Board of Director Meeting Minutes
Thursday, April 2, 2020, 7:00pm
Virtual Meeting
ATTENDEES: Oleg Poliannikov (President), Steve Winer (Vice President) Bob Messenger (Treasurer), Andrew Hoy (Clerk), Jeff Caruso, Nicholas Sterling, Robb Stewart, and Yi Wang.
1. Meeting Minutes
MOTION: Approval of minutes from the February 6, 2020 board meeting (OP/SW). VOTE: Passed, 7-0
2. Chess Horizons
MOTION: Thank Nathan Smolensky for his work as Chess Horizons editor (RM/OP). VOTE: Passed, 7-0
3. Committee Reports
Elections
There are 122 voters and 7 have requested a paper ballot. There will be a Board meeting in early May to discuss the MA Open, and at that time the Board will decide how to execute the election process.
Membership
There are 759 current members. This is lower than last year at this time. The cancellation of several tournaments factors into the decrease, as do some number of refunds based on the cancellation of Chess Horizons. Oleg is willing to do some data entry in order to analyze membership trends. Bob will distribute some more detailed membership statistics.
Financial
Three tournament financial reports were distributed to the Board. The Girls tournament had many dropouts due to concerns over COVID-19.
Tournaments
Going forward, tournaments will be cancelled/postponed, although the Board will wait to make a decision about most of the summer events. Hotels might allow cancellation without fees, although it will mostly depend on the specific contracts. The Board will have at least a brief discussion on April 30th to make a decision about the Mass Open. The MA Girls tournament will be postponed from the original weekend of May 2+3, and a future date will be selected.
The deadline for nominating scholastic state champions is June 20th, although that date does have some flexibility.