Not sure if this would be considered the minutes but here is a voting and discussion summary of the meeting held online on February 14th.

In attendance: Russ Corey. Jeff Haydel, John Kittrell, Bob Satter
Zack Hudson could not attend due to work commitments but was called via phone to vote on 1 issue.

Issue and vote (1) a vendor serving on the Board of Directors.
Discussion was had concerning the potential conflict in interest of a vendor of services or products needed by the board vending to the board. A vote was decided on the following two wordings:

(1)any person serving on the board thereby disqualifies themselves from being able to act as a vendor to the board
(2)any person serving on the board can provide a service or product to the board through an bidding process in open competition. The board member in question should not vote on the awarding of the bid process.

Voting for option 1: Russ, Jeff, John, Bob, and Zack (via phone)
Voting for option 2: none

Issue and vote (2) awarding of the board seat vacated by Chris LaSonde.
Discussion was had concerning the precedent already set: that the person receiving the most votes in the previous election that did not receive a seat would fill the vacant seat. A vote was decided on the following two options:

(1)follow precedent set by a prior board decision
(2)continue to act as a 5 member board until August and then elect 4 seats.

Voting for option 1: Russ, John, and Bob
Voting for option 2: Jeff
It was decided not to contact Zack as his vote could not alter the decision made.

Bill McCarty, as the person meeting the criteria of the precedent, will be contacted about filling the empty seat on the board if he so chooses.

Issue and vote (3) the SNAC previously award to New Albany cannot meet the required guidelines set by the SN BoD due to new rules put into effect this calendar year by the new policies of the Mississippi State Park System. It was suggested that the SNAC be put up for open bid to be judged and decided at the next board meeting. This will give the new host nearly 6 months to prepare for the event. Other options were discussed but not considered viable options. A vote was had for re-opening the bid process for the 2007 SNAC to be awarded on February 28th by the board of directors:

Voting Yea: Russ, Jeff, John, and Bob
Voting for Nea: none
It was decided not to contact Zack as his vote could not alter the decision made.


Meeting was adjorned at approximately 8:55PM with the agreement to meet next on February 28th at 8PM.

arrrrggggg...did y'all forget to vote on not sanctioning the SNPC with the PDGA? after they snubbed Lasonde's article for DGWorld last year?

It seems to me that
"(1)any person serving on the board thereby disqualifies themselves from being able to act as a vendor to the board"

is in conflect with
"(2)any person serving on the board can provide a service or product to the board through an bidding process in open competition. The board member in question should not vote on the awarding of the bid process. "

Does not make any sense!

You say you can't do it, BUT you CAN if you don't vote on it!
Case in point: Last year I did the Year End awards that were awarded at the Championships in Mobile. They WERE an expensive award, due to their being glass and the cost to purchase. I have the minutes of the meeting where all of the board members, except me and John Kittrell, voted to have them done. That is only right, no board member should have a vote in such a situation, I said so then, and I feel the same way now.

It just seems that we are getting a little "wordy" with it. You only need to say that a "board member can bid a product or service, but has no vote when it is time to award the bid."

I was told last night only the first part of the "new" rule, which would mean that Jim Orum could also not bid anything to the "board". I would not like to see this happen.

The past few years I HAVE provided the Southern National Bag Tags. I believe they are VERY competivetly priced, and very well worth the cost. I also have not voted for me to do them at any time. I have submitted artwork and a price, and they have been ordered. As is should be.

I do not think that being on the board should hamstring the vendor process, but I DO agree 100% that the vendor/member should not vote on who an item is purchased from, unless they want to cast a vote for the other vendor (but that could not happen if you could not vote). If they have the best price and product and the rest of the board wants to go with it, so be it.


I guess I will be on hand for the next meeting.

See you then!

Dg Guy - Disc GOlf Plaques & Awards
662-660-0339

Know what you throw. . .
. . . throw what you know!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2007 12:27PM by DG Guy.

i think not letting someone not being able to vend and be on the board is way off. bill c would make a great replacement. but if he can not do tags and ects. then if i was him i would not serve. the one thing we must be very careful about is making rules before we need them. later down the road we might need it.if we learn anything from the pdga that should be one. dont make rules to early. no one been force to buy from bill, he has not forced himself on us. it has been a big help having him do things for us. it was a win win situation. i hope you reconsider that one. i see where your coming from but right now is not the time. im wanting to get s.n. meds out to tds, so we can get pride back into playing with s.n. stuff. will i have to stop helping in that area to. i do thank you for meeting, and posting so fast. your time is valuable to you. i really think the hosting club should decide if they want to do make the snc pdga , if we dont have to and we still can be a usdgc then we dont need it. i to for years have watch them skip over us in that magazine, that alone would make me say no.once again thank all of you for taking time to have the meeting, the great thing is we can make changes when we need to and do it without slinging mud. i know many times i thought something was a good ideal, till i thought about it later, now go ace one for me, jim

Man, I just appreciate ya'll meeting and updating the rest of the DG community in such timely manner!

Thanks guys! Keep it up.

[tupelodiscgolf.com]

I agree with Jim, I do not feel this is a rule that is needed. In fact, it felt more like a personal attack on me to either keep me off the board or to prevent me from selling any products, through the board, to the Southern Nationals, if I were to agree to it.

What's next, ban me from funishing plaques & awards, or other merchandise to Southern National events.

There has NEVER been a condition put forth such as this to be a board member, other than getting the votes and having the means to communicate at the meetings.

Where does this TRULY come from I would wonder. I know several on the board VERY well, and this is NOT their doing.

What REALLY scares me is that one person could influence the rest of the board to take such an action, and with such blistering speed. It took MONTHS of meeting to get a few simple guidelines hammered out.

Will we all need to be Blue Eyed Blonds of the Master race next? How far will it go.

After all, you are forgetting, this is a VOLUNTEER position. We donate our time and efforts to make the Southern National Pro/Am Tournament Series something we can all be proud of! And to be critizied and second guessed by many of the posters on the forum is our only reward!

I have the deepest respect for what the members of the board undertake, and the same for the members themselves. The board is NOT about any one person, it is about a collection of people with the best intrests of Disc Golf, and the Southern National Pro/Am Tournament Series at heart. In that order! What is good for Disc Golf, WILL be good for the Southern Nationals.

Respectfully, but no smiley face!

Dg Guy - Disc GOlf Plaques & Awards
662-660-0339

Know what you throw. . .
. . . throw what you know!

OK guys you are misreading that first resolution. As a board we voted for part 1 OR part 2 of the vendor/board member resolution. Part 1 was passed INSTEAD of part 2.

As for the most circuitous accusation I have ever read: Bill come out and say it if you truely meant it. As a matter of fact I did have a hand in getting this resolution passed and, as I stated in the meeting, it was not against you or Jim or any particular vendor in particular. I have ALWAYS thought it was a conflict in interest to have someone serve as a vendor to the Southern Nationals Board as well as serve on the the Board. Whether that board member votes on their own bids worthiness or not is a simple case of business ethics and should NEVER be a question. I will point out though that it passed unanimously and I don't remember any threats or weapons used to coerce votes.

Jeff Haydel

I would argue that Jim is not a sitting board member. He only has a vote in case of ties. His case is a little more simple to deal with, Bill's case is a little more complicated. I will say that for years I have heard complaints about Innova owners/employees sitting on the PDGA board and have always agreed that the possibility of conflict of interest is certainly present. Either way I think this is a lot tougher decision now that it affects one of our own. I stand by the board and its decision on this one.


Shane Seal

Transparency of information breeds self correcting behavior!

Actually, the rule says nothing about a "sitting" member. He is a member, as I am. . . . . or not!

Dg Guy - Disc GOlf Plaques & Awards
662-660-0339

Know what you throw. . .
. . . throw what you know!

yes i will step down if that the rule,im no better than bill or anyone else. there plenty ways to help this sport grow. it always funny to me when people for get how we got where we are. with anything it starts with sales. with out them there was no base to start what i did. i to never have nor will force to buy from sky south. but with out sky south i could of never done anything with disc golf but played. one day players are going to understand you need both vendors and volunteers to keep things running. once again i say there may become a time when we need such a rule when greed kicks in, right now i think we have nothing but first class players, volunteers, and tds, we should be very proud, and keep it kiss keep it simple stupid, just funning, but we should all remember it is about fun. you want things run right but it does not need to be that hard, unless we make it that way. spread the work load and help those that do the work load as much as possible. now lets go play 18 and ace one for me. ps if i need to step aside it will be ok, and please no one worry about it. i will be there somewhere because i like it, your my familly, jim

Jim
I agree that we have great volunteers and all the SN board members past and present have done a good job and all have had the best interests of the SN Series in mind. My position is that we should do what we can to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest.

As for what the SN board purchases to date it has only been SN Bag Tags, End of the Years Awards and Points Discs. I know you have always ordered the points disc for us and we have always paid you but it has always been at cost. And in regards to the bag tags and end of year awards, Bill did those the last couple years and I'm sure that on those jobs he only profited a couple hundred dollars over cost. Nothing sinister was done but again to me its also about the perception.

I think Bill contributed a lot during the last two years and hopes he does accept the position vacated by Chris. I know he loves the sport of disc golf and does what he can to promote disc golf and the SN series.

John k

But did Bill BID to do the awards etc. was there any other bids involved? or was he just asked to do the awards or did he just pick up the ball and run with it. I dont remember any bid process for these items but I could certainly be mistaken.

JABBA


it MUST be the plastic

i think it would work out better if a board member could put in a bid ,but could not ask for something to have bid on, but could not vote on that bid. as long as it is done that way then it should be ok. bill has save my butt a lot. just a thought, now go ace one for me, jim

Usually it has come down to the last minute and nothing has been done, with a week or two until the tags were needed. I submitted art, since it was apparent that it was not going to happen any other way, and was asked, by John, to do the tags.

Even took short orders so that the SN would not be stuck with a lot of extras, they could always order more after they sold the first batch.

As far as the year end awards went, again, two weeks before the Championships in Mobile and nothing happening. I had previously contacted Chris about using the design he had on those beautiful full color discs with the dimes on them. I know it is nice to tie in teh year end awards with the championship event. I had those images on hand, just in case!

Being a board member I know how things worked with the board. So, the week before the Championships there was still nothing going on, I pushed that we needed to get something voted on, and had sent images and pricing to all board members. To my knowledge, there had been no other action on the awards.

Everyone on the board, except myself and John voted to do them. I had to order the glass and bases and had to get them done the week of the Championships. If one of them had broken during the process, which involves submitting them to 400 degrees of heat under pressure for 8 minutes each, then They would have not been done on time. As it was, I finished them Thursday before the event, which would have meant next day shipping, with the risk of breakage during transit if I had not been going to Mobile to play in the Championships.

That is pretty much how the bag tags and year end awards went.

I know of very few vendors who would have undertaken such a risky project, on such short notice. Fourntantely I had done a lot fo the footwork and preparation in advance of the order, another thing most vendors will not do. They do not spend time on projects they do not have a purchase order for. All orders I have received from the board have been verbal and come from John, with the exception of the year end awards that were voted on.

Dg Guy - Disc GOlf Plaques & Awards
662-660-0339

Know what you throw. . .
. . . throw what you know!

Smells like the PDGA in here. Thanks for allowing the rest of us to submit our bids...seems like the only folks who were in this loop was the BOD...oh and one of them won the BID? NICE

JABBA


it MUST be the plastic

Everyone knows when the season ends, not like it takes rocket science to figure THAT one out. It is also a no brainer to figure out that you need the tag BEFORE you want to sell them, which the kickoff is the Championship events.

As this has been going on since the second year the Southern National Bag tags came into being, and I might mention, LONG before I bacame a board member, I have not seen anyone doing anything to furninsh them.

Jim did the little green octagon ones with the vinyl numbers on them, since then it has been me doing them.

If there were the great riches involved that some think, the vendors would have been lined up.

Aparently you have just slept trough it all. . .

Dg Guy - Disc GOlf Plaques & Awards
662-660-0339

Know what you throw. . .
. . . throw what you know!

Sleepy says that if we (vendors)dont know when to line up to make BIDs then its a market cornered ....by the BOD, of which YOU are/were/are? a member. Insider info .....still smells like the PDGA.
So was it you just doing them or did YOU put in a BID to do them and to whom?

JABBA
it MUST be the plastic


it MUST be the plastic



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2007 11:34AM by frzbman.

what has been hidden, who has made all this money.we have always ask where can we get something at and what prices. we seem to wont to make everything hard , when it so easy. we need tags are what every post it take bids take the one that makes us happy, cheap does not make one happy.it is that simple to me, post it, take bids, pay and go to the next thing, why make things so hard, jim

Sounds like the REAL issue here is the same one that hinders even our Club on the local level...

COMMUNICATION!!!

It is good to see the BOD get minutes out AFTER the meeting....but PERHAPS having a quick post which mentions what issues the BOD is undertaking/voting on should occur PRIOR to every meeting....thus folks with an interest in a bid or whatever will have a chance to have their voice heard...

What is done is done...frankly, as a former Memphis Prez., I know what it is like to hear rumblings from a few when fewer still raised their hands to help out....but in the end many times problems arose because of a lack of communication...

Remember...the majority of folks do not engage the internet, but utilizing the tools we do have (such as posting prior and after the BOD meetings) will go a long way to alleviating some of this grumbling...

P.S.--Bill didn't vote (if/when there was a vote on the "bidding" process)....Bill DID go the extra mile to alleviate a real problem...what kind of dorks would we ALL look like had we had a Championship with no trophies???

Kudos Bill, Jim and the BOD for all you do...folks really should remember one key point...THESE ARE VOLUNTEERS!!

Griff