election materials will be delivered in plenty of time for comfortable compliance with the current deadline for return of ballots, November 10.

I thank my friend John Jarema, of New Jersey, for bringing this change to my attention.

You may well ask how this could happen. When this change was made, it was the responsibility of USATT administrative staff to maintain the website. Those responsible for this particular oversight resigned some time ago to pursue other opportunities. As I am sure you know, Larry Hodges now serves as webmaster. There was no reason whatsoever for Larry to suspect that our posted Standing Rules were not current. I have absolute, rock-solid confidence that, had Larry been in charge of posting the change, he would have kept current. IMHO, Larry has been nonpareil since taking over as editor/webmaster.

You may also ask how the Board, which approved the change, could remain unaware. Please allow me to remind you that the Board are volunteers. They all have busy, productive lives outside of table tennis. (What a concept!) If one reviews all the business the Board has conducted in the past several years, one will quickly realize that it is simply not possible for the Board to have all discussed and/or transacted USATT business in the front of their minds. Of course we have a right to expect them to perform at a high level. However, they are human. There was no reason for them to imagine that we were working with superseded Rules. Furthermore, some of the Board are running for re-election, while another Board member is running against one of them. Some Board members support third parties in this election. Therefore, there is no “conspiracy theory” for this lapse.

When you receive your election materials in the mail, please execute and return them at your earliest convenience. One month from now we will have this election cycle behind us.

Thank you,

Ross Brown

Chairman, Nominating/Elections Committee