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.

Afternoon Part 2

After sugar-loading on Doubletree cookies, we got back to business.

Before we went back to the isolated items, the Administrative/Legal group gave their reports and since they didn't have their one RFA isolated, it was a short time.

Back to the Technical Group items.
#317 (which adds bonuses for risk taking in the second half of a program)was isolated to rescind with the rational that it was harmful to the skaters and it gave the coaches too much control. It seemed like only one person was wanting to rescind the item. Voted down and the items stays as approved by the board.

#330 - Robin Greenleaf isolated the item to amend the language to make it friendly to multi-college synchro teams as long as the name reflects the collegiate nature of the team. Amendment approved.

#501 - Was about changes to the Juvenile Pairs Free Skate that was voted down by the  board. Troy Goldstein came back with a changes to the proposal and asked to have it reinstated. It was one of those conversations that I just wanted to leave up to the Pairs Committee since they understand the nuances far better than the rest of us.
The amendment was adopted, so the Juvenile Pairs FS program was altered to eliminate the the death spiral and allow only single throw jumps.

Then they talked about the fact that by changing the Juvenile Pairs FS, the committee would have to change the Pre-Juvenile Pairs FS so the elements are not more difficult that the Juvenile Pairs FS.  Surprising since the Pairs Committee actually tried to eliminate Pre-Juv Pairs.

The delegates were either restless or fading.

I sense that we may have to come back tomorrow to finish this meeting as we haven't even gotten to new business. The problem is a lot of people are flying home in the morning.

And when we finally got to voting on the Pre-Juvenile Pairs it was just to remove the death spiral. Adopted.

But then we went back to isolated item #501 because Mr. James, our legal counsel, felt that the governing body didn't fully understand what they were voting on.

At the same time as this discussion was happening, the headquarters staff started handing out the items for New Business. The second item was regarding eliminating IJS for Juvenile and Intermediate skaters at regionals, sectionals and Nationals. That got the room buzzing.

Posting this now since my battery is fading. Will do a separate blog post on New Business.

Back from lunch

The afternoon started with a video from the Adult Nationals. Adult skaters always have fun!

President Auxier shared highlights from the various board initiatives that are happening right now.

• Strategic Projects on Image & Branding
• Basic Skills Rebrand 
• Event Management System

Back to the isolations.

#307 - John Coughlin wanted to rescind and refer to committee the rule change that penalizes competitors who don't register by the September 1 by not allowing them to compete. The rule will be put into effect for the 2016 qualifying season, but will be re-evaluated by the committee with a recommendation to return in 2016. 

#308 - Terri Levine Skating Club of New York along with Hal Marron (Pacific Coast VP) presented an amended plan for the qualifying rounds that uses the same type of points system. 

This just isn't fair to the skaters and really not fair to the officials. You would have to have the same officials for all the events.  Lots of discussions and a line at the mic. 

Jason Wong wanted to strike the word "not" so the skaters would be seeded. That one word changed took about 15 minutes and removing "not" was voted down. 

Back to the original discussion and the natives are getting restless. Unfortunately, instead of voting on it, the idea was sent back to the competitions committee to talk about it again. Ugh!

#310 - Duties of the referee to determine whether an injured skater is allowed to continue. While it is a lot of pressure on the referee, it's important because sometimes the athletes and/or the coaches want them to continue. There have been situations where a skater gets injured during an event and they want to continue. But it is the role of the event referee to think of the health and welfare of the skaters. The discussion went on for quite sometime and far beyond my attention span. 

The discussion kept getting extended. 

and extended. 

and extended. 

and extended. 

And the majority was against the change and voted it down after a very painful conversation. 

Time for a cookie break. 

First Diet Coke of the Day

Our Lady of Perpetual Diet Coke

Back to the bylaws, but we had a new credentials report:
306 delegates
437 proxy votes
240 athlete votes
Total: 983

Exhibit F - duties of the secretary - adopted as presented.
Exhibit G - adding IRS language for restricted gifts to the Memorial Fund - adopted as presented.

Exhibit H - New grievance and disciplinary proceedings for Safe Sport to be taken over by U.S. Center for Safe Sport. This would only be for matters of sexual abuse and misconduct and other types of incidents would be handled by U.S. Figure Skating. Adopted as presented.

And now we're heading into the committee reports and the isolated RFAs. First up is Athlete Services Group and since they had no requests for action, it's just quick reports.

Second up is the Membership Development  Group lead by Mr. Ed Mann.  And nothing isolated. Not even the dues increase that seemed to be the hot topic at yesterday's Critical Issues. Still time I guess.

The Technical Group, lead by Lynn Goldman. She discussed the new conflict of interest disclosure policy for all technical panel and judges that was more encompassing than the prior policy. Looks at any type of monetary arrangements (including skate sharpening, music cutting, etc.)
The Technical Group had the majority of the isolations from this morning and a few more were added.
#307 - regarding byes.
#310 - Duties of the Event Referee and the Stops.
#317 - IJS principles of calculation

For those playing the home game, here are the items that are isolated: 302, 307, 308, 310, 317, 330 and 501.
#302 - The isolators don't like the fact that a special award was created for Adult Nationals and that the guidelines are not included in the proposal. Right now the criteria would be included in the announcement.  The motion to rescind the decision of the board failed, although there were lots of votes in favor of rescinding.

Time for lunch!!

Governing Council begins

We started the meeting with good news from David Raith about the most critical issue: The directory will now be available on the website in a PDF form as well as available for print-on-demand.

The meeting started with the credentials report:

300 delegates

427 proxy votes

235 athlete votes

Total: 962

The two VPs that are ending their terms this year, Hal Marron and Kathleen Kelly Cutone, thanked the membership and the awesome people at Headquarters. 

Minnesota has a small delegation here this year. Seems a bit strange.

First part of the meeting is business - approve minutes from the last year's Governing Council, approved the audit and heard from the head of the U.S. Figure Skating Foundation. 

Susi Wehrli and Brenda Glidewell are the time-keepers for any debating, and in the words of Sam Auxier, "whether you like it or not..."

First up: approving new U.S. Figure Skating Club - including The Edge FSC in Stillwater, Minnesota. This changed the credentials report:

306 delegates

430 proxy votes

235 athletes votes

Total: 971

Approved Olympic and World champions as honorary members

Isolation time: (items that a delegate disagrees with the decision of the board of directors)

308 - Competition Committee request not approved by the board that bases the advancement of skaters from qualifying rounds at qualifying competitions on their program score. (my opinion - bad idea)

330 - Synchronized Skating Committee - approved by the board - changing the requirements for collegiate level teams.

501 - Pairs Committee request not approved by the board that changes the juvenile pairs.

302 - Adult Skating Committee that adds a club team award at the U.S. Adult Championships. 

Bylaw discussion: (for details see http://govcouncil2015.blogspot.com/2015/05/whatcha-gonna-talk-about.html)

Exhibit A - Honorary Membership - approved. 

Exhibit B - Housekeeping item - approved.

Exhibit C - Athlete delegates numbers - approved

Exhibit D - Ex-officio members voting - approved

Exhibit E - Standing rules - there was a request to strike the three sections in the proposal E & F saying that these should not be in the bylaws but included in the rules. These three sections would either be referred back to the rules committee or as new business. After a full debate - sections E & F were removed and the Exhibit was approved as amended. 

Saturday afternoon cleanup

The afternoon started with new business.

First item was a "Swiffer" amendment to rule 6076 changing 'whether' to 'when.'

Second item was for rule 3000 regarding nonqualifying competition sanctions, adding the line "the use of the standardized nonqualifying competition announcement is optional." Bad idea. Now we're back to guidelines versus rules. Since there was not a majority in the affirmative, it did not pass. The party in favor of the amendment asked to have it counted, but the motion to have a count of the vote was voted down.

There was a cheer to thank the amazing staff at Headquarters! Here! Here!

The Professional Skaters Association gave their annual outstanding judging award to Rosemary Santee. Congrats Rosemary!

The people at the Doubletree distracted many of us from business by putting out an amazing spread of cookies. Thanks to the St. Moritz Ice Skating Club for sponsoring the "cookie break."

It was time to adopt the budget. A piece of new business was suggested to allocate up to $30K for legal fees to review all the association bylaws and revise them to correct inconsistencies, improve cross-references, make them workable and adjust them to best practices. I think it's a great idea and it passed.

Adoption of the budget as amended.

AAC raffle announcement - Midwest athletes sold the most tickets.
Winner of the raffle for two tickets to U.S. Nationals and airfare- Wendy Enzmann

Nomination Committee Chair Kathy Slack presented the remaining members of the slate of officers.
They were voted in by acclamation.
Sam Auxier spoke to the group and started by quote Matthew McConaughey: "Alright, alright, alright!"

Finally, we ended the day with a great salute to President Pat St. Peter for her service to the organization.

That's all folks!!!

After the bylaws, on to the requests for action

The rest of the morning was spent going through the reports and the isolated items. 

Justin and the Athlete Services group gave their reports. Lainie and Membership Services group gave their reports. 201 was referred back to committee.

Wendi and the Technical Group gave their report. 347-353 were being referred back to committee

Then the election results were announced

1014 – 971 – 486

President

Sam – 762

Ron - 209

Athlete Services Group Coordinator

Robbie – 393

Doug – 567

Isolated item #331 is about the official judging system and hardware. It was amended to clean up language that seemed exclusionary. Adopted as amended.

Isolated item # 345 is about selection of judges at national competitions. The request to unstrike the language about the desirability of geographical representation. Accepted.

Isolated item #325 was unisolated by the isolator.

Isolated item #512 had not been approved by the board. Troy Goldstein isolated it to have it approved. The discussion was about taking out the option of doing a double twist in the Intermediate Pairs free skating program. The original decision is overturned and it is approved to be changed.

Isolated item #527 was un-isolated by the isolator.

New isolation item #345 – amend implementation date of eliminating the supplemental MIF test to one year later – July 1, 2015

Administrative/Legal Gretchen and her team were brought up. Winston Burbank from the Audit Committee brought up Mario Rede (Sr. Director of Finance) to praise him to announce that for the first time, the auditors didn't find ONE number out of place. Unheard of for organizations of our size.

The morning finished out with the In Memoriam. So many names. 

Finishing up the bylaw amendments

The meeting started with an updated credentials report

326 Delegate

485 Proxy

203 Athletes

1014 potential votes

We tried to get started with Exhibit G (to include in the bylaws the election requirements and procedure for members of the Nominating Committee that are currently included in the Standing Rules), but it was noted that with the increase in the number of delegate votes that the athlete votes need to increase by 3.

We were all fine with that, but Joe Armstrong stood up to say that we don’t split athlete votes and it should be increased to 250 votes.

Pause the meeting and let Dorothy, Tom James and the rules people chat. They came back with the athletes are entitled to 3 more votes.

Back to Exhibit G. Ed Mann spoke in opposition and spoke truth that this is a process and not a bylaw and should go back to committee. Passed to refer back to committee.

On to Exhibit H which requires the holding of an actual balloted election at Governing Council for any officer or director position where a candidate is seeking a fifth or greater term and in all contested elections of officers; and to provide specific election rules relating to the two-thirds vote requirement for candidates seeking a fifth or greater term. The shared rationale was candidates for a fifth or greater term would be balloted and a procedure prescribed for the conduct of elections in contested races. This addresses some housekeeping issues with elections and the dissatisfaction expressed by a great many members over the use of acclimation to fill the need for a two-thirds vote for the fifth or greater term.

You knew it was going to be a “lively” discussion, but then it got bogged down in ‘strike this’ and ‘amend this’ and ‘change this to conform to that,’ and my ADD kicked in and I decided to get some breakfast. Part of the confusion was that we changed the President’s term to two-years and this is about one-year terms.

So we voted to amend the amendment – that passed. And then it was asked to amend the amended amendment. That got voted down.

We finally got back to voting and it was voted down since it just made no sense.

Now on to the isolated items! 

The Meeting Part I

Now that the preliminary and warm-up events are over, the 2014 U.S. Figure Skating Governing Council officially began. And what is a figure skating event without an Opening Ceremony? 

Olympic Team Leaders John Millier and Kathy Slack talked about their experiences at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and shared a slide show from the Olympics. John about a skater who had a superstition about looking for a sparkle on the floor before every competition for good luck. John decided that he was going to start dropping sparkles on the floor as part of his role as team leader. Although, he said, she never really needed them - and then he introduced that skater - Special guest and U.S. Figure Skating Olympian Ashley Wagner.

Ashley talked to the crowd about coming up from the grassroots. “I was not a freakiously great skater. I just had a passion for it.” Ashley shared about how challenging this past year has been. It started off with Mr. Nicks deciding he didn't want to travel anymore, having to change coaches and choreographer, then her training rink closed down and finally how tough National were. She admitted that the short program wasn’t the best and she was terrified before the long program. But she was grateful to her skating family for making her skating dreams come true and selecting her to be on the Olympic team. 

The Business Meeting started

The secretary reported the number of clubs and the number of possible votes

321 delegates

477 proxies

200 athletes

Total 998 votes

After getting through the usual reports and business dealings, it was time to start the fireworks with "Isolating Items."

From the Interim Report of Action #1

Items 

331 (pg20) - Official calculation software and hardware for U.S. Figure Skating

345 (pg25) - Selections Committee

347-353 (pgs 27-30) Moves In The Field changes - these have to be isolated to be sent back to committee

From the Interim Report of Action #2

Items

201(pg 1) - Parents membership - has to be isolated to be sent back to committee

325 (pg 2) - Changing age classes

512 (pg 6) - Intermediate Pairs well-balanced free skate

527 (pg 13) - Qualifying rounds

But then first things first - bylaw amendments. Some would be easy and others, not so much. And as tradition goes, something will always come up that surprises us. Dorothy (our fabulous parliamentarian) led us through the process.

• Exhibit A – adding sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination language in USFS bylaws. Passed unanimously.
• Exhibit B – moving the Parents Committee from Athlete Services to Membership Services – passed unanimously
• Exhibit C –  Aligning the president’s term with the Winter Olympic Quadrennium. We knew this one was going to create a "lively discussion."  An amendment from the floor to delete the limitations on the number of terms if the President is elected in year 3 of the quadrennium. The amendment was accepted and the exhibit was adopted with the amendment and without too much lively discussion. Nice surprise.
• Exhibit D adding consistent age and membership requirements for all delegates, members of the Board of Directors, and committee chairs and members. Passed.
• Exhibit E to make any past or future ISU World or Olympic Champions honorary members of U.S. Figure Skating. Sounds like a no brainer, but it turned out to be more complicated than anyone thought. An amendment was offered requesting to change the scope of bylaw to include all World and Olympic medalists, not just gold medalists. Dorothy informed the body that the amendment was out of scope, but Tom James disagreed. (Let's get ready to ruuuummmmbbbbllllleeeee)

The delegates had to vote to determine if the amendment was out of scope. The vote looked close, so it was time for the first count. With 998 possible votes and the need for a simple majority, only 499 votes were needed. The final count? 893 agree with the chair that it was out of scope. 

Then it was noted under B that it said “any person or synchronized skating team member..."So does that mean that a synchronized skating team member isn't a person? The language was changed to "Any person or team member..."

Then it was time to vote on the amendment, right? Nope, another delegate asked to have it referred back to committee. 

Exhibit F was to clarify that the team membership pertains to synchronized skating teams as well as Theatre On Ice teams. Passed.

And that's when the day ended.