Committee Meeting August 11, 2018
Attending: President Gaixo/Nate, Vice President Tojurub/Torsten, Tournament Director Purplegoo/Phil, Treasurer Geggster/Paul, Membership Director Rolex/Massimo
Apologies: League Director Valen
Meeting started at 21:00 CET
1. Club Status (Pr/LD)
– Breaking News: LD Valen stepped down just before the meeting, but has offered to take care of OBBLM matters until a new LD is found. He will not attend any further meetings. Smilzo was runner-up in the last LD election, so Massimo will ask if he is willing to take over for the remainder of the term. Post-meeting update: Smilzo has agreed.
– New Webmaster is Jose Soler (NAF name: erjose)
– Australian Major: The Major status will transferred from CanCon to Eucalyptus Bowl. Both TOs are in agreement as well as the Australian NC. The attendance of EucBowl was substantially higher over the last several years and therefore a switch makes sense to everybody. No objections from any member of the committee.
2. League Director Report (LD)
Skipped due to absence of LD
3. Membership Director Report (MD)
– Trophies: RFQ were sent to 5 esteemed miniatures manufacturers. 4 of 5 replied. Two quotes were similar in price and predicted quality, so we will go with Hungry Troll as we have worked with them before.
– Gift 2019: Due to the upcoming Brexit it was decided to have next year’s gift done earlier than usual. The revelation will still happen at the NAFC, but Torsten can pick up the dice at UKTC and bring the gifts with him.
– Membership fee: Massimo asked for clarification about the membership fee at tourneys. He pointed out that if a membership fee is collected at a tourney, but no gift was given, we have to pay postage, which defeats the purpose of the reduced price. Committee confirmed that the 5€/5₤/5$ is only to be charged at a tourney if the gift is given out in return. If no gift is available the equivalent of 10$ has to be charged. NCs and RCs are encouraged to ask for replenishment of their stock in advance of tourney if they don’t have any left.
4. Tournament Director Report (TD)
Phil reported that he and his staff approved 51 last month, including four 7s and one special Dungeon 7s. The work with Oventa and Dries is in full swing and the group works nicely together. 7s seems to be very popular in the UK and in the US. In order for Mike Davies to be able to make statistics on World Cup rule set-ups in the time leading up to the World Cup, Phil will put in a special tag in the NAF database when he approves a tourney with such rule-set. Notorious JTB offered to change all Death Bowl tourneys in Canada retro-active in the NAF database, i.e. changing from variant “Blood Bowl” to variant “Deathbowl”. Blocksfam has given out goods to charity tourneys, with the ACCC to be the first. The next chance to submit donations will be at Chaos Cup and Eurobowl. Glicko rankings seem to settle in better now, the gaps seem to close nicely and coaches move up in other regions as well.
New NC for Portugal: Stingray
New RC for Mallorca (Spain): idroj
Annual Rules Review:
Phil presented the concept for the annual rules review. He will publish an article on the webpage about it. The goal of the annual Review is that we can provide the membership with a full year of stability for running tournaments. It is expected to approve all or most of the rules GW brings out over the year and tidy documents up, including the sanctioning document. A new forum has been set up where all NCs and selected RC will be invited to in order to participate in the review. There will be one month of discussion, followed by the approval by the committee. Afterwards the documents and the website will be updated and published on Nov. 1. Vote on acceptance of this procedure: 5:0 in favour.
5. Treasurer report (Tr)
-Currently just over 1000$ in the account, Eurobowl is expected to pay back 8000GBP soon. Loan to World Cup team was 13,000EUR and 2,500USD.
6. World Cup report (VP)
– Price list was published and more or less no negative feedback came afterwards. After publishing the requirements for the pitches, coaches have to bring, there was a lot of negative feedback. Ruling was changed to each squad brings 3 pitches, but if you want to play a team with larger bases, you have to bring a large scale pitch. This might cause a squad to bring 6 pitches. Self-made stadiums or any size are allowed if opponent agrees. Committee accepted new ruling.
– Development of the World Cup app is ongoing as are hotel rate negotiations.
7. Any other business (all)
– Too much Blood Bowl: Certain regions have been flagged for holding substantially more tournaments than others. While this is currently allowed under NAF rules, there is some concern about cheapening the tournament experience. Restricting the submission of tournaments or invalidating events that fail to reach a certain attendance goal was suggested, but this would probably be received negatively by the community and would create its own problems. Committee will think about possible ways on how to handle this until one of the next meetings. Nate will contact the organizers in question to go over this issue with them.
– New Zealand: The distribution of this year’s gift from Australia to New Zealand did not go as intended. Shteve0 asked for direct shipment next year. Committee approved this. Request from Torsten is that all NC/RC are submitting their inventory in spring time to see what the need is in each region – Nate suggests that we follow up by other means (Facebook, Whatsapp, local forums) in order to receive inventory from ALL staffers. There was also a discussion in the committee about indications that some NAF reps are selling NAF goods on eBay for personal profit. Right now we are relying on honesty of each rep since we do not ask for sign-up lists or checking if the amount sent by the reps to the NAF is correct.
– Logo: There are instances that the NAF logo is used without permission, e.g. a dice up manufacturer showed merchandise in his webshop with NAF insignia. After inquiring about that, this was made for a single customer for personal use. General policy for Logo use is: not-for-profit is ok, NAF should be informed about it beforehand. The website/forum needs to be updated with this information.
8. Next meeting (all)
23. September 2018, 21:00 CET
Meeting ends at 23:00 CET/22:00 UK time/ 5:00 p.m. ET
Minutes taken by Tojurub.
I do not believe that you can have “too much” Blood Bowl in an area. To put some form of artificial barrier on the number of NAF games seems to go against one of the missions of the NAF which is to spread Blood Bowl to the community at large. This also seems to be following a trend that I am seeing that the NAF has a tendency to support people who complain more than the actual TOs. The TOs make the community work. You can have plenty of players, but if no one will TO the NAF will not be a functioning body. Please do not punish those people that are putting the most into the community.
Thank You
When the words “too much Blood Bowl” appears as a note on the committee meeting for the NAF … it is a sign that something has gone massively seriously wrong with the NAF. We are being urged to stay calm and polite in our responses to these minutes so I hope I succeeded with that.
Response to #7 above. Hello NAF, I think you have really missed the mark on this one.
I just want to give my opinion as a new player. I bought the core in December because a buddy did and said it was a fun game. We enjoy miniatures and football. He said the community is great, but I was skeptical.
I went to my first event in Feb/Mar, something like that. I now have 8 teams purchased, play in a league, and have jumped in as best I can. I’m not doing this for a patch, I’m doing it because I enjoy the game. I enjoy traveling around Florida and meeting new players.
9 people in our local league of 16 players are new to the league, several of us new the game completely. The only way this happens is because of the growing popularity in Florida and the number of events.
This is showing in an increase in NAF memberships, product purchases, kickstarters, you name it. All of this is a growth for the game, growth for capitalism, and growth for fun.
My buddy, mentioned earlier, has already planned a NAF approved event for November and for next May. That’s a new player, already willing to jump in on organizing and helping grow the community.
If at all possible, I would be very grateful for a response to this, as I am completely perplexed by what you have said above, as well as the phone calls placed to Commissioners about reducing the game play.
As member of one of the areas in which there has been an almost over abundance of events I would like to submit the following statements while also stating I am not a designated spokesperson for the group or area in question:
We recognized almost 2 months ago our pace of events for this year is nearly and most likely unsustainable and have been having discussions to limit the number of major events while not taking away from Tournament Organizers who put so much time, energy, and passion into their events. We have further discussed how we can help spread more events to other neighboring areas by Co-Organizing events to give our experience to others so that Blood Bowl and the NAF might continue to grow and flourish. We are more than happy to have discussions about appropriate ways to do this, as long as it is a discussion and not dictates to us. We also ask for a more clear and concise manner in which sanctioning criteria is determined.
Thank you for your time,
Ken (Bluewing711)
I have organized 2 events in Florida for bloodbowl. Were it not for James getting me in the tournament scene, I’d still strictly be a league player. The phrase too much bloodbowl is disconcerting on it’s own. I thought the point was to get more people to play it which means more events. That there is even a flag for this is strange.
I understand if people are concerned about their standings. Florida just now blew up and some people that only needed X amount of tournaments to rank now need more. I don’t see this as a problem. I see it as an opportunity for another area to run more events. Or maybe an opportunity to travel more for bloodbowl. I’ve personally driven 8 plus hours to Pensacola and 11 plus hours to TN for tournaments.
I guess my biggest hurdle in understanding is education on the matter. We keep hearing someone’s getting complaints because Florida has too many events. Whos complaining? That it somehow cheapens an experience to run more events. Does it really? I would like to know what the issue is exactly and how Florida playing lots of bloodbowl is somehow hindering someone else’s ability or motivation to do so.
Just asking for clarification. The NAF and other areas have been around much longer than us. I would like to learn and understand. We should all be working together regardless.
Hi all!
I appreciate that there is an item from this meeting that’s getting a lot of traction. I’d like to remind everyone that these minutes are a summary of a long meeting and lack a lot of context because of that. They are (extended) notes, rather than a transcript.
‘Too much Blood Bowl’ is, perhaps, a sub-heading that jars out of context. I can see that on the face of it it’s a little odd that an organisation such as the NAF should be concerned about too much BB being played.
I think there actually _is_ such a thing as ‘too much’ BB in a certain location. To invent an extreme, non real-world example to make the point, currently, there is nothing stopping me running a sanctioned NAF tournament in my house every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday all year. If I had enough local Blood Bowlers, I could be playing 156 tournaments in 365 days in my living room, at perhaps four games a day… 624 games in the database every year, thanks very much. Patches, games played records, rankings and NAF trophies galore.
There are members that would contend that in that example, I would be cheapening the NAF tournament ‘brand’ or the meta-achievements I ticked off along the way; bending what they mean and having an indirect impact on the fun of others I may never even have met. While my events would be advertised as ‘open to all’, in reality, they aren’t because there are so many; 99 % would be me and my local buddies. You may very well ask why I’m not running a pretty prolific league, and a member sat in a town where his nearest opponent or tournament was three hours away might think I was something of a chancer. At best.
Of course, this agenda item is not referencing anyone going to that ludicrous extreme; no-one should panic or feel ‘accused’ by that passage. However, when a member asks us to talk about something, we talk about it, and then we have transparently let you know we’ve had the chat. As the minutes note, we’ve not made any hasty decision or ruling, we’ve merely resolved to go away and have a think about it. I realise the notes are (quite rightly) anonymised and lacking in specific detail, and I can see how you’d read the headline of the topic and think the world may have gone mad.
I assure you, it has not. The growth of BB is something that we’re all delighted about; it’s a flipping exciting time for us all. We want to support the continued spread of the great game. First step, as noted, is Nate reaching out and having a chat. Since we all want the best NAF and Blood Bowl scene we can get (quality, quantity and collaboration-wise), I’m sure this can all be discussed and solved amicably, perhaps at this first hurdle. Hopefully, all we’ll need is a bit of communication.
I’m always glad when people engage with the minutes. We’ve a bunch of exciting and cool stuff going on as well as a topic that’s proven slightly controversial on first view – I hope to hear more about the good stuff too. 🙂
Hopefully some minds have been set at ease – it isn’t our intent to ruin anything because we’ve decided to become the fun police. It’s simply an agenda item we’re addressing in a methodical way; trying to find the best way forward for all concerned.
Cheers!
Phil.
Phil:
Perhaps on such a topic it would be wise to be less ambiguous and more direct while remaining anonymous and post more than a synopsis of a topic that many players will feel strongly about
Hi John,
We’re certainly always striving to improve our communications. As a generalisation, I think members have enjoyed the increase in transparency over the past months and years, but with that comes extra scope for controversy and debate. If we’d redacted this passage, we could have saved ourselves quite the comment explosion, but that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of what this committee tries to do. I’m sure items of similar delicacy were covered in the days before longer minutes and were not shared, but they were settled without us knowing about them.
I take your point and will certainly consider it. As a generalisation, I think it’s sensible not to be too specific when talking about this kind of thing, but some more detail / context here may well have calmed the waters before they got choppy. Hopefully, after the initial reaction, things will settle and we can come to a collaborative, calm and sensible conclusion.
The committee are reading, and I’ve no doubt all points will be considered.
Cheers,
Phil.
Most of the reports were great!
In regards to too much blood bowl. You can never have too much blood bowl and I would never want to discourage a TO from running an event. Maybe this could be solved with different classifications of events. Something like Small/ Large/Major. There is a form of this already with a minimum standard for tournaments that get to hand out a NAF Winner Trophy. Maybe build off of that?
Matt McDonough
(AKA WildManTX (NAF), AKA Nuffle_Hate_Me (Online))
R.O.T. Cup T.O.
No matter what you do in life you will have people who have nothing but negative to say or think. Too much Blood Bowl in one area only hurts the other areas less inclined or ambitious enough to step up their program and play more. Big Whoop they have a tournament every 3 months and it’s prestigious and important. We want to play the game!!!! If they are so worried about how it will hurt them from being considered “Mr. Wonderful Blood Bowler” because of some stupid rank system they are playing for the wrong reason. And if the leadership of the NAF support such a ridiculous attack than they are no better. And to have the president of the organization attack one of the most active and supportive members publicly for making his own trophies shows very poor leadership on the part of the NAF. This is starting to sound like a “old boys club” and we were not invited.
I appreciate the response. There’s a lot I’d like to learn from to work with you guys as we develop bloodbowl in Florida. This kind of detail is needed for sensitive topics especially for us newer guys that don’t have the history and the context to feed off of. We’re all going to get together and talk about it ourselves. I am unconcerned with other areas believing we play too much. Our working with the NAF for bloodbowl should be a positive experience and our goal as a community isn’t standings/trophies/ what have you. It’s to get more people playing and having fun. Whatever it takes to get there is most important.
Without knowing the details of the actual precipitating reason I want to postulate a possible scenario, and it effects witout judgment.
In area with a high population density, it is possible that you would have a number of tournament appropriate for the population (compared with a less populated area) Say 1 tournament a year per 1000,000 population within 1 hour drive as an arbitrary number. But due to the density of tournaments an enthusiastic coach could attend a far higher number of tournaments due to geography than some in more sparse areas. Most other players would attend the same number of tournament with the limiting factor being available time to participate.
1st I’d like to say I support the NAF. I renew every single year sometimes multiple times at events just so I can contribute to the NAF. I however am baffled by the statement of too much Blood Bowl! This is freaking insane! I never once at any point should any region or regions be “FLAGGED” for holding substantially more tournament than others? If you build it they will come! If you run an event they will come! I myself have had 14 NAF sanctioned events here in Las Vegas. LVO every year being the 1st. It is a record high for Vegas. Just so happens we have plenty of gaming stores in town that love the attention blood bowl community brings to the store. Yes all my events are held at MOM and Pop shops with the exception of when we have events at Games Workshop! We have Evyl Gaming Empire a small business that supports all things blood bowl! Warroom Games shows massive support gifting tons of blood bowl goods for raffles at LVO and has a very nice place for us to game! They even purchased a BBQ so we can grill at events in their shop! Battle Zone another small shop loves having us for 100% of league nights and the occasional event. Power 9 Games is a massive store larger than the gaming area at Amorical Cup! Hands down the best space to play however it comes with a price to play there. Games Workshop is fantastic! Jay orders up plenty of Blood bowl goodies prior to events so they can be given as prizes! Wii play games another very attractive game store that is more than happy to order all kinds of blood bowl kits ie winter bowl kits, blitzmania kits and give 100% of contents out as prizes. This barely scratches the surface on stores that would love an event in their store monthly. We have Natural 20, Atomic Gaming, Little Shop of Magic. If I had the time or energy we could have a space every weekend of the year. More blood bowl isn’t bad! When I go to an event I don’t think meh this is cheapened because 6 weeks ago I played this same guy and he crushed me. Nope its a game. I enjoy all the different rule sets and love discussing what could make the next one better. I accept all the feedback and its welcomed. Never once other than “we’ve been told you have too many events” who is we? Who is complaining? I don’t see anyone complain about the player that has the money to travel to 50 events in different cities over the year because they are playinng every where. So what is the difference? There isn’t any! He’s or she is playing a game they love just all over the place. Don’t hate on the player that doesn’t travel. I travel when I can! Gencon, Amorical Cup, Several Utah Events, and this year Chaos Cup!
I look at all events created equal regardless of attendance! 1 maybe 2 events I particularly didn’t care for the rules set but I still played to support the game. Besides if I can attend I will attend. I honestly wish I had the money to attend events all over the year so I can get my fix on and travel the US. Maybe when I retire. I think we all have a bucket list, I have started mine and will do my best to attend as many as possible. Never have I ever thought cheaping the tournament experience? WTF who says that? An event is an event! Magic the Gathering gives out masive support and has an event every freaking friday in millionns of stores in every single city! Do you think they say hey we have too much magic? It would awesome to have such a problem of having an event in multiple stores in the same town on the same day. That is a sign of success not distress. Leadership is supposed to support each and every event as its own special event. We have “Majors” that give bonus rankings? Why? Honestly I don’t see why? Selling point to get people to attend? Is that a (BRIBE) to attend this event because you will get more points for games won? Non-sense if you ask me. But hey it was implemented so hey I’ll attend if I can not because of the “Major”. Every event I play in is just as special as the next. Granted because of the prestige of a Major I tend to do something extra special for my opponents. Those who have played has always gotten a small token or goodie bag. Not bribing them to lose infact I have given to them before and after games win or lose. It’s my thank you for attending and giving me an enjoyable game. Blood bowl is a game and why are we losing basis with that?
Restrictions of attendance is pathetic. Nobody can control who shows or doesn’t to an event. Real life happens. It was suggested that Vegas gamed the WCGP last year since we had the most events and attended the most that we would win. I was happy to say don’t make any of the tournaments qualify for WCGP than simple. I still want the NAF tracking system as that is the actual draw not the WCGP pin or award. People like to see who they have played. I think the Majority of players look at the rankings as non-sense so if this is where the Cheapened comment comes from well shame on you. This is a fun game. When I attend an event I love to meet new players and learn and yes even teach new players to beat me down. I have purposely lost every game in an event just to teach kids how to play. Mind you the last game I had my butt handed to me by MR. Tew himself.
I laugh at being contacted or any TO being contacted about too many events! What does the NAF really care about there are too many. I’m sure the whole initial mission statement was to get more people playing blood bowl. Who is anyone to say how much blood bowl one can play? Next thing the rich guy that can travel everywhere is the only one that can play. Another can of worms opened. There will always be haters always. If you think your not playing enough go out and attend more events. If you think others are playing too much why are you worried about others? Worry about yourself. Last time I checked this isn’t a cash game where if your ranked so high you win a million dollars right? Does Florida having 45 events in one year hurt anyone at all? I remember a time when it was a problem that nobody was playing blood bowl or there were too little events. There will never be too much. If you think its too much don’t attend. It’s simple.
Now to the Treasurer report. Is the NAF a for profit or non-profit? In either case why does the NAF give out so much money to events? Who qualifies for a loan request? Does the NAF file taxes? Can members see the actual financial reports? Doesn’t each member that pays their NAF dues have a right to know? Or does the NAF Gift or (BRIBE) to join makes it so only those who are elected can see such things?
Finally food for thought? Who owns the NAF and any rights to the actual NAF logo and such? I believe that would be Games Workshop if push came to shove GW could shut the whole NAF down as they have done to smaller companies now I don’t think that will ever happen, however how would GW look at the NAF if they see that “too much blood bowl” would be bad for the GW machine? They want their game played and as public as possible. The GW marketing machine loves more. MORE MORE MORE! Never less.
These are only my opinions and my comments as I know this subject matter is difficult in nature for many and even more so could care less. These are only my opinions and give something for you to thnk about. Feel Free to PM your comments or complaints?
Mark,
First, the annual Treasurer Report is visible to all membership in the membership section of the forum, even the ones from past years. The NAF is a not-for-profit organization according to UK law, but that does not mean that the NAF can’t hold a certain amount of funds to support their members. Loans are given to larger events, which are expected to require large halls, which need to be paid early on, like Eurobowl or World Cup.
Second, GW does not own the NAF, NAF is not a trademark of GW. There is no legal ground for GW to shut down the NAF. The logo was created by founding NAF members and the legal rights of that logo are with the NAF, therefore it would THEORETICALLY be possible to sue anyone who uses the logo without permission, but we would be completely out of our minds if we start legal actions against members. But we do not allow our logo to be used to make profit of it.
Third, I do not understand why you go off on such a rant. There was nowhere stated in the minutes that Florida and Nevada are the areas, which were “flagged”. I find it surprising that coaches from both areas have been so vocal about it as they seem to have a bad conscience and need to justify themselves. As Phil wrote in his statement earlier, if we get a request in from a member, we talk about it and in this case there were a lot of requests from several members who inquired about this topic.
In general, membership have complained about the NAF not being transparent enough and the NAF should be telling more about what’s going on behind the scenes. Now the NAF does that and now a major s**tstorm on the social media happens. If we would have not posted the minutes, Nate would have still contact the region(s) about that and it would have been fairly quiet here and on Facebook. If you read the minutes word by word and not selectively, you’ll notice that no other action or even measures have been decided other than Nate initiating contact and have a nice chat and that committee members are asked to think about the topic. They might as well come to the conclusion that nothing will be done. There is nothing written anywhere that the NAF will forbid their members to play Blood Bowl, but reading the comments here might lead to the idea if the NAF just had done that. Far from it!
I think the areas that respond myself Las Vegas and Florida because of the events ran. More blood bowl is great and I have been told by NAF president himself we run too many!? On average 1 a month is not too many. If you take my Sin City Bowl weekend into account 3 different events on 3 different days and Las Vegas Open Bowl with Sunday LVO7s. I love and support the NAF! I think the NAF should be very Happy to have the logo blasted everywhere! Its FREE advertising! I personally asked many years ago if I could add NAF shield to my tournaments logo. Patch and pitch. All I got was absolutely! I’ve sold my patches for $10 barely making any profit. I’ve sold the pitches through FF-fields and Maelstrom I didn’t make a penny! I made a model with NAF logo on front and back made maybe $20 after all was said and done. Nobody is getting rich off NAF logo were happy to show love for the NAF and its support for blood bowl. If someone makes a NAF patch and sells it to cover cost and makes a dollar so what. How does this harm the NAF in any way? NAF members are the ones purchasing them to show their support for the NAF.
I see the NAF trying to be an all holy company like the NFL and restrictions being in poor taste. This is an exciting time! Young kids are into the game! Embrace the popularity while we have all these young new players so this game stays on GWs radar so they continue to support it. Heck look how many 3rd party companies are out there now. They are even more busier than ever with the new release. Every TO and tournament is special to someone or many. Cheapen the experience was a term in poor taste. Every event is valid. Heck the example of someone running events in their home? Great can I come play!? I welcome it all! Spread the blood bowl not restrain the blood bowl.
Mark,
in regards to the use of the logo: did you actually read the NAF policy on the use of the logo??? All the examples you just described are following this policy perfectly. The NAF allows people to use the logo if they don’t make any profit from it, but producing 10000s of pitches or beer steins with the logo on it and selling them in an online store is not ok for the NAF.
Selling things and “make a Dollar” is NOT “so what?”…. go ahead and make a patch with the Apple logo on it and sell it, and then claim it’s free advertisement for Apple Computers….I would like to see how quickly the legal department of Apple is on your back.
As Phil has pointed out there was more discussion than what appears in the notes I hope that the full discussion on too much blood bowl will be released so that the community will have the ability to comment on the full discussion and not just have our “fears put to ease”
Just curious, is the NAF logo copyrighted in the UK, per your statement that NAF has the legal right to the logo. Just curious. And if NAF has the legal right in the UK, how does that affect the legality in other countries?
Clyde
It is irrelevant of the fact that the NAF is based in the UK. For basic understanding about copyright use, I may refer you to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
Especially the section “International copyright treaties” and Berne convention are a good basis for understanding.
Hello all
I think that there is a misunderstanding in what is the role of NAF in the Blood Bowl (BB) Community.
In the barren years when GW ignored BB NAF took on the leadership and guided / steered it. Now that GW have invested and taken back ownership the NAF are effectively a support system to GW.
I’m sure this is uncomfortable for the NAF ‘old guard’ but that’s the fact. BB is now part of GW.
REGARDING copyright NAF do not have any legal copyright because their logo is derived from the GW image so this is made up ‘law’.
The amazing thing I have seen since the relaunch of BB by GW is the massive increase in young players who don’t understand that a voluntary group protected BB when GW abandoned it. Now GW have taken it back the NAF need to realise that they are no longer the Government of NAF , they are a support organisation and have no authority to make decisions.
Sorry guys, I know most of you but you no longer have authority to decide on rules you are facilitators of a fan club