New Business and Finishing up the Day

The delegates and leaders at Governing Council 2015 were determined to push on through and finish everything today and not have to come back Sunday morning to finish. While it seemed like that was a pipedream at various points this afternoon, we persevered.

There were four items that were proposed for new business.

The first, which came from the earlier bylaw discussion of Exhibit E, was to take the two sections from eliminated from Exhibit E (the procedures for the election of nominating committee members) was easily approved by the delegates.

If anyone had lost interest in the discussions at the meeting, new business item #2 caught their attention. A delegate from the Broadmoor Skating Club proposed to eliminate the use of IJS judging for Juvenile and Intermediate levels and take them back to the 6.0 system. It would be for qualifying competitions and was proposed to take effect in July. (yes, this July) The rationale was IJS at the developmental stages was pushing young people away from the sport. There wasn't much discussion on this because you could tell by the mood of the audience, no one was in favor of it. I'm not even sure the person who proposed it, voted for it. Not adopted.

Item #3 came from Susan Keogh, requesting that the Rule Committee, in conjunction with U.S. Figure Skating legal counsel take a look at the Election Procedures that are in the Bylaws and come back with a recommendation as to which ones should be moved to rules. Approved.

Item #4, from Joe Armstrong, requested that final budget for the year just ending be posted to the Members Only website within four months of the end of the fiscal year and to show budget to actual numbers with variances. A motion was made by the treasurer to limit the time that the report is posted to the website to 30 days, but the delegates were not in favor it. The 30-day amendment was not approved, but the new business item was approved.

We had hit the 6 p.m. deadline, but still had a few more things to do. Like pass the budget, elect the officers and announce the nominating committee for the coming year. President Auxier asked for an additional 30 minutes and we managed to finish it all up by 6:30.

It was a pretty successful Governing Council. The dues increase was never isolated, so that was good news. With the exception of the discussion around #310 - the new rule that would allow an event referee to decide if an athlete can continue after suffering an injury like a suspected concussion. One comment against the rule change was that skaters know their bodies best and can make the determination as to whether they can continue skating, was astounding to anyone who understands how concussions impact decision making. And to spend 45 minutes discussing something that seemed to have support from many 4 or 5 percent of the delegates was outrageous.

Governing Council 2016 will be held in Columbus, Ohio - nice central location. We had it there a few years ago and it was a really fun place. The meeting will be the last weekend in April.