2004-5 MidAtlantic Scholastic Sailing Association Annual Meeting Minutes

Meeting Minutes transcribed by Geoff Schneider

December 18, 2004

The meeting was held in the Annapolis Yacht Club Junior Clubhouse.

Attendance: All leagues were represented. George Linzee from Northern, Ian Burman was selected to represent the Central league, and Randy Stokes represented the Southern league. In addition a large contingent was present from the Rochester area and there were some from the Baltimore County Sailing Center. Among others present were board members Ted Kaczmarski and Geoff Schneider, and League Director, Bill Schneider. It was agree that each league would have one vote.

Directors Report: There is a slight decline in the number of member schools for this year as compared to last year (54 currently vs 57 at the end of the spring 2004 semester). We may have a few more that have been sailing but haven’t paid their dues yet and may have some new schools that join in the spring to bring up our total but the number of entries we get in the Mallory and Baker National championships is based on the number of schools in our district as of December 31st. George Linzee volunteered to contact schools with late dues in his district.

  There is $2462.85 in the checking account for the District. The Estimated budget for this year is fall trophies, $223.56, spring trophies, ca. $400, and perhaps $40 for miscellaneous expenses for a total of $664. We will probably take in about $855 based on an estimated 57 member school dues of $15 each for a surplus of about $191 for the year.

  Current National ISSA business was summarized. The most important item is that Larry White has decided it’s time to really retire after all these years and will not be running for ISSA President next time around. The ISSA Board will be seeking a successor but it will be very difficult to find someone to follow in Larry’s footsteps.

New Business:

New League: A new league was proposed by the Rochester representatives. Follow much discussion, the district approved a split of the Northern league into a Northwest league and a Northeast league to be incorporated as such in the new district bylaws. The Northwest league will consist of the current 4 Rochester area member schools (and generally include schools from the western New York area including Canadian schools), and the Northeast league will consist of the other 22 Northern league schools (and generally include schools from New Jersey, Long Island, and adjacent areas of New York). It was noted that, as before, the board will rule on individual requests by schools to join specific leagues if there is any question of which league a school should join. The new Northwest league appointed Jason Evans as their director. It was agree that the current system of calculating the number of representative teams each league can send to district events would be in proportion to the number of schools in the district compared to the number of schools in the league as modeled after the ISSA system for calculating the attendance allocations for Districts at National events. The minimum allocation for a District would be one team.

Scheduling issues: It was agreed that the Annual MASSA meeting should be held in early December.
The final fall district championship event should be held before Thanksgiving.

  We should continue to hold 3 double-handed District events each season. The Mallory Qualifiers can count as one of them.

  Leagues must fill their allocated slots at a district event by the Tuesday before the event by notifying both the event host and the district director. Any drop outs after this can be filled by the league in which the event is being held.

  If a league-qualified team can not attend a district event, they must give at least 48 hours notice to their league director, the host league director, and the district director. If they do not comply with this, they will forfeit their qualification slot for the next district event for which they would otherwise be qualified by their league to attend. As decided at a previous district meeting, the district director may excuse them from a non-attendance penalty if they have a valid unpredictable/emergency reason for not being able to attend.

  In discussion regarding the proposed draft spring schedule for 2005, it was decided that: The Mallory and Baker qualifiers should each be 2 days on a weekend, but with an early start and release on Sunday to allow sufficient return travel time. For Mallory, no Sunday race should be started after 1pm and for the Baker, no Sunday race should be started after 2pm. (It was especially important to finish the qualifiers for the Baker if at all possible since it is the only district-level team racing event held each year.)

  A suggestion was discussed concerning “Silver fleet” District regattas be established for those teams that didn’t qualify for the regular District regattas. Everyone agree that the best way to encourage this was to recommend for local leagues to hold “intersectional” events open to other leagues and to hold JV/”Silver fleet” events, particularly on the weekends of District events whenever possible.

By-laws for the MASSA district: The proposed by-laws, as previously emailed to the membership were accepted after two modifications were crafted in order to comply with decisions previously made at this meeting. The first modification was to change Article IV, Section 1, to change league 1 to read Northeast (generally schools from New Jersey and Long Island, and adjacent areas of New York) and to add league 4 to read Northwest (generally schools from western New York including Canadian schools). The second modification was to Article VII, Section 1, to change the time that the annual membership meeting should be held from “the month of January” to “early December”.

  Procedural Rules: It was agreed that they would be revised in accordance with the agreements at this meeting and approved by the board of directors, as authorized by the new by-laws, following further discussions to ensure that we didn’t miss anything.

Web site: In response to previous suggestions that we set up a stand-alone website with its own URL address that will directly give access to the MASSA pages, Bill Schneider presented a way to do this. Some of the desirable addresses are already taken, but a few are available, e.g. massa.ws, mahss.org, or hssailingma.org. It was recommended that an address be as simple as possible. Godaddy.com can register a domain name for 9 or $10 a year. However, a typical cost (with the current web site provider) for a stand-alone web site would be about $350 a year. Our current web site is free to MASSA as part of Bill Schneider’s internet service provider’s free server space. It just can’t have a unique name. The membership, after discussion, unanimously agreed to keep the free service.

Spring Schedule: It was agreed that the following draft schedule was acceptable:

  April 16 was considered to be the best date for the first District championship event, location to be determined. George Linzee was going to look into potential hosts in his area.

  April 23-24 Mallory Qualifiers at Navy - the backup if the regatta can not be completed would be the school year championship standings.

  April 30 & May 1st Baker qualifiers either at ODU or at a VISA location. the backup if the regatta could not be completed would be the current school year championship standing

  May 13- 15 Mallory Nationals in the Northwest ISSA district

  May 21 MASSA District Championships at Rochester Yacht Club

  May 27-29 Baker National in Florida.

Election of Officers: Geoff Schneider was selected to continue as Assistant Director and Bill Schneider was selected to be the district nominee to the ISSA board for continuation as MASSA Director.

Awards: The MASSA District Sailing Championship awards (for the fall 2004 season) were presented to:

  1st Place: Norfolk Collegiate School, Virginia
2nd Place: Annapolis High School, Maryland
3rd Place: Severn School, Maryland

Meeting adjourned.

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