NASPA Bulletin - North American Scrabble Players Association

N ASPAPortland Town Hallby Chris CreeAt the Town Hall meeting in Portland,Oregon at the superbly organized and runOregon Tile on May 1–3, I was doingwhat I have been doing at the other TownHall meetings the past couple of months:answering questions. Although phrased alittle differently, they have been prettymuch the same ones from city to city. Theplayers have the same concerns throughoutthe organization. Most of these questionsand their answers are on our website,www.scrabbleplayers.org, under the FAQsection.I did hear one I had not heard before. Itreally gave me pause. The first part of theanswer was pretty simple as I answeredfrom my heart. The second part of thequestion, I answered just in part as I reallycould not get my arms around all of it.Upon reflection on my flight home, I cameup with my answer.The question was: What has been yourbiggest challenge thus far and what do yousee as the biggest challenge going forward?Wow.The biggest challenge thus far has beenfinding the time to devote to this project todo a competent job while at the same timebeing an available and devoted husbandand father while still trying to earn a living.The biggest challenge ahead is athreefold answer covering the short,intermediate and long terms.The biggest short term challenge is justto have as much ready and in place as wecan think of for the switch-over on July 1while simultaneously preparing for theNational Scrabble Championship inDayton, Ohio this August 1–5. Thereseems to be a never ending list of structuraldecisions to be made on a daily basis.The biggest intermediate term challengefor me is to learn how to properly run aplayer organization. I have never done thisbefore. Yes, I managed and administeredemployees and a company for many years,but this is a completely different type ofentity. I figure it will take 18–24 monthsfor John Chew and me to have a good feelfor it and then just try to constantlyimprove the decision making process,which must consist of making decisionswith the good of the game in mind. Not allmembers will have the same definition ofFUTURE CHALLENGES continued on p. 2NASPA BulletinThe monthly news bulletin of the North American SCRABBLE ® Players AssociationMay 2009: Vol.1, No. 2Playing at the club in Huntsville, AL: Eric Patty and Billy Joe Cooley. Photo: Amy SimmsNASPA in Huntsville, ALby Amy SimmsI am pleased to announce thatHuntsville, Alabama’s first NASPA meetingwas a great success. We had 16 members inattendance, including Dr. Reese DanleyKilgo, who directed a Huntsville NSA clubin 1977. She brought the original recordsto show the group. Martin and Mary EllenWeisskopf, who were also original membersof that club, attended. They hadn’t seenReese since then, so it definitely was a goodreunion. Three Birmingham club playersincluding Jim Pate, Director, attended andwere wonderful help at showing thebeginners the ropes of tournamentSCRABBLE. Our youngest player was mynephew Eric Patty, 12. We had anorientation presentation followed by threegames. Everyone had a blast, and we arelooking forward to many more successfulmeetings. Special thanks to Jim Pate andAlvin Haney, Nashville Director, forencouraging me to start this club.Clubs Sign Up for NASPAby Mary RhoadesThe adventure of the startup of NASPAheavily impacted the Club/DirectorCommittee consisting of Alan Stern, JohnRobertson and Mary Rhoades, Chairman.In an effort to get the most recent contactand meeting information from all clubs inthe United States and Canada, weembarked upon a project that would emaila “State of NASPA” explanation of whyNASPA was begun, followed immediatelyby a questionnaire to be returned withcurrent information as well as suggestionsfor NASPA. Part of the way into theproject, Sherrie Saint John offered to helpand jumped in to get us to the end of theproject.As of May 24, we have sanctioned 91clubs, which are listed on the Clubs page ofthe NASPA website. In order for a club tobe sanctioned, the club director’smembership must be current and anannual club sanctioning fee of $30 must bepaid. This initial club sanctioning fee, likethe initial personal membership fee, willnot expire until the end of 2010.In truth, the project hasn’t ended yet.There are club directors on the NSA clublist who don’t have emails and haven’tbeen reached yet. If you attend one ofthose clubs, you can help us with this bycon-tacting me at mrhoadestx@gmail.comand allowing me to send you the infor-mation,which you can share with your director.Then return the information to me. Itmay be that some of these directors haveemail addresses but don’t want them listedCLUB REGISTRATION continued on p. 2

2 NASPA Bulletin, May 2009, Vol. 1, No. 2Club Registrationfrom CLUBS SIGN UP FOR NASPA p. 1on the club list, which is fine, but I wouldappreciate having the email addresses incase we ever need to contact all directorswith important information such as rulechanges, etc.Thank you so much, John, Alan, Sherrieand the multitude of directors who helpedus get to this point!Future Challengesfrom PORTLAND TOWN HALL p. 1“the good of the game.” We will have toformulate our own definition and stickwith it. Consistency in the decision makingprocess is a very high priority.As time has gone by since the meeting atHasbro last December, John and I haveboth noted that we tend to think alike onmany issues. Thus, we need the thoughtsand opinions of the Steering Committeeand Advisory Board to constantly eitheraffirm what we are thinking or give usother points of view on critical decisions.Neither of us could possibly make all of thedecisions on our own and neither of ushave the desire to morph into a complacentExecutive Committee.The biggest long term challenge is tobuild this organization into somethingspecial. Although Hasbro’s direct fundingis gone, I am looking at this as a hugeopportunity for indirect funding. Hasbrowill continue to fund the NSA, which willendeavor to build and grow the SchoolScrabble program. Well, there are potentialmembers by the thousands as they transitionfrom School Scrabble into the cluband tournament scene. Thus, Hasbrowould be indirectly funding our long termmembership campaign. This will involve agreat deal of continuous work andcooperation with the NSA going forward.This will also require a level ofcommitment that I do not think we wereaware of just a few months ago.I love a challenge. I look forward tothese.Join Before You Playby John ChewThe NSA and now NASPA have alwaysallowed first-time (i.e., unrated) players atfully rated sanctioned tournaments (butnot so-called Local Club Tournaments) anexemption from the usual requirement thatthey be paid members of the Association.As a tournament director, I have publiclyop-posed requiring everyone to pay member-shipfees, and have argued that the lastthing that the SCRABBLE scene needs isanother obstacle to recruiting new players.As your copresident however, I’ve had tochange my position. Chris Cree and I feelstrongly that once we get NASPA on itsfeet, our main job is going to be increasingthe size of the regular tournament playingcommunity. While it might seem likecharging new players a membership fee ontop of their tournament entry fee is astrange way to go about growing our population,it’s the way most similar organi-zationswork and with reason. As thingsstand, a newcomer can be dis-couraged bytheir first tournament, walk away fromtournament SCRABBLE and never knowwhat they really left behind. Instead, wewant them to give us their contactinformation, so that we can send them thisBulletin, let them know about what else isgoing on in the SCRABBLE world thatmight interest them and give us anotherchance at recruiting them.As a tournament director, I’mgrudgingly willing to go along with thisidea, but still think that $30 is going todeter some of my potential players. Sowhat we’re going to do is offer a specialrate only for unrated newcomers: $15 forsix months’ membership. They are, ofcourse, welcome to pay $30 for a year instead,and if they do so before the end ofthis year, their $30 pays their membershipun-til the end of 2010, just like anyone else.Finally, there’s the question of when thistakes effect. Newcomers may pay $15 forsix months’ membership effective immediately,but are not yet required to do so.Since Club Committee chair MaryRhoades and I are both running tournamentsin September, newcomers will berequired to pay for memberships effectiveSeptember 1st, 2009, and Mary and I willhave a chance to see first-hand what effectthis has on attendance, if any.Game Recording Rulesby Advisory Board membersGame recording or annotation forwebcasting has been a part of SCRABBLEtournaments since the 1998 CanadianNSC, and is an important publicity toolfor many large events. It is howeverintrusive to the players involved, and thequestion of whether or not a player isobliged to comply with scheduled annotationcame before the NASPA Ad-visoryBoard (AB) at its inaugural meeting lastmonth.After opening remarks from outgoingchair and NSA Executive Director John D.Williams, Jr., who has graciously agreed tostay on as a regular board member,incoming cochairs Chris Cree and JohnChew asked the AB which takesprecedence: a player’s or a tournamentdirector’s right to state the terms underwhich games will be played, at least as faras annotation is concerned.The board ruled unanimously in favorof directors, provided that they provideclear notice in the event flyer that gameswill be annotated. Players who then refuseto play will forfeit their games with aspread penalty to be determined by theRules Committee.Club Fee Discountby Membership Committee membersNASPA directors now receive complimentaryclub registration when they payfor individual memberships for ten or moreplayers at the same time.Payment must be made using only oneinstrument (one check, one credit cardpayment or one wad of cash), as we aremaking this offer partly to reduce our paymentprocessing workload. If you pay forten players through December 2010, youget club registration for the same period. Ifyou pay for ten more players for the sametime, you do not get an extra year.Joseph Bowman (Toronto, ON) reportedan interesting play against him by JohnDungey (Mitchell, ON) at a tournament inCambridge, ON. Dungey made an 88-pointplay with ??INSTT. Can you find it on thisQuackle board?Copyright ©2009 NASPA. SCRABBLE ® isa trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the U.S. andCanada, and of Mattel, Inc. elsewhere. TheNASPA Bulletin is available exclusively toNASPA members online during the first weekof publication, and can be publicly downloadedfrom http://www.scrabbleplayers.orgthereafter. Comments and submissions concern-ingthe Bulletin may be emailed toinfo@scrabbleplayers.org.The NASPA Bulletin is designed, typeset(in Adobe Garamond 10/10.5 with headsin Gill Sans) and edited by John Chew,and proofread by Kristen Pederson Chew.