World Othello Federation - Minutes of meeting.
07/11/2009 - Gent, Belgium.
Attendance List:
Nations present (16):
Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Thailand, USA.
Represented by a proxy (6):
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Uruguay.
Sponsors (2):
Anjar, Megahouse.
1. Opening.
Benkt gave a short speech welcoming everybody to the meeting.
2. Chairmans report. - Benkt Steentoft
a) Summary of Federations.
58 Members
34 Federations
24 members without Federations.
This year we have welcomed federations from India, Pakistan, and Uruguay.
b) WOF mission statement review.
Main goal: Working to make Othello more well known worldwide.
* Homepage
* Helping new countries become federations
* World Othello Rating list
* Support WOC (knowledge and crew)
* Create rules for WOF
* Judgement committee
c) The issue of a player who was caught cheating by using a small computer in major tournaments this year is an important issue that we need to address carefully and with consideration. A Judgement committee has been set up that is considering the situation and will report back soon.
3. Treasury Update. - Geoff Hubbard
No change from last year. We still have no money.
4. New confederation.
Benkt proposed creating a new confederation made up of Africa and the Middle East. It was generally decided that we should leave it up to the nations
concerned to decide for themselves, if they wanted a new confederation or if they were happy to be combined with Europe or Asia.
Benkt will contact them by email and let them decide.
4. Election of committee.
a) Chairman.
Benkt will stand again.
Milosz Cupial nominates Tom Schotte (Tom declined nomination)
Milosz Cupial nominates himself
Both candidates gave a short speech presenting their position.
Closed Vote.
Milosz - 3
Benkt - 18
Abstain - 2
Chairman: Benkt Steentoft
b) Secretary/Treasurer.
Geoff Hubbard re-elected.
c) European Representative.
Tom Schotte will resign his position.
Milosz Cupial elected.
d) Americas Representative.
Randy Fang re-elected.
e) Asia Representative.
Makoto Suekuni re-elected.
Summary of 2010 Committee:
Chairman: Benkt Steentoft
Secretary: Geoff Hubbard
Europe: Milosz Cupial
Americas: Randy Fang
Asia: Makoto Suekuni
Sponsor: Anjar
Sponsor: Megahouse
5. General Discussion.
a) Proposals that were voted on:
i) Proposal: Council positions to be contested need to be nominated at least 1 week in advance of the meeting.
Passed by unanimous open vote.
ii) Proposal: The WOF should not allow a player who has qualified for the WOC to 'sell' their place to another player.
For 6 : Against 8 - NOT Passed.
Reason: While 'seat selling' is undesirable, it is up to each country to make it's own rules about who can represent it.
iii) Proposal: Emmanuel Lazard to head a small group to review and propose updated WOC rules. Deadline for this is 31st March 2010 - Nations will then be able to vote online to approve the new rules.
Passed by unanimous open vote.
b) Proposals that will be voted on later:
i) Any person wishing to run for the position of president should also name a team of people to fill the other positions on the council. This team can then be voted on in a single vote.
Discussion to take place on the WOF forum and voting to take place online.
ii) Judgement procedure document.
Randy Fang has written a document which covers the procedure to be used in the case of a breach of regulations. This document has been posted on the WOF forum:
http://othello.nu/wofforum/index.php?topic=384.0 people are encouraged to read it and post their comments.
The council will review this document and the comments and vote online by 28th November 2009.
iii) Decision on player caught cheating.
A player was caught cheating in a French tournament this year.
http://www.ffothello.org/news/communique-de-la-ffo/ The WOF has a judgement
committee in place to examine the case. This committee should be reporting
back soon. It is likely they will follow the recommendations of the French
federation. Nations will then vote online to approve this decision.
iv) Issues relating to the rules of the World Othello Championship.
(These will be reviewed in more detail by the Lazard group)
Change of seeded player rule.
Playoff switch to choose colour or draw win. - currently both.
Final four: First place choses who to play.
Playoff for women on same points.
Top 4 women in same format as men.
Update on rule changes proposed last year.
Different tournament for team vs team.
