Present: Beppe, Geggster (Paul), Gaixo (Nate), Shteve0 (Steve), Sann0638 (Mike)
World Cup update and software
- Things shut down in Italy in August, so little progress since last time. The same team is organising as Lucca Games and Comics, so Beppe is very confident in Andrea and his team.
- Paul asked that a note be added for future world cup bids – consideration should be given to the bidding team’s experience in organising events of this scale
- Beppe is seeing Fabio on Thursday. He has explained the problems and will go through the latest version with him them. He will leave Nate and Mike’s emails with Fabio, and Nate should then be able to send out the software to NTOs after that.
- Hopefully the finished version will be available end of September. Nate will also forward the software to Andrea.
- Lycos and Lunchmoney may be able to run the software at Exiles (Sept 12th). Steve and Sandune may be able to run the software at Greenstone Cup (Sept 12th). Nate will handpick a couple more to test.
- There was a good discussion about the software, as regards making it user-friendly. But the priority is getting the software written and ready for the World Cup at the moment.
- The rationale of the new software is for simultaneously entering scores.
- Beppe will send out to committee the brief given to the developer.
Lycos (Dave) joined the call.
New Website
- Again, August, so no developments.
- Lycos and vmcat have rewritten the spec for the new website. Fabio has done the difficult bit, which is the frame for the website. Lycos will get the frame to Steve soon, they will communicate about that afterwards.
- Beppe will put a group together after the world cup for what exactly the website will look like.
Treasurer’s Report
- Income continues to marginally exceed outgoings – and is expected to continue despite reduction in FTF renewals (which itself comes with postage & packaging saving).
- We still have a substantial surplus. Some of this is for the website and score replacement – and some emergency fund is prudential as a buffer/cash flow. Adjourned until next meeting and committee to consider uses. Long term membership gift suggested but that does benefit a certain section of the membership (albeit who might have contributed more to the surplus, but being even-handed is critical).
Membership Report
- Vmcat and Lycos will get together tomorrow to try and find a solution to the membership issue (some members cannot have their results entered). If no solution is found then the long fix will be put into action.
Merchandise Possibility
- A NAF member would be interested in producing NAF merchandise in a similar vein to the Cafepress account.
- Cafepress was removed because GW copyright was a problem.
- The “non-profit” issue would also rule this out.
- Licensing from GW read TFF and are very aware of what is happening.
- A company had asked previously, so there is precedent to saying no. General consensus that it would be unfair to offer preferential treatment to one member to sell NAF merchandise through their own business.
Survey
- Paul had some good questions about the survey.
- The NAF is not responsible for the rules, and never has been, so we are not discussing the rules in the survey. We are a membership organisation. Respondents will instead be offered a free-text feedback section
- Committee feedback in the next 48 hours, then it will go out.
Beppe left the meeting (phone battery going). Everyone gave him best wishes for his wedding.
League Director update
- Steve has been keeping updates going on the forum.
- He is working with Vanguard, Funnyfingers and Dodger on a coding group
- They are trying to make OBBLM as front-end loaded as possible
- There is a GitHub (which is the coding collaboration software) under the name NAFLM
Update on Cyanide relationship
- We had a discussion about how the NAF could build more of a relationship with Cyanide and what form that relationship could take.
Forum
- For Paul an hour to 90 minutes every 6 weeks is useful for him as Treasurer, but others wanted more regular updates.
- Committee will use the forum more often for updates, but Skype calls will still continue as they produce deadlines.
- Some users may be able to see the forum unexpectedly.
Next meeting
October 4th, same time.