GTHLA General Meeting Minutes

February 7^th, 2009

Rhino Upstairs

Attendence:

Craig Barnes
Thomas Carrol
Joe McGuinty
Rodney Merchant
Chris Sanagan
Mark Sanagan
Craig Dean
Mike Belitsky
Greg Thomas
Sharron Harris
Adam Elliotson
Warren Sheffer
Chris King
Jay Peters
Richard Switzer
Brian Koboyakawa
Priscilla Yu
Sue Vanstone
Mike Loveless
Cor Holubowich
Luis Freitas
Jeremy Harris
Aron Harris
Joel Keller
Mark McCormick
Sal Knox
Pete Gaffney
Chris Hazard

Greg Simone

1. Brian Kobayakawa taking minutes
   

3:11 - Welcome

• Introductions around the table.
  
• 2. Tom Goodwin's opening remarks, comments about intentions for how the meeting will go.
  
• Tom goes over the basic principles of the league, and its goals and core values.
  

3:16 – Future Meetings

• 3. Scheduling of future meetings, plans for 3 meetings per season. Next meeting shooting for Sunday May 3^rd.
  

3:28 - Membership

• 5. A) Priscilla Yu comments about the procedure for inputting stats on the website, compliments Dan and Julie for their efforts. Encourages one representative from each team to input their own stats and specifically keep accurate track of penalty minutes. Tom encourages the "Game Notes" section for noting inaccuracies in the stats, general comments about the game.
  
• 5. B) Priscilla and Tom comment about the database being created of all league members, and correlating it with the website, as well as social networking sites.
  
• 5. C) Agreements for 2009/2010, Priscilla remarks about the desire to have every member of every team sign a proper agreement for next season.
  
• 5. D) Tom and Priscilla list the needs for volunteers, and specifically the need for a volunteer to coordinate the volunteers.
  
• 5. E) Notes on co-ordinating extra-curricular activities, including Heather Cunningham's efforts to have food-bank donations accepted at every game.
  
• 5. F) Priscilla points out Lynn is involved with getting the first-aid certification for a member of every team, Jeremy Harris suggests 2 members of every team be certified, to which Tom responds a desire to have a new member of each team each year become certified, to constantly grow the number of certified players in the league.
  
• 5. C) More remarks about the need for each member to sign an agreement, for insurance properties
  
• 5. F) A suggestion to have all the referees certified in first-aid, to ensure there is always someone certified in CPR and first-aid at each game. It is pointed out that all arena employees are first-aid and CPR certified.
  
• 5. F) Tom thanks Lynn and Sal for organizing this year's first-aid clinic.
  
• 5. A) Server crash of the website last week explained, still experiencing some problems.
  

3:32 – Fair Play Committee

• 4. A) Craig begins discussion of the fair-play committee with a discussion of how each game works, from how it is scheduled, to how many teams are playing, how game sheets work, etc.
  
• 4. A) Greg Simone touches on the development of the webpage, as it relates to further explain the rules of the league, and the intentions of the fair play committee.
  
• 4. F) Greg Simone explains penalty minute average, and the history of the rule, and the complaints being received from some teams about the rule. Greg explains that teams with a team penalty minute average over 4.5/game will result in a review. He explains the FPC's desire for these numbers to work as "firm guidelines with some flexibility" rather than a hard rule.
  
• 4. F) Mike Belitzky suggests categorizing penalties as aggressive (fighting, roughing) different than things like tripping. Greg Thomas suggests a way to consider co-incidental minors differently than others.
  
• 4. E) Richard Switzer explains how he effectively communicated to his team a desire to keep minutes down. He also asks if there has been a specific decision amongst the officials to clamp down on trash-talk, complaining and the other incidents that have led to a rash of 10-minute misconducts.
  
• 4. E) Craig responds that there was no specific suggestion, but that referees were told that 10 minute misconducts don't count fully towards their penalty total.
  
• 4. E) Richard, Craig and Greg discuss how complaints about refereeing will result in encouraging referees to uphold the principles of the league. Jeremy Harris and Craig discuss how new refs are sourced, mostly friends of past officials.
  
• 4. E) Richard and Adam talk about encouraging players from the league to be refs, because of the success of people like Tom and Greg wearing the stripes. Craig tells us it's not a discussion we're going to have because many people have told him they don't want player refs.
  
• 4. E) Louis recommends having a formal discussion on the subject of player refs, Greg Simone suggests putting it on the agenda for the next meeting, as FPC discussions have already gone over their allotted time, Greg Thomas and Richard continue to advocate for player ref discussion continuing next meeting.
  
• 4. D) Greg Simone discusses the demerit point system and how it currently exists, as a tool to monitor repeat offenders of digressive activity, and possibility of banning players from the league. Greg emphasizes the openness of the FPC for appeals to any decision of theirs, and the role Tom Goodwin would play in hearing appeals. Any suspension results in "a couple" demerit points, and the player's actions to remedy the situation being a key factor in the number of points issued. Communication with the FPC and discussion between the offender and opposing player involved in the incident will be considered. Greg defines the number of points being 7 before expulsion, with 2 – 3 points per suspension. Not sure of the numbers, official numbers will be on the website sometime in the future. Any suspensions or official warnings from the last 2 years will be issued points in next year in more structured format of the demerit point system. Points can be earned back through clean seasons, to be determined.
  
• 4. B) Fair play awards/stars discussion. Adam suggests replacing the 3 stars with FPStars, Louis and others discourage removal of the 3 stars. Ray and others support the notion suggested by Adam of each team picking a star from the other team. Rodney Merchant suggests removing the game by game stars, and having each team nominate a player at the end of the year. Cor points out that noticing one player can be hard, and the goal of all players adhering to the core values of the league doesn't coincide with having an individual singled out for fair play. Tom Goodwin suggests moving this discussion to the discussion board.
  
• 4. G) Adam talks about a suggestion of having a list of questions for answering after each game. Hot Piss Sanagan points out no one wants to deal with that after a game. Tom Goodwin suggests it being an optional webform. J'air Harris talks about the inconsistencies of communication with the FPC about game issues, and points out that direct communication with the FPC is the most inline with the goals of teams being pro-active about negative issues, rather than using game-notes for these issues. Belitzky points out game notes, being a public page on the internet is not the place for airing disputes between teams.
  
• 4. G) Greg asks anyone interested in being part of the FPC to contact the FPC.
  
• 4. F) Tom asks Greg for clarification about the earlier comments about the PIM average rule. Greg explains there is "room for flexibility" with the rule, while Craig emphasizes that "we're not changing the rules."
  

4:25 – Operations

• 6. A) Playoffs start April 4 for Eh Division, immediately following Summit for others.
  
• Teams should be prepared to play every weekend.
  
• 6. D) If anyone has a league jersey at home bring it back ASAP.
  
• Murmurs around the table thank Ray for his brevity.
  

4:28 – Communications

• 7. A) Sal talks about efforts to unify the brands of the Association on the web.
  
• 7. A) Sal talks about the ongoing efforts to align the websites, blogs and other methods of communications of the different branches of the association.
  
• 7. A) Sal talks about the unified HAA newsletter and calendar, and discusses an upcoming meeting, available to be conferenced via Skype, contact her for more info.
  

4:33 – Summit Production

• 8. A note from Aaron Brophy is read by Joe, discussing his need for more stories for the summit guide, and the need for advertising. Tom reiterates the need for advertising and sponsorship for the summit.
  
• 8. Jeremy Harris discusses the possibility of having CBC Radio3 become involved as a title sponsor.
  
• 8. Ray speaks about working on the schedule and the divisions, talks about how we will have more of the ice time in each day, resulting in earlier end times than last year.
  
• 8. York/Delasalle again. Playoffs will be Saturday afternoon, finals only on the Sunday (same as last year again)
  
• 8. 5 Divisions(!) this year, including a Z flat 4 team division. Desire to create more parody within the divisions.
  

4:40 – Management Development

• Tom talks about how it may have been too abstract leading to confusion about how the future management of the league is being built
  
• Tom discusses how supporting the core values of the league and contributing to the committees will lead to developing the future leadership of the league
  
• Richard Switzer speaks about the feelings of some core members, referencing Louis directly, and how they feel they don't "have a voice" in the league on some core decisions.
  
• Richard also says he understands how having a board of directors would make every decision take all kinds of time, but wonders how each team could have a say in things like scheduling, fair play rules, financial decisions of the league, which he feels were decided without each team having a vote.
  
• Richard also references Aaron Brophy's suggestion of GMs voting on committees suggestions about key issues of the league, as a good way to have teams involved with key decisions without having to be represented on every committee.
  
• Tom responds with the need for committees to discuss the details of key decisions, and the role of the core values in influencing these decisions.
  
• Tom comments that these meetings already exist as a forum for GMs to put their input into committees' decisions, while Richard points out from his perspective that key decisions (# of games in a season, costs of the season) were made without discussion at GM meetings.
  
• Sal mentions that with only 3 meetings GM meetings alone cannot serve as a forum to have GMs vote on all decisions.
  
• Ray mentions how drafts of schedules are forwarded.
  
• Tom mentions the surveys taken by e-mail about some topics, and speaks about a future survey to determine opinions on future decisions.
  
• Richard points out how this meeting hasn't involved a vote on a single issue, and how these meetings could be used better to allow each team to vote on the decisions of the league.
  
• Tom reiterates that participation in committees is the way for teams to be more involved, while Richard reiterates his feelings of non-involvement and his inability to be involved in the committees.
  
• Tom encourages Richard to voice his disagreement with any past decisions, while Richard points out his purpose with this discussion isn't to change past decisions, but set up a more involved process for GMs to vote on specific issues going forward.
  
• Adam makes a comments that we've always worked with consensus and compromise rather than vote for and against specifics.
  
• Greg Thomas asks if there is a specific set of parameters outlining how decisions are made, Richard and Tom agree that that is what we're trying to develop.
  
• Tom encourages anyone to express specific ideas, to him directly or through the message board to help develop the future leadership of the league.
  

Tom thanks all for their time. Meeting adjourned – 5:04pm.