Committees

Responsible for maintaining our membership database, sending out renewal reminders, processing membership applications and issuing membership cards. Any enquiries about Go and the Association can be received and dealt with, especially those of the kind: "Is there a club or another player in my area?".

The Membership Secretary also looks for possibilities for formation of new clubs and provide contact information to those wishing to do so. Labels are provided for the despatch of mailings to the membership and currently arranges dispatch of the British Go Journal to members.

The Journal Editor is responsible for the production of up to four editions of the Journal every year. Distribution is handled by the Membership Secretary.

The main tasks that need to be undertaken to produce it are the collation, selection and layout of the Journal contents in preparation for printing. This includes the production of game diagrams (also in a format for the website) and typesetting. Another task is liaising with the printers.

Maintaining and expanding the pool of contributors, and developing content through commissioning and discussions with contributors, is also of great importance.

The Marketing Manager is responsible for initiating, managing and monitoring of all marketing initiatives. These include

• encouraging and helping with publicity for our own tournaments and other events
• identifying and developing publicity for other target opportunities
• participating in exhibitions and other kinds of external events
• handling relations with other external UK organisations not directly covered by other officials, e.g. the Anglo-Japan Society

Responsible for producing new editions of publicity materials.

Posts messages and administers the Association's page on Facebook.

Administers the Gotalk email list, checking for bouncing addresses and incorrectly rejected messages.

Organises the BGA's online leagues.

Responsible for the overall maintenance of the website, especially looking at moving forward the version of Drupal used.

Our policy statement describes the policy followed and lists those who are responsible for sections of the site.

One of the benefits of being a BGA member is that you can get your games analysed by a stronger player. If you would like to take advantage of this, please send me the game record as an SGF file. (If you don’t know how to do that, don’t worry. Just get in touch and we can sort out the practicalities.)

When playing Go, sometimes we can see our own mistakes. At other times, we can be playing bad moves without realising it. This is when getting someone else to review your games can really help you improve. As a BGA member, you have this service ready and waiting for you. You just need to ask.

If you send me a game, I am likely to comment on a few key points, so if you have particular questions about what happened, please ask them. When selecting a game to send, games where you were concentrating (for example tournament games) are likely to be more useful than casual games, and you normally learn more from games you lost than ones you won easily, but the choice of game is up to you.

Email the Game Review Service at: analyst@britgo.org

Monitors the rating and grading system, determines if any changes are needed and makes them.

Provides the BGA with training advice and material that can be used to run seminars or courses.

Ensures the British Go Congress is organised.

GoDraw is the program that provides the draw for our McMahon organised tournaments. It has a Windows interface and is constantly being improved. You can download GoDraw via the BGA software pages.

Suggests and encourages referee training and provides material for referee courses.

Maintains our Tournament Calendar and provides support to tournament organisers. As there are less than 52 events in a year, there is an attempt to smooth out the calendar so some months are not too crowded with events. Certainly there should not normally be two events the same weekend, and especially not the same day.

To choose a date for your tournament, look at the calendar to see what is available, taking note of the geographic spread of events in a particular month as well as the date. Then check with the coordinator that your date is suitable and it will be added to the calendar, provisionally until you confirm the date and provide more information.

If your date is acceptable as fitting into our calendar, then the tournament will be listed and you will able to borrow our tournament equipment and even get assistance with running your event. In return you will be expected to pay the Tournament Levy and provide the results of your event electronically to us (primarily for rating purposes).

Collects the results from all UK tournaments and ensures that they are sent to the Web Site Editor for the results section and to the European ratings system in the correct format.

As described in the policy on working with children and young people, the Child Protection Adviser provides advice to members involved in youth go activities.

Members should contact the CPA to discuss any situation of concern that may come to their notice.

Advises the Youth Committee as parent of a young Go player.

Organises the annual UK Go Challenge competition for schools.

Keeps track of the points scored in the annual Youth Grand Prix (see junior section).