Council News etc.

The 2014 AGM for the British Go Association will be held on 1st March 7:30pm as part of the British Go Congress at Butlins Resort, Bognor Regis

Any members with motions for inclusion on the Agenda are requested to send them to the Secretary by 15th January.

The latest two sets of minutes are now available to be viewed by members here and here.

The BGA AGM was held during the British Go Congress at Stevenage between 18:45 and 19:45 on 6th April.

• The previous minutes were accepted, as were the accounts for 2012, presented by the Treasurer and approved by the Auditor.
• The President, Secretary and Membership Secretary also presented reports.
• The officers, auditor and three council members were re-elected. Fred Holroyd rejoined Council after being elected and Roger Huyshe was elected to Council for the first time.
• There were no other motions for consideration.
• Under Any Other Business there were items about combining the BGC 2014 with the European Youth Go Championship at Bognor Regis at the end of March/beginning of April, future possibilities for charity registration, about the BGA sets and possible ways for Outreach.

Although I've written in the forthcoming British Go Journal that all Council members are offering themselves for re-election, it turns out that two of the existing members have recently decided not to for a variety of personal reasons.

We thank them for their efforts and hope that they will still continue working with the BGA to promote and develop Go in the UK.

Nominations for Council members are therefore solicited - this could be yourself or someone else!

Please contact one of the Council members if you're interested or have a suggestion as someone who might be suitable.

Most of the involvement does not involve travelling, but there are typically three face-to-face meetings (mostly in association with a tournament) - last year they were in Cambridge, Leicester and London.

This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meetings 13th October and 2nd December 2012 and preceding discussions:

This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meeting 14th July 2012 and preceding discussions:

This year, the BGA is making a concerted effort to attract new players to the game of go by encouraging new go clubs to form in Universities and Colleges. We are asking as many as possible of our existing go clubs to consider sponsoring a new club in their local University or College by running a “go stall” at the “Freshers’ Fair” event in October, and helping any interested students to set up a new Go club and get it established.

The BGA will support any of our clubs who are willing to take part.

Setting up a go stall at a Fresher’s Fair

Clubs taking part first need to identify a Go player in the University or College, staff or student, to take the lead in arranging for a “Go stall” at the Freshers’ Fair event. You will need some Go equipment to demonstrate the game. Your club may already have some equipment. However, the BGA can supplement this with some basic demonstration sets.

This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meeting 22nd April 2012 and preceding discussions:

• All existing Officials, as per the website, were re-appointed, with Maria Tabor replacing Jenny Radcliffe as Chair of the Tournament Committee.
• The trifold leaflets needed updating with new subscription rates and change of Membership Secretary. It was decided not to reprint them immediately as there were some suggestions for redesign and to consider this further at the next Council meeting.

This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meeting 11th March 2012 and preceding discussions:

It appears that there has been some serious mis-communications and Matthew Macfadyen, who had been invited to play, turned down the invitation some time ago.

Unfortunately we only discovered this yesterday after seeing the list of players entered.

Francis Roads had been told that he had been nominated as our representative in the event that Matthew wasn't going to play, since he was 2nd in the points list, so we've apologised to him already. However, there is insufficient time before the event (8 days) for Francis to re-arrange his life, get a visa etc, even if he were to be permitted to play, since we've passed the IGF deadline for submission of names (15th March).