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| tableman
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 690
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I would like to respond to some of Brian's claims (some of which are totally accurate). But again Brian spoke and locked the thread. Ironically, this gives a glimpse of what life might be like under an AHPA-dominated AH world. No dissent or comments allowed. More Russia or China-like than American.
Brain said:
"1) In the 2013 Chicago nationals, the USAA elected head referee overstepped his bounds as head referee and forced a ruling into a match in which one of the competitors was a personal friend. That incident was a clear violation of the Head referee positions which, according to USAA "tradition", was a consulting role that only acted if an issues was escalated by a player or match official. This is one example of abuse of authority. There have been others. As a business, we cannot have elected leaders behaving in this fashion, and this referee was elected by the USAA board."
You're right, he did overstep his bounds and show favoritism from what I gather, and the USAA board fixed that in the next Worlds, and most likely will not let that individual ever served as a head ref again. If one of the two individuals running AHPA shows favoritism, conscious or not, what entity will there be to overrule and correct them?
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| tableman
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 690
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Brain said:
"2) In 2014, I was managing the Colorado WC tournament when a match came up for a player who was not present. As I always do, I shuffled the match to later in the round. This is a practice I have done for years and was taught to me by Mark Robbins. The USAA President decided that I was violating USAA tournament procedures and convened the elected USAA Tournament Committee to try to force me to start the clock. First there are no such written procedures. Second, again this committee is appointed by the USAA board, and again, as stated in #1, this behavior would risk our higher priority goal of providing a fair and enjoyable event designed to build raving fans."
I was never made aware of this, but I agree with you. Rather than delay the tournament, it was our practice for years to just go ahead to the next match, unless there was a reason not to do so (such as, the next players in line had been told they had more time before playing). In fact, at most tournaments the round don't go in straight line progression, due to some players still reffing, having their 15 minutes between matches, etc.
So I agree with you Brian, and this could have been corrected by bringing it to the board's attention either during the event, or later, so we could make a ruling.
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| tableman
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 690
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Brain said:
"4) Last year, in a USAA online voting session, motions were proposed designed to force promoters to divulge financials to the USAA. This is clear overreach and beyond what the USAA was meant to do. Moreover, it is hypocritical. The USAA doesn't even have its own detailed financial records which is legally required for any public organization. Any USAA board member, according to Article VII.F of the USAA Constitution, has the right to see "detailed financial records", and the Treasurer has a Constitution duty to provide them. The unwillingness of the USAA leadership to provide these records and violate its own Constitution is a breach of business ethics. Proper tracking of financials and decisions surrounding capital spend are a minimal requirement for any organization managing money."
ONE GUY made the motion you talk about; it didn't get seconded; democracy worked. The USAA is not a dictatorship, people can make foolish motions or have unpopular opinions, then they get voted down.
As for financial records: I was Treasurer for a few years, nobody asked to see financials, I had them available, they were no secret. I believe the same is true now, although our Treasurer is somewhat AWOL from duties, but Phil has access to the financials.
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| TheAirHockeyGuy
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 472
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tableman said: I would like to respond to some of Brian's claims (some of which are totally accurate). But again Brian spoke and locked the thread. Ironically, this gives a glimpse of what life might be like under an AHPA-dominated AH world. No dissent or comments allowed. More Russia or China-like than American.
Brain said:
"1) In the 2013 Chicago nationals, the USAA elected head referee overstepped his bounds as head referee and forced a ruling into a match in which one of the competitors was a personal friend. That incident was a clear violation of the Head referee positions which, according to USAA "tradition", was a consulting role that only acted if an issues was escalated by a player or match official. This is one example of abuse of authority. There have been others. As a business, we cannot have elected leaders behaving in this fashion, and this referee was elected by the USAA board."
You're right, he did overstep his bounds and show favoritism from what I gather, and the USAA board fixed that in the next Worlds, and most likely will not let that individual ever served as a head ref again. If one of the two individuals running AHPA shows favoritism, conscious or not, what entity will there be to overrule and correct them? |
You can continue to make remarks about how we are going to be controlling everything but that's just not the case. I'll fully admit, the org chart and constitution are still being developed so until that is released, you don't have anything in your hands to see that it will be run differently then what you are claiming. I assure you however, some of the power will be placed into the hands of the players. Like we have said before, it does us no good to try and run an organization where we are just pushing people around. That makes no sense at all. You yourself admitted in your initial response to our announcement that you didn't fully disagree what we were doing and that there were some things that the USAA were not capable of doing. It is those things that will be manged by individuals with actual positions. I'm throwing out some of our possible idea here but maybe we have actual titles for people in charge of marketing, operations, information technology, public relations, or other positions like that. However when it comes to rules or other issues that effect the players directly, and representative board will vote on those decisions. Likely that board will consist of the heads of each of our local chapters. Those chapter heads will be elected by their local player base and will have term limits. This is just one option we have but I assure you, this is not a Dictatorship. It is a hybrid organizational structure that includes both player represented boards as well as specific jobs that follow a typical business structure.
Chris Lee
Co-Founder, CEO
Air Hockey Players Association (AHPA)
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| TheAirHockeyGuy
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 472
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tableman said: Brain said:
"4) Last year, in a USAA online voting session, motions were proposed designed to force promoters to divulge financials to the USAA. This is clear overreach and beyond what the USAA was meant to do. Moreover, it is hypocritical. The USAA doesn't even have its own detailed financial records which is legally required for any public organization. Any USAA board member, according to Article VII.F of the USAA Constitution, has the right to see "detailed financial records", and the Treasurer has a Constitution duty to provide them. The unwillingness of the USAA leadership to provide these records and violate its own Constitution is a breach of business ethics. Proper tracking of financials and decisions surrounding capital spend are a minimal requirement for any organization managing money."
ONE GUY made the motion you talk about; it didn't get seconded; democracy worked. The USAA is not a dictatorship, people can make foolish motions or have unpopular opinions, then they get voted down.
As for financial records: I was Treasurer for a few years, nobody asked to see financials, I had them available, they were no secret. I believe the same is true now, although our Treasurer is somewhat AWOL from duties, but Phil has access to the financials. |
I'm sorry, but amid all of this discussion regarding lack of control over financials did you really just say that the person in charge of the USAA finances, the Treasurer, is AWOL from his duties? This is actually a perfect example of a position that I would guess we will not have the players vote on. The person handling the financials needs to have experience in that area and needs to be able to be held accountable for his or her actions so that person can be removed of their duties if they are not doing their job. This is exactly the kind of structure problem we are talking about and really a perfect example of a position we would probably change to something more consistent to what you would see in a business.
There are certain jobs within an organization that require more than doing work once a year during a board meeting or maybe a couple extra hours during EVP sessions. Just because we are dealing with volunteers in most cases does not mean that if they don't want to do any work they shouldn't have to. Volunteering means you are willing to do the work and accepting a position, especially an "officer" position means you are willing to put forth even more effort in a particular area.
Chris Lee
Co-Founder, CEO
Air Hockey Players Association (AHPA)
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| carolina phil
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 1084
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Chris Green, Treasurer, has been neither on LOA nor AWOL, LOL!
He and I are in contact. After Chris Green of Dallas was elected by the players as Treasurer, we found that there was no IBC branch in Dallas, so we continued to use the IBC branch in walking distance of my office. Chris emails me privately, and I him, about the account.
Since there have been no checks written, no transactions, no monies spent, there really has been nothing new for the Treasurer to report.
After confiding with him over the year, I have presented several reports, and provided statements at the last two USAA meeting which were passed around and reviewed by EACH member present.
Thanks,
Phil
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| Juggernaut
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 121
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TheAirHockeyGuy said:
I'm sorry, but amid all of this discussion regarding lack of control over financials did you really just say that the person in charge of the USAA finances, the Treasurer, is AWOL from his duties?
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This post came around the same time as your announcement that registration was open for the AHPA tournament. It's a perfect example of why I made the friendly suggestion that you and other AHPA members make separate accounts for PR and personal discussion. It makes it very difficult for the average player such as myself to understand where one ends and the other begins.
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