Club/Director Committee 2014 Report

The Club/Director Committee has prepared the following contribution to NASPA's 2014 collection of reports on committee activity.

The major activities undertaken by the NASPA Club/Director Committee since the last NSC are as follows:

In order to ensure that NASPA listings of active clubs and directors are up to date, the Committee embarked on a project to contact all the clubs and directors presently listed on the NASPA website. Those clubs that had ceased operating and those directors who were no longer serving as directors were removed from the website. This is an ongoing project. Directors of clubs that are no longer operating are instructed to contact the NASPA Club/Director Committee so the official list can be accurately amended.

Similarly, an effort was made to contact every NASPA director to find out if he/she was still an active NASPA director. Accordingly, John Robertson attempted to contact all the “grandfathered” directors from the NSA era who had allowed their NASPA memberships to lapse or had never become NASPA members. A few of them indicated they were no longer directing clubs or tournaments. A much larger number failed to respond at all, indicating that they too had no further interest in remaining as NASPA directors.

In a related task, to ensure that active directors were keeping abreast of rule changes and changes in NASPA protocols and policies, it was determined that all directors who had been “grandfathered” from the NSA era would be required to take a refresher exam to retain their directorships by April 30, 2014. All directors who had become directors since the NASPA era began in July 2009 were exempted. More than 150 people asked for the refresher exam. Most passed easily. Those who did not pass the exam in three attempts and those who did not request a refresher exam were removed from the list of directors.

As a way to increase the number of NASPA directors, a fee-free period to apply to be a director was held in October and November of 2013. Many new applicants took advantage of the offer and began the directorial process.

The committee was sad to see Mary Rhoades step down as co-chair and as a committee member earlier in 2014. Alan Stern has replaced Mary in that position.

John Robertson, Co-Chair