USA Table Tennis
Board Meeting Minutes
November 12-13, 1999

Friday, November 12, 1999:

The meeting was called to order by President Sheri Pittman at 7:15 MST.

Present (proxy)

George Brathwaite, Jim Butler, Jeff Davis, Diana Gee (Sean O’Neill, except Bob Tretheway on clothing issues), Tong Lee, Jimmy McClure, Khoa Nguyen (Tong Lee), Sheri Pittman, Barney Reed, Dennis Taylor, Bob Tretheway, Jiing Wang (Hank McCullom), Lily Yip (George Brathwaite), Executive Director Ben Nisbet.

1) President Sheri Pittman welcomed those in attendance and recognized those appearing as proxies.

MOTION 1: Moved to accept the proxies.

Proposed by Jimmy McClure; seconded by Barney Reed.

Passed: 13-0.

  1. Ben Nisbet spoke of the memorial service for the children of Alan Williams, which he attended earlier in the week.
  2. Sheri Pittman announced that in the future the President’s Report in USATT Magazine will be discussing an issue in depth. The issue in the upcoming magazine will be strategic planning.

4) Jimmy McClure presented a report on the ITTF President’s Advisory Council Meeting. This meeting was held October 27-30 in Lausanne. Specific items of interest include:

All present at the meeting favor adoption of the 40mm ball, including IOC President Samaranch, who attended portions of the meeting.

A microphone will be placed on each table at ITTF events to enhance spectator enjoyment.

The ITTF will be opening two training centers; one in Cairo and one in South America.

ITTF wants to increase women’s participation in the sport.

ITTF is pushing for mixed doubles in the Olympics, starting in 2004. There would be a limit of one pair per country.

Jimmy McClure made Juan Antonio Samaranch an honorary life member of USATT. He doesn’t belong to any other sports association.

George Brathwaite requested that Jimmy McClure bring one of George’s concepts for sport development to the attention of the ITTF.

  1. Ben Nisbet reported on his activities in the last two months.

1999 Nationals contract still needs to be approved

US Olympic Trials will be held in Houston Jan. 20-23, 2000. This will determine who progresses to the US-Canada Olympic Trials, to be held in Rochester, NY, April 5-9. The North American Championships will be the following weekend.

The National Team clothing sponsorship contract will be addressed later in the meeting.

A revamped membership structure and pricing plan was presented. It will be addressed later in the meeting.

Many marketing/sponsorship opportunities have developed over the past two months. We have an exclusive franchise in table tennis, a very powerful position

We currently do not have any organized marketing material. Other associations are way ahead of us on this count.

The Internet provides us with new opportunities, especially in the integration with television. People are willing to pay us for what we formerly had to pay them for.

There are few children at clubs today. To address this situation we will be starting a pilot youth program in eight schools, redesigning the membership brochure, and investigating the possibility of coaching vouchers.

A short video of a school program in Colorado Springs was played.

Ben is educating the staff about the sport.

When asked about what had surprised him in the first months as ED, he responded:

    1. how many people are calling with interest in playing and sponsorship opportunities
    2. that USOC funds sports by medal possibilities; for example, track has 100 possible medals at an Olympic games while we only have 12 – even a sweep would leave us far behind track
    3. how much work staff does; it is imperative to get more informational requests to go through the web site.

We need an extra staff person to help with office overflow.

30% of all staff time is spent on the US Open. We must reduce that amount through the use of local organizing committees for both the Open and Nationals.

The meeting recessed at 9:07 p.m.

The meeting reconvened at 9:21 p.m.

The North American Teams preparations are going smoothly. This tournament provides USATT with growth opportunities. Ben is looking for ways to synergize with Richard Lee to the mutual benefit of both organizations.

Changes are ahead for the Nationals. We lost sponsorship of Las Vegas Events this year. It almost seemed like they didn’t want us. Ben is exploring other venues. Furthermore, the facility contract for the 1999 Nationals has yet to be signed. A copy of the current draft of the contract was distributed. Ben will be discussing other Las Vegas venues with Jiing Wang and Neil Smyth.

The US Team Trials will be held on January 20-23, 2000 in Houston. Counsel will be asked to assess whether Houston has facilities that will meet USOC approval. Contracts will be sent to the Board soon for their approval.

The joint US-Canada Olympic Team Trials will be held in Rochester. Ben just received the letter containing Rochester’s requests of USATT; he will check to see if it matches their verbal discussions. Additionally, Ben has a sponsorship package ready for (a local corporation).

Regarding the 2000 ITTF Pro Tour event in the US, the ITTF is having difficulty comprehending the concept to the USOC Joint Marketing Agreement. The facility contract was distributed.

Gameday Management has submitted a proposal for sponsorship development on commission. Discussion was postponed until later.

USOC is adopting organizational changes recommended in the McKinsey report. While these will probably lead to better organization within USOC, they could lead to increased emphasis on medals rather than development of a sport.

Ben Nisbet attended the recent Olympic Congress. Many good contacts were initiated, including the Girl Scouts. There was a great community development discussion.

The Executive Directors of NGBs have held discussions about rewriting the joint marketing agreement.

The High Performance Plan is not yet complete. USOC is still reviewing the plan devised by the Board in September and later revised by Ben and Sheri in consultation with Kelly Skinner of USOC. We still need to do a flow chart and add content and discussion. Therefore, the markers are not yet firm.

Ben is of the opinion that the Net/Edge tournament software package will likely never be complete, in spite of work currently underway by Barry Dattel and Margaret Smith. Therefore, Ben believes a second package will need to be developed independently. One suggestion for a model was the software Johnny Hess has devised for the North American Teams. This package is already in process of being adapted to the standard tournament model in order to accommodate the upcoming North American Tour.

Many program and grant opportunities are in progress. Ben has submitted applications for a USOC training grant for Gao Jun Chang and Amy Feng and a Podium Grant. Additionally, school and community development programs are in the incipient stage.

Ben and Dave Williams attended the recent Olympic Public Relations Association summit for Olympic PR specialists. Dave Williams distinguished himself as a great networker, leading to many new contacts.

Three companies responded to the RFP to be the Official Clothing Sponsor. The submitted proposals were distributed in preparation for discussion later in the meeting.

Ben proposed changes to the membership structure. Currently, it costs $16.80 to process a one-year membership. If the membership is submitted by a club, thus entitling the club to a rebate, the net revenue to the association is $6.14. Due to mailing costs, international memberships are money losers. The following alterations are proposed:

    1. eliminate the Junior w/o magazine category
    2. raise the price of Junior membership to $15
    3. create a Collegiate category priced at $18 for individuals aged 18-23 who can furnish a valid student ID from an accredited 2 or 4 year institution.
    4. retitle the Family membership as the Household membership and limit such membership to two adults per address, plus any minors residing at that address.

MOTION 2: Moved to accept the membership structure recommendations as presented. (see Addendum 1)

Proposed by Jiing Wang; seconded by Barney Reed.

Passed: 13-0.

MOTION 3: Moved to implement the changes to the membership structure on March 1, 2000.

Proposed by Bob Tretheway; seconded by Diana Gee.

Passed: 13-0.

USATT will be listed as part of the Combined Federal Campaign starting in 2001. Startup costs will be approximately $1500 if we use CDR to fill out the application.

A USATT Visa card will be created. USATT will receive a percentage of sales charged with this card.

  1. Sean O’Neill reported on the recent USOC Board meeting. USOC will be looking for more clearly defined responsibilities from its staff, with the staff having individual performance markers just like those of athletes.
  2. Tong Lee presented an overview of the Finance Committee budget report. If total requests were funded, USATT would suffer a $158,000 deficit. The Committee has trimmed that deficit to approximately $50,000.

    3. The meeting recessed at 11:12 p.m.

    Saturday, November 14, 1999:

    The meeting reconvened at 8:10 a.m.

    All members and proxies were present with the exception of Jeff Davis, who gave his proxy to Bob Tretheway. Additionally, David Marcus and Larry Rose were present as resource people regarding the Ratings Committee’s Proposed Ratings System.

  3. USATT Accountant Ken Waugh gave an overview of how our books are examined, including a comparison of GAAP audits and USOC grant compliance audits. Mr. Waugh sees a challenge for the association in building cash reserves. In early 1998, USATT had reserves of approximately $250,000 (not all in cash). This would run the association for around three months in case of an income stream interruption. As an accountant, Mr. Waugh would like to see six months of reserves; however, that doesn’t take into account the resources of the USATT Foundation. Mr. Waugh also feels it important to have an active Treasurer and Finance Committee and to have frequent budget monitoring activities. (The current Finance Committee has instituted a mid-year budget review.)
  4. Ben Nisbet presented his priorities for the 2000 budget. He requested the Board accept as fixed all revenue projections and not touch Headquarters Operations expenditures. This would leave the Board and Programs budget captions for allocation. He recommends keeping the deficit at $50,000. Furthermore, he recommends that unbudgeted revenue be applied to the deficit and Headquarters Operations at a 65%-35% ratio.
  5. Tong Lee gave a line by line presentation of the Finance Committee budget report. Considerable debate followed. The primary areas of debate were whether to take money from the Youth budget and use it to augment the National Team budget and whether or not to include additional anticipated revenues.

    6. The meeting recessed at 12:15 p.m.

    The meeting reconvened at 1:19 p.m.

    Jeff Davis returned.

    By general agreement, the budget discussion was tabled in order to meet with Corporate Counsel Steve Smith.

    The Board went into Executive Session at 1:24 p.m. Matters discussed in Executive Session are privileged and no minutes are kept.

    The Board returned to General Session at 4:07 p.m. and immediately went into recess.

    The meeting reconvened at 4:20 p.m.

  6. One item to come out of Executive Session was that Illinois law prohibits directors from using proxies. While votes already taken are protected by Chapter XXIII of the Bylaws, the "Saving Clause," from this moment forward, proxies will no longer be allowed votes at Board meetings. The proxies in attendance were thanked for their service and were welcomed to continue to participate in discussion.
  7. Discussion of the proposed budget continued. After considerable discussion of how much of the Youth budget could be transferred to the elite budget, compromise was achieved. Additionally, since the Board was holding approximately $20,000 in sponsorship contracts that were not budgeted, it was decided that failure to allocate additional revenue to the budget would be a fiduciary violation. Therefore, the Board allocated an additional $50,000 in revenue to the budget. This brought the budget into balance. A copy of this budget is included as Addendum 2.

    8. MOTION 4: Moved to approve the budget.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Jimmy McClure.

    Passed: 8-1.

    In Favor: GB, JB, JD, TL, JM, SP, BR, DT

    Opposed: BT

  8. Three responses were received pursuant to the RFP for clothing sponsorships. The proposals varied considerably in contribution quantity and term length. There was considerable discussion as to relative quality of product and quality of contributions. Sean O’Neill, Marketing Director for Table Tennis Pioneers, vacated the room for these discussions.

    9. MOTION 5: Moved to accept the Stiga clothing sponsorship proposal with a quadrennium term length, pending fine tuning and attorney review.

    Proposed by Jeff Davis; seconded by George Brathwaite

    Passed: 8-0-1

    In Favor: GB, JB, JD, TL, SP, BR, DT, BT

    Abstain: JM

  9. A new ratings system proposed by the Ratings Committee was presented. Ben Nisbet spoke of why he supports the proposal:
    1. the current system is placing increasing time demands on Fran
    2. he expects a considerable increase in office efficiency
    3. the proposed system is better suited to the cross-training of staff
    4. there is a need for faster turnaround for e-commerce opportunities.

MOTION 6: Moved to adopt the proposed ratings system.

Proposed by Bob Tretheway; seconded by Jim Butler.

Tabled after discussion (see below)

MOTION 7: Moved to limit debate on the proposed system to 15 minutes per side.

Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Jeff Davis.

Passed: 7-2

In Favor: GB, JB, JD, JM, SP, DT, BT

Opposed: TL, BR

MOTION 8: Moved to yield five minutes to each Board member who has yet to speak.

Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Tong Lee.

Passed: 9-0.

Primary supporting arguments were:

    1. the problem was highly researched prior to formulation of the algorithm
    2. the system has been tested on Florida juniors
    3. the system helps obviate region differences in ratings levels
    4. tournaments need not be processed in order
    5. implementation should require considerably less staff time

Primary opposing arguments were:

    1. the system will harm junior participation because the system doesn’t rate accurately
    2. there is significant membership opposition to adoption of the new system; members are the stakeholders who should be given the highest priority
    3. an about.com poll indicates that adoption would discourage tournament participation
    4. no communication from the committee chair requesting adoption of the proposal was ever received by the President
    5. members like the simplicity of the current system and would complain about not being able to compute their own ratings after a tournament
    6. the proposed system is deflationary

MOTION 9: Moved to table discussion of the proposed ratings system.

Proposed by Tong Lee; seconded by George Brathwaite.

Passed: 5-2-2.

In Favor: JD, TL, SP, BR, DT

Opposed: JB, BT

Abstain: GB, JM

  1. Sanction possibilities for Thanksgiving teams tournaments were discussed.

    2. MOTION 10: Moved that we direct the National Sanctioning Chair to communicate with known interested parties in holding a sanction for a Thanksgiving teams tournament and send a recommendation to the Board by December 31, 1999.

    Proposed by Barney Reed; seconded by Jeff Davis.

    Withdrawn.

    MOTION 11: Moved to approve the contract for the Nationals as presented pending review by counsel.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Barney Reed

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 12: Moved to approve the contract for the 2000 US Open as presented pending review by counsel.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Jeff Davis.

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 13: Moved to confirm Caron Leff and Todd Sweeris as members of the Personnel Committee.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Tong Lee.

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 14: Moved to confirm Wei Wang as a member of the Editorial Board.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Tong Lee.

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 15: Moved to have Ben Nisbet pursue the schools program pilot program proposed for Rochester, NY.

    Proposed by Bob Tretheway; seconded by Tong Lee.

    Passed: 8-0-1.

    In Favor: GB, JB, JD, TL, JM, SP, DT, BT

    Abstain: BR

    MOTION 16: Moved to approve the Newgy College Program contract.

    Proposed by Jeff Davis; seconded by Bob Tretheway.

    Passed: 8-0-1.

    In Favor: GB, JB, JD, TL, JM, SP, DT, BT

    Abstain: BR

    MOTION 17: Moved that delegates for the Annual General Meeting of the ITTF at the Word Team Championships be Sheri Pittman and Tong Lee. Mr. Lee’s expenses will not be funded by USATT.

    Proposed by Sheri Pittman; seconded by Dennis Taylor.

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 18: Moved to approve minutes from meetings of May 21-23, 1999; June 14, 1999; June 21, 1999; June 29, 1999; July 4, 1999; July 30, 1999; and September 10, 1999 as distributed.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Tong Lee.

    Passed: 9-0.

    MOTION 19: Moved to direct the National Sanctions Chair to inform parties known to be interested in a long-term sanction arrangement for the annual Thanksgiving weekend team tournament that the Board would like the National Sanctions Chair to consider and to award a long-term arrangement by December 31, 1999, if deemed to be in the best interest of the association.

    Proposed by Barney Reed; seconded by Jeff Davis.

    Withdrawn.

    MOTION 20: Moved to authorize the Executive Director to solicit those known to have an interest in obtaining a long-erm sanction for the annual Thanksgiving teams tournament and negotiate the contract by December 31, 1999, pending Board approval.

    Proposed by Barney Reed; seconded by Jeff Davis.

    Passed: 9-0.

    16) Recommendations by the Ethics/Disciplinary Committee were discussed.

    MOTION 21: Moved acceptance of the Ethics/Disciplinary Committee recommendation in the Pace/Terranova matter.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Jeff Davis.

    Passed: 9-0.

     

    MOTION 22: Moved that the corporation counsel be requested to receive input from individual Board members and draft a letter reflecting Board views of the Bosika/Allshouse matter, acquire Board approval, and send the letter to Mr. Allshouse.

    Proposed by Jeff Davis; seconded by George Brathwaite.

    Passed: 8-0. (BT was not present for the vote.)

    MOTION 23: Moved that the Board will hold an informational meeting, defined as a meeting at which no votes are taken and attendance is not mandatory, shall be held during the Open, with attending Board members receiving one night hotel plus per diem for attendance.

    Proposed by Dennis Taylor; seconded by Tong Lee.

    Passed: 9-0.

  2. Dennis Taylor discussed directions being taken in the bylaw revision effort led by Bylaw Committee Chair Mal Anderson. Proposed revisions are expected to be completed in time for Board debate and action at the May, 2000 meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 8:46 p.m.

Submitted by Dennis Taylor, Secretary