2018 Coach Meeting Minutes

OHSCTA Meeting 3/2/2018

Annual report

  • Tournament –
    • Kudos to Jeff Dobbins – incredible amount of work behind the scenes this year.
    • Scholarship award! Funds available – $200/player on winning team.  Would be great to have someone organize the scholarship program (keep track of player awards, who gets used, volunteer to get donations to the fund)  Idea to use OSAC – Oregon Scholarship Association as infrastructure –
    • Commendations to Mike Meyers – incredible job
    • Numbers down – 160 kids last year – 14 Varsity, 10 JV, 10 individuals – maybe down a little, outside Portland tends to be low. Reasonable Website might have contributed to issues.  Didn’t get to advertising this year.  Need help with advertising.  200 high schools in Oregon.  Ask Jeff to post numbers.  OBOB direct conflict.  Also lose to debate, Robotics, recurring conflict with last weekend in Feb.   Usually try for mid-Feb to mid-March.  Consider Feb 1 – mid-March.  Generally good for first weekend of March so try for that.  Moved-second – Unanimous.
    • Jeff working on website – go to OSCF website and direct to OHSCTA – now sending $60/year on old site. Hard to find the high school link – would like to have more prominent link. Can link to Facebook page.
  • League reports
    • Portland – Ed Addis
      • 16 teams –dropped to 15 and created a reserve team, started as 5 round swiss, finished with a 6 round round robin in upper and lower divisions.
      • Didn’t get last 3 rounds rated because was late
      • Winners – A division – Catlin Gabel A, B-division
    • Mid-western – Mike Meyers
      • Back up to 8 teams, double round robin of 7 + 3 weeks of SwissSys– popular format
      • Winner – South Eugene, 2nd – Pleasant, Roosevelt middle school took first in Swiss
    • Southern – Nancy Keller
      • Nancy does 5 schools – took on Myrtle Point, dropped Bandon
      • North Bend – few come
      • Chess club starting at the college
    • Financial report – Clear $800 – $1000 this year
      • Balance $3000, collecting $2300 in fees ($1180 trophies, TD fee, custodial fee, no rent, $100 bank/internet)
      • Jon is only person on signature card (and Kathryn Taylor), Motion to add Nancy Keller, Jeff Dobbins, John Nuxoll, James Horton and others as determined appropriate by Executive Director; to be authorized to spend funds & added to OHSCTA signature card, US Bank, Passed unanimously
    • OSAA – brief discussion, not seen to have significant advantage
    • Elections
      • Treasurer – John Nuxoll will continue as treasurer, acceptable with others as back-up
      • Executive Director – Nancy willing to pass over, no volunteers, Nancy willing to continue
      • Secretary
    • Bylaws – non-OSAA schools binned per enrollment, MS play as JV on own – Jeff drafting language, no additional changes recommended
    • Teams – High School team championship. Have Middle School and Elementary chess teams state championships with Chess for Success.  Nancy shared she would like to preserve the high school championship.  Jerry reported history of using middle school players on Varsity team.  Have some strong middle school players and would have been nice to have them play at their level.  Ed shared that kids play in middle school and then drops off; by not allowing them to play encourages them to drop off.  Not concerned about getting flooded.  General discussion re: we only lost 2 teams by them not allowing middle school teams to play in Varsity.  Mike – national organization allows K-12.  Phil – has excitement of early players to come against high school kids, but don’t enjoy playing with younger kids.  Consider having a floor for middle school players to be eligible.  Impact of high school kids with more distraction. Options:
      • Remain as high school + JV/Middle/Open
      • Majority high school varsity (3 HS, 2 any 6-12 team)
      • Allow middle school teams to compete
      • Keep high school and separate tournament K-12 team tournament
      • Majority vote to consider a redesign – can redesign on website and vote on that
    • Home-schoolers/virtual school – allow home-schoolers to form their own team – may need to look at
    • By-laws – Trophies to be awarded determined by early registration. Pass unanimously.
    • Next year’s tournament – Portland high school, date TBD –
    • Cottage Grove new school – could be site for 2020 tournament