March 26, 2015
No Blog on Friday
Because…
- Schools are closed for a "Teacher Professional Day," and if they get the day off, so do I.
- I can use another day off to rest. I took a day off on Tuesday, and it really paid off during yesterday's coaching, where I felt energized for the first time in a while.
- To give me time to prepare for the USATT Board Meeting on Saturday, where I have two presentations.
- So I can spend the day finalizing the first draft of "The Spirit of Pong," which I blogged about March 16. (I finished the first draft yesterday, but have two pages of notes of things to add or change.)
- So I can take my car to the shop for a check-up and minor repairs.
- We have a one-day training camp at MDTTC, but I might not be needed since we have eight full-time coaches - but I might be called in.
USATT Board Meeting
This Saturday there's a USATT Board meeting in Baltimore from 9AM to 4PM. Board members and some staff and/or committee chairs will be coming in for the meeting. As a board member since January, this'll be my first in-person meeting, though I've been on two teleconferences. (Over the years I've attended about 60 board meetings, including the last one in December at the Nationals.) Below is the agenda. I've got two presentations, both scheduled for 30 minutes.
The first (at 11:30 AM) is my Regional Associations Proposal, which plans to set up regional and state associations, with a three-pronged goal: setting regional team leagues; coaching programs; and state championships. A huge portion of my time over the next few years is going to be devoted to this. I'll blog a lot more about this later.
The second (at 1:30PM) is my proposal to allow USATT members to get on the USATT election ballot by petition of 150 members. Below the agenda is the wording of the proposal. I blogged about this issue on January 24, 2014. (I have several other bylaw proposals I plan to bring up later, but wanted to start with this one. I'll likely do the others in one batch.)
Two other issues I'll likely be very involved in are "Committee Assignments" at 9:25AM, and "Strategic Visioning" at 2:30PM. Oh, and "Breakfast" at 8:15. I have a lot planned there. (I'm guessing that changing USATT is a lot like making sausage - you might like the end result, but you might not want to watch it being made.) I'm also looking forward to the US Open Update at noon - like many of you, I'm impatient for this to be finalized.
Next week I'll blog about the meeting as well as an update on my own activities, in particular the various things I raised during the election. I'll have a lot to report!
The meeting is open to the public, other than the 15-minute executive session at 3:15PM. Come see the sheer excitement watching people around a table arguing over bylaw wording! See us stab each other in the eye with glares of steel! Watch us wield "Robert's Rules of Order" as a weapon of mass destruction, sweeping away all opposition that knows not its clauses and sub-paragraphs! (I'm just joking, of course - hopefully we'll get some important stuff done!)
USA Table Tennis Board Meeting Agenda
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Hilton – BWI (Baltimore, MD)
- 8:15am Breakfast
- 9:00am Call to Order/Introductory Remarks (Peter Scudner)
- 9:05am Roll Call/Conflict of Interest (Dennis Taylor)
- 9:10am Approval of the January 21, 2015 and March 5, 2015 Minutes (Peter Scudner)
- 9:15am Legal Update (Dennis Taylor)
- 9:25am Committee Assignments (Peter Scudner)
- 10:45am Break
- 11:00am Financial Report/Review of Preliminary March 31, 2015 Financials (Gordon Kaye)
- 11:30am Regional Association Task Force Update (Larry Hodges)
- 12:00pm US Open Update (Gordon Kaye)
- 12:15pm Lunch
- 12:45pm CEO’s Report (Gordon Kaye)
- 1:30pm Proposed By-Law Amendment (Larry Hodges)
- 2:00pm High Performance/USOC Update (Carl Danner)
- 2:15pm Discussion Regarding Plastic Balls (Ed Hogshead)
- 2:30pm Strategic Visioning (Peter Scudner)
- 3:15pm Executive Session
- 3:30pm Old Business
- 3:45pm New Business
- 4:00pm Adjourn
Bylaw Proposal (see 1:30 PM above)
MOVED to append a new, Paragraph 3 to Bylaw 7.6(b)(3):
The following will need a 2/3 majority to pass. (That's 2/3 of the entire 9-member board, so it needs 6 votes, period. If three don't attend and it "passes" 5-1, it doesn't pass. I've since learned that three board members will not attend, but some or all may attend parts of the meeting via teleconferening.)
"Any adult General Member in good standing at least 60 days before the record date, who obtains and submits to the Nominating and Governance Committee at least 150 signatures of support from current adult USATT General Members in good standing, shall be placed on the election ballot for At Large Director. Petition forms will be kept online at the USATT website and made available year round for prospective candidates. Signatures may be collected at any time up to one year before voting for the election begins. If the signatures are submitted in advance of the finalization of the ballot, the Nominating and Governance Committee may, but is not required to, include that candidate as one of the minimum of two (2) candidates for the ballot."
NOTE: The primary reason for making the petitions available year round and allowing signatures up to a year in advance is to allow candidates to get these signatures at the U.S. Open, which is currently held in the summer. The Open, the Nationals, and the North American Teams are currently the only tournaments where there are enough USATT members that prospective candidates can get these signatures, and the Nationals is often too late, and not everyone can make it to the Teams (which is also rather late in the election cycle).
French Translation of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
The proofs are now in the mail. Once they are approved, the book will be on sale in the French Amazon, probably in a week or two. The translation was done by David Salomez.
Throwback Thursday at USATT
Here's a picture they put up this morning of the Resident Training Program for Table Tennis at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, from I believe Spring, 1988. At the time I was manager, which included being a practice partner and tutor. (I would later become director and assistant coach.)
Front, L-R: Lisa Gee, Larry Hodges, Dhiren Narotam, Rocky Wang, Karl Schultz, John Elwood, Diana Gee.
Middle, L-R: Gene Lonnon, Sean O'Neill, Coach Henan Li Ai, Todd Sweeris, Chi-Sun Chui, Ardith Lonnon, Insook Bhushan, Li Ai.
Back, L-R: Anthony Cooper, Chi Ngo, Coach Liquo Ai.
USATT Insider
Here's the new issue that came out Wedneday morning. It includes my article, "The Odyssey of Ruichao Alex Chen."
Backhand Topspin Against Block
Here's the video (1:37) from PingSkills.
Ask the Coach
Episode #104 (29:24) - Throwback Thursday (and other segments)
Serve Practice
Have you practiced your serves this week? No??? Okay . . . let me know when you are serious about your game again, and we'll talk! To the rest of you, good job. (This is a reprint from a previous blog that I'll likely run periodically.)
World Police and Fire Games
The venue for the 2015 World Police and Fire Games has been moved to the Smash Table Tennis Center in Sterling, Virginia, about an hour from me. Here's the announcement. Deadline to enter is April 24. Here's info on table tennis in the Games, which will be held June 27-29. I don't know who is coming, but some of the prominent names that might be there include firefighter Scott Boggan (who I believe has won it a few times), and policemen David Fernandez and David Chun. "Every 2 years 12,000 athletes from 70+ countries compete in 60+ events at the world Police and Fire games."
Sinovision TV
Sinovision, a Chinese TV station based in New York City, sent a crew down to the Maryland Table Tennis Center Wednesday afternoon and night to do a feature on Crystal Wang. They interviewed and videotaped her and a number of others. I'll post a link to the video when it goes up.
Table Tennis Daily Launches Equipment Review Centre
Here's the article from Matt Hetherington. And here's the actual review site.
ITTF Level 1 Coaching Course in Dharwad, India
Here are pictures of the coaching course Richard McAfee is running, March 23-27. And here are two pictures where they held a ceremony to honor his work. I've played and coached 38 years - how come no one's ever given me a scarf??? (And what's in the gift-wrapped cylinder? ADDENDUM: Richard says it was a carved wooden candle holder.)
The Girls of Argentina
Here's the video (3:30) by Jimmy Butler on the Argentinian team that qualified for the Pan Ams.
German Open, Zhang vs. Samsonov and Yan An
Here are the highlights (3:15) of this epic comeback, where Zhang Jike comes back from down 0-3 in the quarterfinals against Vladimir Samsonov to win in seven: -8,-9,-9,3,8,11,5. Another great match is the semifinals, Zhang vs. Yan An - here are the highlights (2:51). (Here's the home page for the German Open, held this past weekend.)
International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page.
Timo Boll is On the Ball
Or rather, the balls, eight of them, are on him. Here's the picture.
"We Don't Tolerate That Kind of Horseplay"
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